World Cup Diary: Day 5

The World Cup continued in Workington on Tuesday night, unfortunately without me.

Due to other commitments and lack of resources, it was either the Tuesday night or the Wednesday night match for me, so I’ve opted for the drive to a new ground, for me at least, at Bristol.

I would have loved to have done every single game, but unfortunately the scheduling meant that was impossible. Most of the tournament is being covered by myself at a cost, as we continue to hunt for advertisers/sponsors to help cover the costs involved in running the site.

In truth, I wish I’d have gone, and on Sunday night I checked to see if I could go, but it was too late to confirm my accreditation.

What it meant was I sat my desk in the office for the first time since Thursday, with a few hundred emails to sift through on various things. For those of you unaware, Love Rugby League is part of my wider business JDG Media, which we are soon to re-brand to Sportbox Media. We offer web and media services throughout the sports industry, and beyond too.

There was still plenty of World Cup stuff to do too – sort out some images from the previous night’s game, provided by the excellent www.swpix.com, and then type up some reaction pieces. Spoke with Ireland’s media man Conor Kelly to find out about Scott Grix’s injury from Monday night’s game, and was told he was a doubt for Saturday’s game against England.

We had some great stories on the site on Tuesday – Petero Civoniceva blown away by Rochdale reception and Samoa captain and coach hail Warrington crowd were two that really typify the World Cup so far.

Due to my other commitments, I didn’t see the game live, but caught the highlights later on, and it seemed to be a cracker. The World Cup is really producing some fine games, and it’s a real shame that it’s not being caught by a wider audience when it comes to TV.

We’re getting a lot of comments on our Facebook page every day “why isn’t this game on TV”, even though all games are live on Premier Sports, and you can subscribe at a cost of just £20 for the entire tournament.

Of course, that doesn’t help to pull in much needed casual viewers, which you would get if every game was on Freeview, but if rugby league fans won’t dig in to their pockets to watch the World Cup, why would anyone else?

Look out for me at Bristol.