Wishful thinking.

England v Fiji was only £10 a ticket for a warm-up match at Salford, only about 6k there, next year's challenge cup final tickets have early bird offers on, it won't sell out either, cheaper tickets don't always equal bigger crowds. Even the last major international at the kcom back in 2018 only had 17.5k there

Not great. Difficult to sell a festival of RL vibe in an English October as well, especially given that a few countries don’t have meaningful numbers of fans willing to dress up in telegenic, nationally representative costume.

Hopefully things will pick up from a sporting perspective in the knockout stages.

So it's NZ-Fiji as expected and while Fiji look error prone it should be more of a contest than what we have seen so far.

Hope the City turns up for this game, despite the stupid price of the half way line seats there are still £25 seats available and worth remembering that it's been £31 on the day to watch the dross Hull have served up in recent years. I fear if it's another poor crowd the MKM will be off the list for internationals for a while.

The wheelchair game on BBC2 is mental!

It's rough, it's tough it's Rugby League!

When we gonna have a decent match. Just one sided blow outs

The Semis should be good, this tournament needs a top class game as agree its been very weak so far.

Been some great trys

Close games don't always make good games alot are tense scrappy knock on riddled

Just looked at the rugby yawnion internationals NZ put 50 past Wales

Italy beat samoa 49-17

Hardly close teams much experienced than some international RL teams

Hammerings happen in every sport always will

I actually agree with you.Found most of it boring
Whats the point of having a World Cup when all the games except Tonga/Papua up to the semi finals are blowouts.
If England keep playing like they are the up and coming semi could also be a blow out, so what we could end up with is three competitive games in the whole competition,with the semi Australia and NZ and the final.
Certainly needs a rethink.Maybe just have three graded groups so the group stages are more competitive.That would also mean issuing very cheap tickets with free tickets for kids for group 3

Yes the organisors have been over ambitious.

In 2013 there were two strong groups of four and two weaker groups of three (groups C and D had one inter-group game)

Aus/Eng/Fiji/Ire
NZ/Samoa/Fra/PNG
Tonga/Sco/Italy
USA/Cook Is/Wales

Only four 50+ scores in the whole tournament and good attendances.

Gutted for Fiji tonight. Sat in the Fiji end of the West Stand. Felt like they went into their shells in the second half.

was great to see some of the best in the business too.

Great game .

I thought Fiji was very badly done to, with that video call.
For my money it was simply a loose carry

Looking forward to today's game

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Agree, and they could have easily added 2 more teams and got rid of the intergroup fixtures.

Also should have used grounds like Craven Park, Halifax, Salford etc for the group games as the atmosphere would be better.

The main issue has been the ticket prices though, people have heard £70 and thought sod that, even though cheaper tickets are available.

Cracking game up to now

Great game and thought Sao put a shift in as always

To be honest I’m not sure why the organisers thought having the pricing structure they had was a good idea. The sport unfortunately doesn’t have the draw to charge the prices they gave particularly with most games being one sided affairs.

It would have far better to have just had one blanket price for all something like £25-30 per ticket.

Fiji NZ game deserved a much bigger crowd , Shame Dutton & co have priced so many fans out of it !!. That's probably no test fixture next year for Hull now .
Samoa / Tonga , Just brutal .

Think we have to applaud Ligi for this afternoons performance.
Nothing spectacular but his sheer workrate and commitment has to be admired,and that goes for most of the players this afternoon
Best game so far for me
Hope we dont use LIgi in the second row unless necessary as he doesnt have the footwork or pace off the mark but if we have 2 more front rows like Ligi and big Chris all offloading then our go forward would be exciting.
Hope we dont lose them in 2024 but the more i think about it the more i like the idea of Carlos in the second row

Ligi has probably been our most consistent player since he's been here.

He’ll be sore for the start of pre season in the morning

Turuva is an absolute gun, he walked MOM. Way too good to be stuck behind Dylan Edwards at Penrith.

The amount of great fullbacks in the NRL is just ridiculous, 3 out of the 4 starting fullbacks in the semi-finals are at the Roosters too

He was really brave at the back for Fiji. Took tough carries out of yardage all game long. He's playing wing next season in place of Staines (I think).

Thought Manu was very good for NZ too. Practically carried them over the line