Tomkins to play for Barbarians?

[cpwigan]

Just a selection of the gates at yesterdays games out of interest:

Harlequins v Newcastle...12,521

Gloucester v Leicester....14,437

London Irish v Wasps.......7,987

Northampton v Saracens 13,402

Unfortunatley RL cant match those imo.

Following on from my previous posts in response to this, where I said that you had been rather selective in your choice of weeks and matches, I thought that I would post the attendances of the RU games from this weekend:

London Wasps 16 22 Harlequins.. 6,792 (Poor for traditionally big London rivals)

Saracens 15-11 London Irish........ 6,240 (Again very poor for a 2nd v 4th clash)

Leicester 30-25 Northampton....... 24,000 (Good crowd but to be expected from the best supported RU club in a game which is much like a Wigan v Saints clash)

Bath 13-16 Sale......................... 12,040 (Decent crowd but much the same as a Saints or Warrington)

Exeter 15-9 Worcester................ 7,331 (Poor considering Exeter are 3rd in the table)

Newcastle 26-25 Gloucester........ 4,111 (Awful crowd for the visit of a big club)

These are very poor and just shows how much some of the big spending RU clubs are struggling and shows exactly why they are losing fortunes each year. People need not be sucked in by the RU hype that everything is fine and rosy and that clubs get far bigger attendances than Super League clubs. Take out the hyped double headers at Twickenham, where every club adds the full attendance when working out their average, and Saracens losing fortunes at Wembley matches and RU's average attendances would be less than Rugby League's.

Attendances in club RU are largely irrelevant. They always have been / always will be. Just as in cricket.

Fans need to get over this lunacy. We live a class ridden / corrupt country whereby both Union and cricket will survive with ease.

We need to stop flogging this dead horse.

[Dobby]

[quote="cpwigan]Attendances in club RU are largely irrelevant. They always have been / always will be. Just as in cricket.

Fans need to get over this lunacy. We live a class ridden / corrupt country whereby both Union and cricket will survive with ease.

We need to stop flogging this dead horse.[/quote]

Maybe so but it is absurd to make a statement like RL cant match RU's attendances when it blatently isnt true, especially when we often exceed them never mind match them.

[Nezza Faz]

Just a selection of the gates at yesterdays games out of interest:

Harlequins v Newcastle...12,521

Gloucester v Leicester....14,437

London Irish v Wasps.......7,987

Northampton v Saracens 13,402

Unfortunatley RL cant match those imo.

Following on from my previous posts in response to this, where I said that you had been rather selective in your choice of weeks and matches, I thought that I would post the attendances of the RU games from this weekend:

London Wasps 16 22 Harlequins.. 6,792 (Poor for traditionally big London rivals)

Saracens 15-11 London Irish........ 6,240 (Again very poor for a 2nd v 4th clash)

Leicester 30-25 Northampton....... 24,000 (Good crowd but to be expected from the best supported RU club in a game which is much like a Wigan v Saints clash)

Bath 13-16 Sale......................... 12,040 (Decent crowd but much the same as a Saints or Warrington)

Exeter 15-9 Worcester................ 7,331 (Poor considering Exeter are 3rd in the table)

Newcastle 26-25 Gloucester........ 4,111 (Awful crowd for the visit of a big club)

These are very poor and just shows how much some of the big spending RU clubs are struggling and shows exactly why they are losing fortunes each year. People need not be sucked in by the RU hype that everything is fine and rosy and that clubs get far bigger attendances than Super League clubs. Take out the hyped double headers at Twickenham, where every club adds the full attendance when working out their average, and Saracens losing fortunes at Wembley matches and RU's average attendances would be less than Rugby League's.

Attendances in club RU are largely irrelevant. They always have been / always will be. Just as in cricket.

Fans need to get over this lunacy. We live a class ridden / corrupt country whereby both Union and cricket will survive with ease.

We need to stop flogging this dead horse.

Just seen on Sky News Sport that big london 'derby' with Wasps/'Quins (Att:6,700) are in desperate financial straits with Club up for sale and no takers. And they won the big Heinekin Euro Cup just year or so back.

Truth is these clubs survive only with the backing/goodwill of their "sugar-daddies" who will eventually depart for other ventures when they get bored, or financially drained, with no margin of profitable return, especially in these economic times.You can only take so much - look at Whelan ?

Most of these teams in RU were created out of amateurism, and as such they had little or no grass roots support, they were amateur one minute, pro the next, so when success eludes them, finances go down the gurglar & lukewarm support disappears - whatever you say, people passing thru' the turnstiles are still vital (imagine us without the support we do get).

Saracens again had a pitiful gate today for questionably their biggest local derby - they won with 5 penalties (thanks to Owen Farrell) against opponents who did score the ONLY try in the 80mins ! Perhaps fans are now beginning to tire of this "spectacle" after years of being "brain washed" into thinking this was ENTERTAINMENT !

However, they are playing "on the road" at Wembley shortly - this will attract a much larger crowd, but will only 'paper over' the cracks - bet they are down to 4 or 5,000 next match (as has happened before).

Newcastle are another example of a club without proper support - now struggling with crowds about 3 or 4,000 & no financial backers after their last "sugar daddy" pulled out a year or so back.
Sale (self-claimed team for the North West) are getting similar numbers with talk of moving to Salford's new stadium in order to survive. They are backed by a huge investor in B. Kennedy but his main business in Construction is floundering in these recessionary times, so it is clear that attendances in RU (at club level) are NOT irrelevant and are still subject to the same economic factors of supply and demand, like every one else.

[cpwigan]

Nezza, Union like Cricket survives on the profile of the sport and the investment derived from it (media / commercial). The profile of both sports is driven by International competition. Lancashire CC are made / broken by hosting international cricket. Union is the same. RL fans need to get it out of their heads that domestic attendances are important. Our clubs give tickets away too, we never attract large crowds internationally, until recently, we even wave a white flag and accept our lot. Anybody who thinks Union / Cricket or any other 'establishment' sport are going to go to the wall is kiding themselves. The 'establishment' are the decision makers in every major organisation in this country.

Far more likely League would before those sports.

[Nezza Faz]

Nezza, Union like Cricket survives on the profile of the sport and the investment derived from it (media / commercial). The profile of both sports is driven by International competition. Lancashire CC are made / broken by hosting international cricket. Union is the same. RL fans need to get it out of their heads that domestic attendances are important. Our clubs give tickets away too, we never attract large crowds internationally, until recently, we even wave a white flag and accept our lot. Anybody who thinks Union / Cricket or any other 'establishment' sport are going to go to the wall is kiding themselves. The 'establishment' are the decision makers in every major organisation in this country.

Far more likely League would before those sports.

Yes, CP, definitely correct about International angle - this does drive a sport to prominence, which is why we need the media to come on board with their RL coverage. At the moment, people in these decision making areas are from ru stock & go out of their way to push League into the background.
This is a form of prejudice & why the MP in London lobbied the Commons/Fleet St. on Friday. Believe the "Telegraph" now going to give League more representation in their media next season (probably a bit to do with move to Media City, I hope).

Can't be correct that this paper gave THREE sentences to the 4-Nations Final, yet full pages to ru matches that attracted very little support to a number of games that weekend.

People/fans of RL do need to get behind the International game as this drives popularity/finance down to all levels of the game. Too many people deride International RL without necessarily understanding the consequencies of their apathy !

[cpwigan]

Very much Nezza

Unfortunately, the privately educated / the fortunate represent the vast majority of employees in media organisations / companies and their lifelong loyalty to cricket / union makes the fight for equality so very hard but as football shows it can be done.

Big event / International competition are as you and I agree so very vital.

[DaveO]

It's not just a business model, it owes a lot to the history of the game and how this has always been operated, and to the culture within the sport.

Yes I think that is true. They kind of just happened on the "business model" due in a long way to the history of the sport. The fact it is a lucrative one is good for them but I think without it being so the entire sport could have sunk into an even bigger mess than RL given the old farts running it.

The structure of RL - and football - isn't the same. Traditionaly (or in my life time at least) the clubs have been the driving force behind what the players do and more money is raised at the domestic game level than the internationals. This again isn't necessarily a 'business model' - the NFL, now that's a business model, and a very successful one at that.

In RL Internationals used to have a much bigger status when we had tours and Ashes series. I think a number of factors conspired to reduce that status. The switch to summer which put an end to tours was a big one IMO. Playing games at "small" grounds such as the DW partly because Wembley was being rebuilt. And the RFL's focus on the club game instead of the International game with the effort put into the Magic weekend seemingly far greater than what was going into Internationals.

This years four nations made a welcome return to Wembley and I think playing Internationals there can only help restore the status.

[Mike]

I wouldn't be too worried about losing players to the NRL. From the nataional team perspective GB would benefit from more players being expose to that environment. It may make things more competitive and ultimately be good for RL in this country.