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Thursday World Cup breakfast briefing
World Cup comes home £2m in the black WORLD Cup organisers have hailed the tournament a success after it generated Aus$5m (£2m) in profits which will help fund the future of the international game.
Click here to read John's view on the price of imports in ths game.
Click here to read about New Zealand's happy hooker.
The surplus contrasts sharply with the near-1m losses recorded by the Rugby Football League in the last World Cup in 2000.
"This tournament was always a starting point for bigger things in the years ahead and the foundations that have been laid give the World Cup the capacity to grow enormously," said Colin Love, the chairman of the RL International Federation.
The 17 matches played so far have attracted a total of 243,349 fans at an average of 14,315 per match. A near sell-out 50,000 crowd expected for the final at Suncorp Stadium tomorrow will lift the average to around 15,500 but the profits have been largely generated by television deals and sponsorship.
A total of 4.9m viewers have tuned in to the matches in Australia's five capital cities while, despite England's disappointing performances, only one of the BBC's five weekend highlight shows failed to reach a peak viewing figure of one million.
Tate to miss World Cup final
AUSTRALIA have called up Manly winger David Williams for tomorrow's final after Brent Tate was ruled out with the hip injury he suffered in last week's semi-final victory over Fiji.
Tate was diagnosed with a grade two tear of his right hip flexor muscle.
Williams, who is nicknamed 'The Wolfman', will play opposite New Zealand's Manu 'The Beast' Vatuvei.
Ex-Aussie Test star charged
ANOTHER leading NRL player has brought shame on the sport Down Under with Cronulla's former international stand-off Greg Bird being charged with glassing his girlfriend in the face, leaving her with a fractured eye socket.
Bird, 24, has been charged with reckless assault occasioning actual bodily harm and lying to the police.
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Weather for Yorkshire
Sunday 12 February 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 1 C to 6 C
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Tomorrow
Sunny spells
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