Don't ever look at his Boxing Career as anything other than "showreel". He beat Botha with a bit of skulduggery by his manager and the organisers. The reality of professional Boxing was offered to SBW a few weeks later when Joseph Parker, a professional Boxer with great potential offered him a bout.....please feel free to view Joseph Parker v botha on the popular tube sight.....you'll understand why SBW decided to steer clear of a proper fight!

Kyle Eastmond, Chris Ashton, Owen Farrell, George Ford, Luther Burrell and Sam Burgess all have a more than decent chance of being in England's World Cup Squad.

With Mike Ford, Shaun Edwards and Andy Farrell being three of the better coaches in the Aviva Premiership and/or International game, even Stuart Lancaster being brought up watching League.

It's fair to say that Rugby League is very much leading the way in Rugby Union

Indeed it is.

New Zealand have always had the luxury of kids growing up playing "both" codes and all summer there are literally thousands of "touch" teams running out every week........there really is an embarrassment of riches over here and if the NRL ever get around to Wellington having a team, then the Kiwis will dominate RL Internationally for many years to come.

Plenty of RU played in wales, that doesn't seem to have improved their national team. Back ON TOPIC, has anyone come up with a reason why we should not be trying to sell tickets for the ENG v NZ tests to the FOUR MILLION people who missed out on World Cup tickets in a bid to grow international RL and get Sam Burgess back where he belongs?

Plenty of soccer played in England.....back-at-cha!


Yes...because it's a stupid reasoning wrapped in an idiotic idea, sugar coated with unbelievable naivety.

The missing 4 million will now be targeted by the RWC organisers (who know who they are, where they are and how much they were prepared to spend) to shift the remaining 2 million tickets......sally Bolton and 2 tickets for a tenner in Hull ain't going to cut the mustard I'm afraid

See OP, I said we need to think big not hold games in hull.


So because the RU World Cup are going to try and sell them the turd games they have left, such as Canada v Namibia we shouldn't bother? We have ENG v NZ to sell, surely we can tempt 2% of those people which would be 80000 to come along.

Only 2 tickets for a £10 in Hull is a figment of your imagination

Crikey is he still trotting that one out ?
Like most Union apologists, he just makes it up as he goes along when it comes to crowds, tickets & viewing figures.

Its because he was shown to be an idiot when he suggested nobody would go and watch the RLWC. Fortunately he was proved to be so inaccurate it was laughable. So his only defence is it was only achieved through cheap tickets

I take it that like the organisers of RWC 2015 you have the names and contact details of these 4 million people? Also, if we couldn't sell 80,000 last year as part of a double header, why do you think a stand alone test will now do it?

It was 2 for £15 in hul and I said 360,000 would attend when posters on here were too scared to predict....about 3 months before. I was wrong and was happy I was. I don't care if The tickets were free....it was a great success.
All of which doesn't change the naivity of the idea of trying to sell the kiwis games to 4 million people who we have no idea who they are or where they live.

News item on national news about his switch, not sure why

yep sam burgess makes the national news! shame its due to a move to England RU

That'll be the RAY pretty machine kicking in. They have a pr team at Twickenham and 3 agencies who are tasked with keeping their game in the news. The rules have a bloke who claims to have made man City a global brand who draws cartoons of players.
burgess arriving in the UK would have been set up months ago with the media constantly informed of what's going on.

Utterly bizarre that his switch to RU has become the most important news item for the 10 o'clock news.

Whilst you're definitely right on the difference between the RFL & RFU (I'm convinced that the RFL need to keep more of its revenue for itself, I think it's drastically underfunded in almost every area. The RFL runs on approx £6-7m per year compared to approx £40m for the RFU.) there is also a need for London-based media to listen to either the RFU or RFL.

I think it's obvious they're more willing and eager to listen to, and write about, the RFU pushed stories. In the same way that similar stories about almost any subject (not just RL) are virtually ignored when they happen North of Watford.

The difference in the sports is quite startling. Soccer has journalists investigating and enquiring......the same can be said for other sports when they are perceived to be "in", but normally, everyone else is telling their story and doing the promoting to papers/media trying to get published.
The RFU have understood this for years and do it very very well. The RFL are getting better......

It wasn't the most important item. It was at the end of the program. Don't let that get in the way of a good whinge though.

...it was a ruse. I bet the Tories have "buried" loads of bad news in the hope that the wall to wall Burgess coverage helps it get missed

Nope. Want to have a third attempt?

I didn't see it, I was referring to the advert for the news an hour before - this is the news!

It was see both games at Craven park for 15 quid......
Confirmed somewhere in this thread....about page 27
[urlhttp://m.rlfans.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=551905[/url
EDIT: From page 27......





...Semi-Final "Big Hit" tickets were on offer for a tenner by the way......but as I said, it doesn't matter if they were FOC. The competition was great........

All you have a one person's say so on a RL thread - no wonder anybody treats you with the contempt they do

You maybe right there but since we're talking about England New Zealand next year and England also played Fiji in Hull last year then it was a fair assumption to make about you meaning that game.

I forgot the basic rule of RU trolling there, I must've been tired.

On the subject of tickets and Bath Rugby; I was on a stag do in Bath last weekend and we went to watch Bath Vs Toulouse. The stag had arranged 6 tickets about 10 days before the game at a cost of £56 each. Yes, you heard that right, £56 each for a low intensity, error strewn, atmosphere lacking game that could only be described as a social day out for the good folk of Bath. Two of us are league fans and came away scratching our heads as you can imagine. We could only surmise that the money in RU must be absolutely stark staring bonkers barking obscene. My only saving grace is that the stag paid for my ticket as a favour for doing some design work for his wedding.