Some of the replies are missing the point of the story linked in the OP



It is apparent that the Rugby League are effectively putting out the tournament to tender, with 'seminars' planned in cities around the country to sell the concept to local councils and the like. If its done right, this could actually be a bold, imaginative and creative idea.



I fully expect England to be playing in the heartlands, Australia being based in London and Wales in...uhm.. Wales. But I don't see any reason why at least a good portion of other games shouldn't be farmed out to towns / cities that succesfully bid for them. So long as the RL do a good job in picking locations that offer a workable and realistic business plan, follow up with strict checks to make sure they actually deliver, and have a good overall marketing plan, then I see no downside. After all, how many people are going to turn up to the DW or KC to see Fiji vs Samoa? It would look absolutely shocking to see 3,000 people spread around a big stadium on TV, whether its Wigan or Bristl isn't going to change that.



Realistically, the key will be picking stadiums of a sensible size in areas that have good transport links. It's pointless thinking of huge 30,000 all seater stadiums that look awful when less than half full. We'd be better off with tightly packed grounds where 3000 looks decent. What about some of the football grounds of League 1 or 2 teams, for example?



They also need to do some work on figuring out where the concentration of ex-pat / immigrant populations are? For example where would be largest concentration of people from South Sea Islands live? I've no idea, tbh, but wherever it is should surely be in the frame for a game?

DW

Saints new ground

HJ

Hull

LSV

Hudds

Leeds - ER

Wrexham

Cardiff (for Wales games)

Stadium in france (for french games)

Stoop (NZ v AUS)

Widnes



Wembely or OT for the final!



For tickets I would suggest that with one ticket for an England game you get a free ticket for one of the smaller group games to encourage people to go to the smaller games.



We wll get good crowds for the games and hopefully Wales can repeat that 20k+ crowd in Cardiff, but it's the smaller games that also need targeting, especially potential crackers like Tonga v Samoa, imagine that at Wire with 13,000 on!

I was at the PNG game at the Boulevard in 1995 and there was a good crowd, which might have been something to do with there being a couple of Hull players being involved. It may not work out to be possible but say for example, Samoa had a few St Helens players then one of their games should be scheduled to be in St Helens, or if Stanley Gene is still the PNG coach a PNG game could be held at Craven Park.

That's exactly the kind of joined-up thinking that the RL need

A thought would be to do what the soccerball WC did in Japan and South Korea, where each town/city 'adopted' a nation.

That would be a good idea and should base them in places that have a link through players or ex players linked to that country eg PNG and Hull

Get the players doing some work in the schools, running jnr clinics, meet the fans nights etc and then base their game there. I reckon it could work really well and would be great for those players to have the city behind them.

Agree completely. Leigh seems to have had quite a few Tongans over the years and Lee Hansen still lives in the area, maybe get Lee and a few other players from the area into the schools and sports clubs like you said and play a Tonga game at the LSV?

Or like Boro adopting North Korea in the Soccerball '66 World Cup

Good post. Reading this makes me think there is hope for RLFans afterall. It was quite depressing reading some of the parochial, blinkered, flatcapper comments yesterday.



Its difficult to say where we think games should be played at the moment because we don't know the format of the pools. I would imagine the structure will take on something similar to the WC in Oz, but there's 14 teams this time around and considering England's performance and PNG's anger at being put in the group of death (or whatever it was called) I think those four will be split up. I'd suggest they'll be two groups of four and two groups of three. Stronger sides go into the groups of our, minnows in the other two. Winners of the minnow groups play runners up of the stronger groups, winners of those two matches play winners of two four team groups in semis.



Once we know what the structure is and who is playing who then we can say where the games should be played. I would like to see the Kangaroos in England's group and their first match held at the Olympic Stadium (if it hasn't been dismantled). If there's a team like USA in England's group then it makes sense to play that game at somewhere like the Keepmoat. NZ vs Wales at Wrexham or even Cardiff would be a good fixture as well.



I do think that the French matches should be held in France,but I can't see this happening.



I suppose tendering the games to stadiums and cities is better than the 2000 WC because the stadiums/cities might actually do some work and not let the RFL spread themselves to thinly.



Final for me should be at Wembley.

Who would be the other nine teams in the WC you think?



Australia,England,France,NZ,PNG,qualify. I wonder who will be the other nine.





Wales

Scotland

Ireland

USA?

Russia?

Italy?

Lebanon?

Fiji?

Tonga?

Its the ten from the previous WC, adding Wales and someone else with 2 more places up for grabs through qualification

I see..