England's win has produced a surge in World Cup ticket sales

Dazzling displays from Saints stand off Jack Welsby and giant wing Dom Young caught the eye and prompted interest from beyond the heartlands. 

More than 35,000 tickets have already been sold for the semi final at Arsenal's Emirates Stadium - where is results go to plan, England could face Tonga. 

And if and when England qualify for the semi, a further surge in ticket sales is anticipated. 

Pre-sales for the final at Old Trafford are described as "quite staggering" already bring in revenue that surpasses any other game held in the northern hemisphere.

However, there have been challenges and crowds for some early group games have been disappointing and Dutton acknowledged that the benefit of hindsight might have seen a different model to take account of the cost-of-living crisis.

Adjusting, however, was difficult given the number of tickets that had already been sold in advance.

"We have made some mistakes and we hold our hands up when we make mistakes," said Dutton.

"It we had the opportunity to do this all over again, having gone through the pandemic, with a cost of living crisis, would we price stuff differently?

"Yes, but we are now into the cycle, we have customers who bought tickets two years ago and we are comparative at entry level with anything that happens in Super League - for the World's very best athletes in the likes of Tedesco and Munster. And it may be some time before we see them back on these shores."

But there have been positives. England's opening win over Samoa drew an attendance of 43,119 at St James' Park, with 55 per cent of the crowd coming from the north east.

The game attracted a peak television audience of 1.8 million with a 22 per cent audience share.

That prompted a boom in ticket sales on the Saturday night, with Dutton explaining: "It was our highest sales since we opened the ballot two years ago with more tickets sold than at any point over the last two years.

"The top buying postcode for Saturday night was for London and we are now seeing a trend where people are plotting the England path to potentially Wigan, The Emirates and Old Trafford. 

"That is where the high sales are for - the two biggest are Emirates and Old Trafford." 

The hosts' second Group A game at Bolton on Saturday is heading for a sell-out and it has boosted sales for the England v Greece game in Sheffield.

However, a disappointing crowd of just over 5,000 was present for New Zealand's opening match against Lebanon at Warrington, and empty seats have been a feature at other venues.

World Cup revenue director Mick Hogan: "In the eight games so far there's not been a single game where we have run out of the lowest category ticket. If you you wanted to pay £15 to watch the rugby league World Cup at Leigh last week there were tickets still available."

Tickets for World Cup games in St Helens

Gates wise there were more than 10,000 at the Tonga v Papua New Guinea game at the Totally Wicked Stadium last Tuesday with most of the visible empty seats in the £70 section in the middle of the North Stand.

There has been much focus on the price of tickets - with plenty of fans comparing their own seat cost of a regular Super League game with the World Cup games.

However, the cheapest tickets for the next two games at TWS are £20 for adults, £10 for children on Monday. £25 for adults and £10 for children on Saturday.

There was an issue with a section reserved for a TV platform in the Tonga PNG game that left the section empty.

That issue has been resolved with organisers stating: "The platform is being used for Tonga v Wales, but there are some seats in the blocks available, which are priced at £20 for adults and £10 for children.

"The platform won’t be used for Australia v Italy and is currently available at £25 for adults and £15 for children."

There has been something narrative began with an electrical failure that cut short the opening ceremony in Newcastle but Dutton is determined it should not overshadow some exceptional sport.

"The focus for us is to move forward now," said Dutton of the incident at St James' Park. "Personally I was absolutely devastated by what happened and when it happened. It was a very challenging day for me and for my team given the work and effort that had been invested into that.

"My disappointment is that I don't want to take away from what is happening on the field of play. This has been many years in the making, and to stand in that stadium and watch that Tonga v PNG game on Tuesday was a personal high moment for me."

The cost of staging Rugby League World Cup

Dutton revealed the current tournament is operating a different financial model to previous iterations, where direct profits have been shared with the International Rugby League (IRL) in order to invest in the development of the global game.

This year organisers have already paid a pre-agreed rights fee to the international federation, with recent financial developments making it harder to achieve their ambition to break even.

"We are running a break-even budget which we are on target to do," added Dutton. "We've been quite clear that our overall budget for staging this tournament is in the region of £40million, and we have got to raise every pound.

"This model involved a pre-arranged rights fee, but it's been made more complicated, and made our jobs so much harder, by the fact that we've had to find another amount of funding to carry on for an additional 12 months.

"In some areas we are facing inflationary figures of almost 19 per cent. This is an expensive tournament to stage and everything costs more. We are currently on track in terms of revenue but from an expenditure perspective we are currently facing some challenges."