5,021 in Limerick. Small yes but a record rugby league crowd in Ireland where the sport is hardly played at all, and on a night where Ireland RU played in Dublin.
Although the venue allocations for this tournament have been much better than they were in the 2000WC, organisers at the end of the day will concede it was a mistake taking the Australia/Ireland game to Limerick, let alone anywhere in Ireland. Had the game been played in London somewhere at a venue like Loftus Road, it would've easily got 10-15k with all the Aussie and Irish expats there.
In fact, it was a shame that only the semi-final double header is played in London and no other matches are. I know organisers wanted to take the safe option with more matches in rugby league heartland (i.e. Northern England), but games involving Australia and NZ would've still got good crowds in the south.
25,114 at the KC stadium today for Egland/Fiji.
Excellent crowd. As I said in a previous post, first time since the '95 World Cup that England/Great Britain have got those sort of crowds for home tests vs countries other than Australia and New Zealand.
haha. gotta love not reading it correctly. 70k would be amazing for Wembley as last I heard they had sold 55K..
If the weather remains good and England put in a strong form in their Quarter-Final game (against France or Samoa), there's a big chance we could give the world record 73k crowd - obtained in the '92 World Cup Final - a shake, depending on how many of the corporates turn up (given that 15k of the 90k seats aren't sold to the public as they're for corporates). The fact that the lower bowl of Wembley is pretty much sold out with a fortnight or so to go bodes well. A minimum of 60-65k will be seen as a huge success by the RFL and it will look and sound good on tv.
