London match confirmed

[yakstorm]

The Rugby Football League - as the tournament's appointed organising body - can today confirm that the first match in the 2004 Gillette Tri-Nations tournament to be staged in the UK will be played at Loftus Road Stadium - home of Queens Park Rangers Football Club.

The match between Australia and New Zealand will take place on Saturday 23rd October 2004 (Kick Off TBC).

Loftus Road Stadium has a capacity of 19,200 and has previously hosted an Antipodean international sports team when the Australian Socceroos played South Africa earlier this year.

It is already confirmed that Australian supporters attending the Gillette Tri-Nations fixture will be allocated the same seating area they enjoyed for the football match.

Commenting on the announcement, the Rugby Football League's Director of Development and Marketing Gary Tasker said: "Loftus Road Stadium is an excellent venue to stage the 2004 Gillette Tri-Nations opening fixture in the UK.

"The stadium has successfully played host to a match involving an Australian international team and has already proved a very popular venue with the hundreds of thousands of Antipodean sports fans who live and work in London.

"We are also confident that the contest will attract London Broncos and Skolars supporters as well as the capital's general sports fans who will appreciate the quality of the athletes on show".

Tasker added: "This highly prestigious event invlolving some of the world's best playing talent will also act as a boost for the development of Rugby League in London and the South East region, which is currently enjoying a period of successful growth.

"The fact Joe Mbu of London Broncos and Desi Williams of Wigan Warriors - two players who learned to play Rugby League in London - recently faced each other at Tetley's Rugby Super League level is a great indicator of the progress being made".

Tickets for this first game are now on sale and are available from Rugby League Events on (0870) 990 1313.

Tickets will be on sale from Loftus Road Stadium at a later date.
The details of the other four fixtures which make up the tournament's qualifying phase and the venue , which will stage the final, will be revealed on Tuesday 18th May at a major press conference in London.

The opening fixture in the 2004 Gillette Tri-Nations tournament is also between New Zealand and Australia and will be played in the Southern Hemisphere on the weekend of 16th October. After this each team flies to the UK to continue their matches.

The Gillette Tri-Nations is being organised by the Rugby Football League on behalf of the Rugby League International Federation.

 

[Jeffles]

We also have the Roos playing the Lions at Headingley and the Kiwis playing GB at Hull. The final is in Manchester and the Roos play the Kiwis in Auckland. Both Aust and NZ will play France in mid November. See page 16 of RLW for more details.

Good choice of venues thus far. I'm concerned about the facilities at Headingley though. It looks a bit dated.

 

[East Coast Tiger]

Headingley???? Surely not.

I thought the policy was for all-seat stadia for Tests and Headingley is not a good venue anyway. Surely McAlpine, KC, JJB and one other is essential for round robin games involving GB and City of Man. for final.

If it must be at Leeds, why not Elland Road? It would be a great venue if we could fill it (?). It was my other choice for the final.

What about:
Kiwis v Roos - North Harbour/Eriksson, Loftus Road.
Lions v Roos - KC, JJB
Lions v Kiwis - McAlpine, Reebok
Final - City of Manchester Stadium

That way all are typical RL venues except for London and Manchester, group games are 2 Lancs, 2 Yorks, 1 South and are all reasonable sized.

Applause for the RFL's deal with Loftus Road. They erred for a while, but made the right decision IMO. Good that they've used the soccer as a basis to promote this game and it's a good sized ground, much smaller than I thought. Plus I think it's good to get away from Griffin as it sets it as a bigger/different event than a Broncos game.

The biggest point to come from this though is that we need to get things organised soon. RL leaves things far too late and here's a chance to be organised well in advance. Lets make a decision on Auckland, the pool games and tour matches ASAP.

 

[Jeffles]

It is the Shed. Read p 16 of RLW this week.

The facilitie suck apparently but hopefully they pack the joint.