my long term view is to have england,france,australia and new zealand host the world cup on their own on a rotational basis..

Assuming two groups for the moment, I don't see it necessary to host one entire pool in NZ (meaning an even divide of games between the big country and the small country). I think a fairer split would be east and west - centred on the Australian east coast. One group would be something like Townsville, Brisbane, Melbourne, Auckland, Wellington and the other group Newcastle, Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide, Perth. As far as geographical spread and population bases, those are two pretty comparitive groups. New Zealand obviously in the first group and featuring in the games in NZ. England probably in the second and playing a match in Perth. Of course the groups don't have to be confined to exclusive cities per group, and given the desirability of spreading the Kangaroos matches around it'd probably be better not to, but if they must then I think the above would be a pretty good split.

Leigh.

britain are'nt in the world cup..



you editted it

I've corrected it.

i'd be worried about the number of venues...

we spread the games to thinly in 2000 and it bite us on the arse

Ten venues, two games each. Or a variations of that - such as three games in each of the four core cities and only one game in most of the remaining six (of course that'd be a problem in my example groups above with three of the four core cities in one group). Any more venues and we hit your problem. Any less and we risk stiffling crowds by asking the same people to turn up too many times while others miss out completely.

Leigh.

Probably sensible, but since when have i been sensible?

Definitely:

Townsville, Brisbane, Newcastle, Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland and Perth.

Maybe (in approx. order of likelihood):

Christchurch, Gold Coast, Wellington, Wollongong, Parramatta and Canberra.

Unlikely (in approx. order of likelihood):

Gosford, Adelaide, Dunedin, Hamilton, Palmerston North and Invercargill.

<nothing important>

I got there in the end. Perth and Auckland were both borderline for me between 'definitely' and 'maybe'. I kept switching them around and in the process got confused. Perhaps they should've been in a seperate category of 'likely'.

Perth is a definite, there is contracts signed and verbal assurances given by the ARL that they will host one Rugby League World Cup Game.

This will either be at MES or Subiaco Oval.

As good an idea as it is, the WARL have too much faith in the ARL.

Anyway, I'll post some of my finals photos here. There are no shots of play, I was too busy watching one of the greatest contests I've seen.



Above - SFS Western side at around 7:45pm

Below - SFS Eastern side at around 7:46pm

what are them "boxes" on the top tier of the eastern grandstand?? is that were the members sit??

Media Boxes...

They are open-air corproate boxes, as opposed t the closed in corproate suites at the goal ends. The media boxes are at the back of the bottom tier on the western stand.

There are also media boxes (used chiefly by TV broadcasters, but also radio) at the back of the top tier on the western side.