The first round of fixtures in the Rugby League World Cup concluded last night as Cook Islands edged an interesting battle against Wales at Leigh Sports Village.
This gives us the perfect opportunity to reflect on the attendances of each game now that every team has played.
In total there have been seven venues so far this World Cup with Leeds Rhinos’ Headingley Stadium the only ground to host two games. They hosted Australia vs Fiji which boasts the second best attendance of week one as well as Jamaica vs Ireland which, despite attracting less than half the fans that Australia vs Fiji did, was still an impressive sum especially for Jamaica’s debut in the World Cup.
Newcastle hosted too games with nearly 50,000 people accumulatively attending games in the city as 43,119 flocked to see England’s opening game against Samoa – the third biggest attendance for a World Cup opener – prior to 6,206 watching Italy beat Scotland thanks to a Jake Maizen hat-trick.
New Zealand vs Lebanon was the big talking point of the opening week with viewers disappointed by the attendance as was Jon Dutton, the man behind the tournament.
France vs Greece attracted a noteworthy attendance for a game without any of the major tournament favourites involved whilst Tonga vs Papua New Guinea achieved the third highest attendance of the week at St Helens’ Totally Wicked Stadium.
Yesterday’s game between Wales and Cook Islands maintained the average for non-England games at around 6,000.
Here’s every attendance of the World Cup so far:
43,119 – England vs Samoa St James’ Park
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10,409 – Tonga vs Papua New Guinea Totally Wicked Stadium
6,188 – Wales vs Cook Island Leigh Sports Village
