Rugby world cup

Millenium Stadium Capacity 72500.

30,000 empty seats for a double header including one of the the host nations versus the Champions elect.

It doesn’t look too good to me!!

Incidently, why are the semis at Wembley, but the Final at Old Trafford?

It wouldnt look good to a self-confessed rugby hater. Just as close to 30,000 empty seats at Wembley in April didnt “look too good” to a football hating Wiganer.[/quote]

Maybe you will find some more made up figures claiming 10M plus watched it on TV and it has now become the most watched team sport in TV history.

Anyway, why are you mentioning football on a RL thread, admit it you’re just obsessed with football.

You cry when we don’t want RL mentioned on a football website and when everything calms down and we accept our lodgers on our board and allow threads regarding RL, you just have to resort to mentioning football, whats up with you lad?

In the last 7 football World Cups there have been 6 different winners, so not all that predictable.

Remember as well of course that RL is only played on the M62 and East coast of Australia yet 42000 people travelled to Cardiff which is certainly not on the M62 and watched a team called Italy.

The opening 5 games have been massively positive from a RL fans point of view. The big test will be tomorrow when USA play the Cook Islands at Bristol.

The Irish Champions are The Treaty City Titans
The American Champions are Philadelphia Fight

Irish players:

Scott Grix – Huddersfield
Damian Blanch – Catalans
Pat Richards – Wigan
Eamon O’Carroll – Widnes
Tyrone McCarthy – Warrington
Liam Finn – Featherstone
Stuart Littler – Leigh
Brett White – Canberra Raiders
Bob Beswick – Leigh
James Mendieka – Warrington

That enough? I actually went to watch the Ireland side yesterday ;)

Don’t know many American players but they all play in the American league AFAIK. They recently defeated Canada in the annunal three match series that they play.

http://www.usarl.com
http://www.rli.ie

Incidentally, three more nations were added to the Rugby League International Federation list this week:

Jamaica, Russia and Ukraine have been accepted as full members of the Rugby League International Federation.

Russia lost its full member status in 2010 following a series of breaches by the now defunct Russian Rugby League Federation – the new body is called the Russian Association of Rugby League Clubs

The top 25 nations in the World can be found on the Maltese website:

http://malteserugbyleague.com/

South Africa have bid to host the 2017 World Cup.

Would that be similar to the current Republic of Ireland football squad in which NONE play in the Irish Premier and 5 of them weren’t born in Ireland? (7 if you count the 2 in Northern Ireland who would have needed Republic ancestry of some sort)

Then there’s Ray Houghton, Jason McAteer, Andy Townsend and Tony Cascarino who are all ROI legends yet were born elsewhere.

England of course have had Terry Butcher and John Barnes as well no doubt as countless others.

Shaun Maloney has 32 caps for Scotland at all levels but was born in and spent his first 5 years in Malaysia.

Not sure of your point other than that that Jack Wilshere was championing a few weeks ago.

FTR – Pat Richards has Irish parents, an Irish sister and countless Aunties/Uncles cousins etc etc that hail from the Emerald Isle.

Egg has given you your answer.

How about now you tell me how many Wigan-born players have played for Wigan Athletic’s first team in a league fixture over the past 8 seasons?

And name them….[/quote]

Why the past 8 seasons?

Talk about tailoring a question so you get the answer you want.