hey we will never know now, just abit annoying that we have to see all the build up for it and publicity when it should be us not warrington in .



costs of £180,000 the obvious reason why we arent in, our highest ever attendance only ever brought half that figure in!



but on the other hand we say we as a club want to be involved in the big games and win them, this was an opportunity to get more practice and make ourselves known as one of the bigger clubs but seems we are happy to just be the also rans here. Cant blame ken davy as he has put enough money in but then you go back us punching above our weight when we just dont have the cash available that the other clubs have.

Obscure teams from other side of world?? What planet u on??

To most people in hudds that's exactly what they will be.

i have to agree with the club on this one, yes it would have been a novelty for the existing fans to see us take on an NRL team, but when push comes to shove, £180,000 to host, what in effect would be a friendly game is a lot of money, money that i doubt the club, and /or Ken would be willing to part with.



we struggle to attract fans to games where we are within a game of the grand final, so i can't see how a friendly against opposition from Australia would bring in thousands of potential new fans.



if we wanted a friendly we could have offered any of the top sides a game without having to stump up £180,000 for it.

Could we have offered to pay for say Melbourne or NZ Warriors to come over. If we paid for their flights and accommodation it would have cost a fraction of the 180 grand for the wcc.

That may have attracted a good crowd that would have covered the costs or maybe even made us a few bob.

Maybe next year we should maybe look at not bottling it in the play offs, win the grand final then play the Aussies for real

I think some people seem to forget that this was nothing more than a friendly match, nothing at stake, nothing to win just a friendly ......a friendly at a huge cost to a club that struggles to attract fans/finances anyway.

yes we will never know if thousands of people who won't come and watch us play the big local teams in a game which means something will come and watch us play, to them, a non descript team from the other side of the world but i am presuming the club have considered this and have therefore presumed these people won't come !!.



Whenever the club does something to lose money it gets criticised for whatever it did so you can hardly complain that they're not prepared to risk losing money on something which only serves as a novelty purpose !.

Reports were this was a bond no a cost. When you fullfill your commitments, you get a bond back.

think thats right actually! so infact it wasnt even going to cost us as we would have got the money back, so the cost reasons people have put forward fall down on that score

It would still be a cost to the club. It's still £180,000 that would leave the club and would have to be accounted for. It doesn't matter that you "might" get it back you still need to balance the books at the point the bond is paid out. Besides what were the conditions? Maybe the club couldn't fulfill them. What if one was the match had to be staged and we had a snowfall like a few seasons ago for Eorl's Testimonial? The club would be screwed.



I get it, people are butt-hurt that they don't get to see us play an NRL side that's OK. But the club made absolutely the right decision financially in turning down this farcical circus of a game.

Errrr.... Baloo said at the fans forum ''We didn't qualify''

yes we fluffed it against cats the only way cats cud play in it is if they were to get to the grand final as they were the lowest placed qualifier in the semi,s