The problem with this game, apart from the lack of publicity, is the fact that it is not being held on a Saturday night. Think about it. Friday night at 8 pm.
No Frenchman who holds down a 9-5 pm job can possibly fly there in time, unless the RFL or FFRXIII have arranged three separate charter flights to leave Toulouse, Carcassonne, and Perpignan at 6.30pm and arrive at Leeds-Bradford airport 7 pm, with a set of buses waiting to whisk them to the ground for the 8 pm kick off. (FFRXIII arrange that? what a laugh! Only Catalans Sports Tours can do that).
Nobody in London who holds down a 9-5 pm job can possibly get there, unless they can get off work an hour or two early, and they are handy to the Paddington-Heathrow express train station, and there is a 6 pm flight from Heathrow arriving Leeds/Bradford at 7 pm, with buses waiting at the airport to whisk them to the ground for the 8 pm kick off.
Few people will come from Lancashire (St Helens, Wigan, Leigh, Widnes, who are a fan pool of about 35,000), Cheshire (Warrington, fan pool 12,000) or even Greater Manchester area (Salford, Swinton, Rochdale etc fan poll about 10,000) because they don't want to put up with the M 62 which is clogged up on a Friday night. Ditto the pool of 25,000 Hull area fans, for whom the drive is 1 hour 15 at a non peak hour time.
In short, this match has been organised purely for the benefit of the west Yorkshire clubs Leeds, Bradford, Castleford, Wakefield, and Huddersfield fans (potential pool about 45,000). A potential pool of 90,000 other English and 10,000 French fans are excluded from consideration.
When I speak of potential fan pool it does not mean how many woiuld actually go. This pool number guesstimate is based upon peak club home game crowds. You might have to divide by three in terms of local region fans and divide by six for more remote region fans when it comes to who would actually go to an international game. So I would argue that about 15,000 west Yorkshire fans would likely go to Leeds if it was a Saturday night and publicity was good, and about 15,000 other English, plus maybe about 1,000 French under the same conditions (prices for flight and accommodation would be much higher and hence a deterrent for the French).
We need to ask the RFL why this match was not scheduled for a Saturday night, when all rugby league fans in the northern hemisphere would have had a chance to go.
