www.foxsports.com.au/league/stat ... c9GE8rD_IV It is only the five Super League fans that are invited. According to my sources they will be guests of ANZ Stadium and thus sit in the ANZ Stadium corporate box on level 3. I can tell you based on personal experience that it is a nice setup: good food (finger food followed by sit down meal), endless supply of drinks, and good view of the game from the open air seats in front of the enclosed reception-dining area.

www.foxsports.com.au/league/stat ... c9GE8rD_IV It is only the five Super League fans that are invited. According to my sources they will be guests of ANZ Stadium and thus sit in the ANZ Stadium corporate box on level 3. I can tell you based on personal experience that it is a nice setup: good food (finger food followed by sit down meal), endless supply of drinks, and good view of the game from the open air seats in front of the enclosed reception-dining area.

The purpose of the invitation was:

(1) to boost the standing of the State of Origin game and rugby league in the minds of the Australian public, scoring prestige points against AFL and the ARU;

(2) to boost the standing of rugby league in the minds of the Manchester United players i.e. they will never have seen an 83,000 crowd of fanatical fans at a rugby league game Down Under. They will never before have experienced a media blitz in support of rugby league like they will experience on match day in Sydney. It will show them how big an event the game can be. It could be of some help in terms of spinoff in the UK.

As many of you may know MU is riddled with rugby league fans such as Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs, Rio Ferdinand, Michael Carrick and Paul Scholes. (Rooney is a Leeds fan, while Giggs - a childhood friend of Adrian Morley -- and Ferdinand are Wigan fans).

It was a fortunate coincidence that the State of Origin 3 (July 17) is being held three days before Manchester United is booked to play an Australian Selection at the same ANZ Stadium (July 20). So Manchester United's travel could be coordinated to have them in Sydney for the earlier event.

It's a great coup for rugby league in Australia, and hopefully, also in the UK. In terms of the latter it is up to Brian Barwick and Nigel Wood to take advantage of this event.

I bet the Aussie League fans are besides themselves in excitement



Most would not recognise him if they were standing next to him at the Bar, if he introduced himself most would still barely recognise his name.
Football is a minority sport in Australia.

Didn't the Man Utd players do the same thing last year?

No.

You are wrong.

Football at the club level is a minority sport, but international football has a huge interest in Australia, as seen in interest in Australia qualifying for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

Also although Australian clubs do not have a huge following, foreign prestige clubs like Man U and Barca have a huge following in Australia. Most Australian sports fans have enormous respect for those clubs. Most Australian sports fans will know the name Wayne Rooney, even if they might not recognize his face.

The Match between Manchester United and Australia's A-League All Stars is completely sold out. 83,000 people will be there. So much for your theory of ignorance and indifference.

Lol, having some overpaid soccer numpties attend is going to boost the profile of the biggest game on the sporting calendar in Australia? Yeh right!

Well Jean is certainly excited. What a shame that:

1 - 83,000 "fanatical" ockers will still only really create an atmosphere comparable to perhaps 6,000 at somewhere like Widnes. Ocker crowds are not known for being impressive
2 - SoO is already huge in Aus, so the 'boost' is pretty much lost.
3 - This won't even register in the UK, where if the story ain't the footballer, it ain't a story.
4 - The corporate box is "a nice setup"?? Well finger me a new pipe, that's astonishing.

United players have a long history of admiring RL. Many used to frequent Central Park and some of the current generation also love the game. Rooney has been a Leeds fan since seeing them win at OT a few years ago (iirc).

Embarrassing that some attention seekers think we need football players watching a game in Australia to boost the game in the UK. Or that that would even work.

Those 83,000 fans will mainly be British immigrants, and fruit picking backpackers.

Most Australians I know could not give a fig about football or the under performing Mr Rooney (did he even play in the last World Cup?)

3 posts before a reply - 1 day people surely will just stop replying to these pointless threads.

Really! Dont be fooled

Great idea and you just have to be grateful that it's Utd who are in Aus at the moment. Which other Premier league team could even provide 5 brits from their side, never mind RL fans to boot. Aren't Utd fantastically wonderful.

The artist formerly known as Barry McKenzie needs to do something to keep his attention seeking going and unfortunately creating these pointless threads is just that.

If the thread is "pointless" then I suppose Australia's Fairfax media and Fox News should stop these "pointless" news stories.

As somebody more famous than me once said "any publicity is better than no publicity at all." We all know that Sydney is the capital of Rugby League in terms of media coverage, if it helps back in the UK it can only be a positive.

Not as embarassing as the Lions using a cringeworthy video of cricketers to promote their guff- or was it cricketers using the Lions to promote the Ashes?

So a typical home game for the Manchester Utd players - 83k is hardly a huge crowd compared to those the likes of Rooney have played in front of. Maybe they should go to a Rules game isn't that a typical crowd when two Melbourne sides meet at the MCG?

He has his own site that he uses as a masturbation aid - isn't that true League Freak!!

Yes they are.

It'll showcase the game at it's very best.

If they enjoy super league then damn they'll be blown away by state of origin.

Cool, I'll watch for him and his mates on the TV

They wouldn't really know what a Rules game was like 99.999999999999999999999999999999 of the worlds population.

Whilst our 'French' friend has got himself a bit carried away, I agree with him that things like this are good publicity for the sport.

I am no lover of soccer but they have a lot of players/coaches who admire and respect our sport. Last Monday Joey Barton tweeted "What an advert for Super League this is. Best sport to watch on telly bar none..." to over 2,000,000 followers. Plenty of other footballers have tweeted similar things and last year the England manager watched Wigan v Warrington alongside Tony Smith, money can't buy publicity like that.

I've also been thinking, would informal 'partnerships' with Premier League clubs work? They get to benefit from training with some of the toughest athletes in the world, whilst we would get to use top facilities of theirs and plenty of promotion.