Salford Red Devils recorded a club-record attendance in their Super League eliminator clash with Leigh Leopards on a weekend where rugby league showed just how good it can be.
Both play-off games delivered a punch with the second even better than the first as Warrington defeated St Helens following Leigh’s impressive win over Salford at the Salford Community Stadium.
Leigh Leopards finished the season in red-hot form as they won 11 of 13 to make the top six and they resumed that as they beat out Salford 14-6 in a game that was taken over by hooker Edwin Ipape. The Papua New Guinean powerhouse was described as a “freak” by teammate Lachlan Lam after Ipape’s Man of the Match performance.
That saw him score one and create another as Leigh made it to their first-ever Super League semi-final, teeing up the biggest ‘Battle of the Borough’ yet when they take on Wigan Warriors on Saturday night.
The reason that Leigh are playing Wigan is because Warrington Wolves defeated St Helens and that game was incredibly even more intense than the former with Wire taking it to the wire as they won in golden point.
George Williams’ drop goal secured the win and took them to their first Super League semi-final since 2019 after the teams had drawn 22-22 in normal time. That was courtesy of a Jon Bennison last-minute try with Mark Percival icing the kick from the sideline to send us to extra time.
From there, Warrington won as they were buoyed on by the strong crowd at the Halliwell Jones Stadium, who Sam Burgess credited for helping get his side over the line.
The attendance figures for both Super League eliminators has now been confirmed with Salford setting a club-record attendance as over 10,000 turned up, whilst Warrington saw over 12,000 attend their game for a combined attendance of just shy of 23,000.
Super League attendance figures
Salford Red Devils 6-14 Leigh Leopards – 10,867
Warrington Wolves 23-22 AET St Helens – 12,111
Attendance figures sourced from Rugby League Project
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Alles
September 30, 2024 at 3:55 pm
So two of the so-called “heavyweights”/best supported teams in super league, separated by less than 10 miles, can only muster just over 12K in a stadium whose capacity is over 15K. That’s a pretty poor effort for a game of such magnitude and kind of encapsulates who far this great game has fallen.
The Catalans have got close to that figure in some of their home games this season. Even allowing for 3K travelling fans from the likes of Wigan/Saints, they’re still attracting circa 9K from their locality putting many of the rugby league heartlands’ clubs to shame.
12K for Warrington v Saints, tv coverage notwithstanding, is a poor effort.