Northampton_Saint wrote:
I can't comment on the presence/lack of atmosphere at all having not been there, and being unable to motivate myself to bother watching it on Sky, but how can you expect any crowd to get excited over a game against opposition they have no particular rivalry with, and where the scoreline simply has no influence over the outcome of their season even slightly? I'm amazed that there would be any atmosphere at all at any stage under those circumstances frankly.
I wasn't expecting an atmosphere to be honest. I was in the North stand on the 40 nearer to the East Stand and couldn't hear the West stand more than two or three times with the slow build up to Oh when the Saints. Obviously there are mitigating factors, such as the opposition, the lack of familiarity and the cold but in general the fans need to do more. Whenever it got tight at KR the fans would give the team a lift and I'm sure there were a few games where the crowd pulled the players through and influenced the referee. I'm not convinced there will be enough noise at Langree for that. I suppose the acid test for atmosphere will come when we first sell out the East Stand to noisy away fans, so presumably that will be Wigan.
The blokes behind us were discussing just this at the Salford game. One of them had the theory that the noisy teens in the 'scaff' in the glory period in the 90s are now getting on into their 30s and no longer make any noise.