2008 RLWC the best yet?

[Lockyer4President!]

Sad to say a f**k up of that proportion has already been made

Can you quit with the bitching please, it's getting tiresome.

 

[screeny]

Bowes is a true leaguie, so I for one will never ask him to stop his bitching.

Part of being a true leaguie is an innate sense of desperation and paranoia borne out of supporting our beloved sport that has been abused, slapped around and smothered half to death more times than the kidnapped RU fan I keep locked up in my fortified basement.

Therefore, bitch away Bowes, I salute you...

 

[PARRA_FAN]

I got something in the post as well. A good sign of promotion.

I also realised that the Aus Vs Eng match is around the same time as the Melbourne Cup next year which I'll already be going to. Perfect timing, so Im definately get tickets to that game.

I reckon its gonna be huuuge.

 

[ali]

Despite not getting the results the majority have hoped for, interest has certainly picked up in the last week or so. I like the fact tickets are going on sale already, and hopefully this will spark demand. I'd love to see a couple of games sellout well in advance of kickoff. This will spark even more demand forcing people to attend lesser games just cos they want to be there. This is why half my mates ended up going to see a couple of random hockey games in the 2000 Olympics and probably why the 2003 RU world cup was played in front of full houses.

So here is hoping ticket sales get off to a decent start. Keep talking it up people, especially in any correspondence with the media.

 

[Evil Homer]

Can you quit with the bitching please, it's getting tiresome.

No, Bowes is completely right. It's been proved in the past week that we have at least 12 teams of a similar standard that could be competitive. There's no excuse for not including all 12 and having a proper, fair draw. It's not too late for the RLIF to change things, although it won't happen as the likes of Love have far too much pride to admit they made a mistake. Massive, massive shame because these qualifiers have built up so much positive momentum for international league, both here in Britain and in the southern hemisphere by the sounds of it, and chances are it will all be ruined by the horrendous format.

 

[Ari Gold]

No, Bowes is completely right. It's been proved in the past week that we have at least 12 teams of a similar standard that could be competitive. There's no excuse for not including all 12 and having a proper, fair draw. It's not too late for the RLIF to change things, although it won't happen as the likes of Love have far too much pride to admit they made a mistake. Massive, massive shame because these qualifiers have built up so much positive momentum for international league, both here in Britain and in the southern hemisphere by the sounds of it, and chances are it will all be ruined by the horrendous format.

:lol: I'm glad you're not in charge of the RLIF, would you seriously change the format now, after all the qualifiers? THAT would be a farce.

The World Cup has already started, you can't change the format to accomodate teams that have "tried hard". It adds prestige to a tournament when good teams miss out... maybe some teams will take it more seriously next time round.

 

[Kurt Angle]

Bowes is a true leaguie, so I for one will never ask him to stop his bitching.

Part of being a true leaguie is an innate sense of desperation and paranoia borne out of supporting our beloved sport that has been abused, slapped around and smothered half to death more times than the kidnapped RU fan I keep locked up in my fortified basement.

Therefore, bitch away Bowes, I salute you...

:lol:

I like your style.

You'll be in Melbourne for the Aus/Eng game yeah?

You claimed you'll be dispondent if I don't rock up in a pink cape... I got a pink-ish shirt though.. I hope that's close enough

 

[thommo4pm]

I got something in the post as well. A good sign of promotion.

I also realised that the Aus Vs Eng match is around the same time as the Melbourne Cup next year which I'll already be going to. Perfect timing, so Im definately get tickets to that game.

I reckon its gonna be huuuge.

I got my letters in the mail also, as did my daughter, brother, mother and Sister in law. We are all season ticket holders of the Mighty Dragons.

It appears all season ticket holders from every club have received the same letter and correspondence in the mail.
It contains a letter explaining what's happening and the draw/schedule for the world cup.

This has to be the smartest thing our administration has done in a long time.
How many season ticket holders would there be across all 16 NRL clubs?
Well and truly over 100,000 surely.
You think these season ticket holder people wont talk to their friends and family etc.
It's a great promotion in itself and well done to the NRL / RLIF on doing this.

 

[hutch]

while i would prefer a 'normal' format, i think this world cup is already a massive success. for once, we have had real qualifiers which have been shown on tv (except here in australia where it should have been shown the most considering we are holding the cup), they have also been mentioned in the press. also, countries have had to have put work into their domestic comp as they require at least 6 domestic players in the squad (should be team), giving national teams a closer connection with the country itself. there are some areas we need to improve on, but at least this world cup will pave the way for future cups.

 

[bowes]

The qualifiers are great, I'm so glad the Aussies didn't get their way as they allegedly wanted to invite 8 or 9 teams and only have 1 or 2 qualifiers (the RFL wanted Australia, NZ, England and France in automatically plus 4 qualifiers each per hemisphere). However, after seeing how good the qualifying was done I was shocked to find out the format had been devised worse than I thought possible and the teams weren't even qualifying for the full world cup, but a glorified emerging nations competition

 

[bowes]

No, Bowes is completely right. It's been proved in the past week that we have at least 12 teams of a similar standard that could be competitive. There's no excuse for not including all 12 and having a proper, fair draw. It's not too late for the RLIF to change things, although it won't happen as the likes of Love have far too much pride to admit they made a mistake. Massive, massive shame because these qualifiers have built up so much positive momentum for international league, both here in Britain and in the southern hemisphere by the sounds of it, and chances are it will all be ruined by the horrendous format.

yeah, though needn't even be that drastic a change, if they switched England and the repechage winners round and then had the top two of pool A and the winners of pool B and pool C go through it would be instantly more credible. Changing the numbers is sadly probably too late though now that the qualifiers are nearly done, though it must be 12 in 2013

 

[S.S.T.I.D]

How many season ticket holders would there be across all 16 NRL clubs?
Well and truly over 100,000 surely.

I got mine in the mail too, but as to that estimate? 100,000 would not be even remotely close. Souths have one of the highest at around 4K. Manly have only 1500 for example. The Broncs might bump the numbers up a bit, but I'd say it would be closer to half that. Still, not bad exposure and a good idea.

 

[thommo4pm]

I got mine in the mail too, but as to that estimate? 100,000 would not be even remotely close. Souths have one of the highest at around 4K. Manly have only 1500 for example. The Broncs might bump the numbers up a bit, but I'd say it would be closer to half that. Still, not bad exposure and a good idea.

I would dare say with 4K in season ticket holders that Souths would be around one of the lowest.
I know Saints(which I'm a part of) had close to 10K a few years back.
Penrith I'm lead to believe were in the vacinity of some 5K after the 2003 Grand Final victory.
You would have to think teams like Brisbane, Newcastle, Cowboys, would all have strong bases for season ticket holder numbers.

In any case, yeah it is a good idea, and they showed some initative for a change which is nice to see.

 

[S.S.T.I.D]

Yeah, who knows? Lets just say 100,000. Sounds better.

 

[Evil Homer]

:lol: I'm glad you're not in charge of the RLIF, would you seriously change the format now, after all the qualifiers? THAT would be a farce.

The World Cup has already started, you can't change the format to accomodate teams that have "tried hard". It adds prestige to a tournament when good teams miss out... maybe some teams will take it more seriously next time round.

I wouldn't have had it in the first place. Nothing to do with accomodating teams that have 'tried hard', it's just the sensible thing to do. There's no prestige in the current format anyway, as Bowes said it's basically an emerging nations comp with a Tri-Nations running at the same time.

I agree it probably would be a bit of a farce to change it now, but not as much of a farce as the Super Pool will prove to be. Even if not, Bowes suggestion of changing the groups round would make a lot more sense than the format they're going with. You have obviously misunderstood why I want to change the format, I have supported a 12 team format from the go.

 

[Ari Gold]

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/sport/indepth/feature/0,,5014041,00.html

A year out and we already have a specific news section on the Daily Telegraph website.

 

[deluded pom?]

Massive, massive shame because these qualifiers have built up so much positive momentum for international league, both here in Britain and in the southern hemisphere by the sounds of it, and chances are it will all be ruined by the horrendous format.

But if you had your way EH there'd be no need for the qualifiers and so the game would have lost "so much positive momentum for international league both in Britain and the Southern hemisphere by the sounds of it" You argued against yourself.

 

[SouthsvsNRL]

I cannot wait, the talk in newspapers close to one year out is fantastic. I just hope we can show that by showing up to the games and supporting some of the minnow countries. Some of the match ups will be interesting and very competitive unlike many other world cups like Rugby and cricket. It's been a well planned World Cup and we should be happy .

I have purchased many tickets already and I hope the interest grows from the general public as the world cup draws closer.

 

[Angry_eel]

It appears all season ticket holders from every club have received the same letter and correspondence in the mail.
It contains a letter explaining what's happening and the draw/schedule for the world cup.

are you sure? im a eels STH, i haven't received anything so far.

 

[thommo4pm]

are you sure? im a eels STH, i haven't received anything so far.

I have a close family friend who is a Parra season ticket holder with 5 other people, they received some stuff in the mail, but weren't aware of the World Cup.
So I'm not sure why they got some mail and you haven't....sorry mate.