Form request validation not firing - php

Question

On successful form submission, I should be seeing 'in here' within the browser but I get re-directed to a page not found view:
Sorry, the page you are looking for could not be found.
My form control:
{!! Form::open(['url' => 'prize_draw_store', 'class' => 'wffm-form-module text-left']) !!}
{!! Form::label('fullname', 'Name:', array('class' => 'control-label')) !!}
{!! Form::text('fullname', null, array('required', 'class'=>'form-control text-box single-line', 'placeholder'=>'')) !!}
{!! Form::label('email_address', 'Email Address:', array('class' => 'control-label')) !!}
{!! Form::text('email_address', null, array('required', 'class'=>'form-control text-box single-line', 'placeholder'=>'')) !!}
<div class="form-submit-border">
{{ Form::submit('Submit', array('class' => 'btn btn-default')) }}
</div>
{!! Form::close() !!}
My routes are well-defined:
/routes/web.php
use App\Http\Controllers\PrizeDrawController;
use App\Http\Requests\PrizeDrawFormRequest;
Route::get('/',
['as' => 'prize_draw', 'uses' => 'PrizeDrawController#create']);
Route::post('/',
['as' => 'prize_draw_store', 'uses' => 'PrizeDrawController#store']);
PrizeDrawController.php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
use Illuminate\Http\Request;
use App\Http\Requests\PrizeDrawFormRequest;
class PrizeDrawController extends Controller
{
public function create() {
return view('front.pages.home');
}
public function store(PrizeDrawFormRequest $request) {
var_dump('in here');
return redirect('thankyou')->with('status', 'Form submitted!');
}
}
PrizeDrawFormRequest.php
namespace App\Http\Requests;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Http\FormRequest;
class PrizeDrawFormRequest extends FormRequest
{
public function authorize()
{
return true;
}
public function rules()
{
return [
'email_address' => 'required|email',
'fullname' => 'required'
];
}
}
I'm expecting the code to flow like thus:
1. http://aacomp.local/prize_draw_store -- POST form submission
2. App\Http\Controllers\PrizeDrawController#store
3. PrizeDrawController::store(PrizeDrawFormRequest $request)
4. Redirect a user to thankyou page
We don't seem to reach step 3 though? I must be missing something basic -
are you able to help?
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The problem lies with:
Route::post('/',
['as' => 'prize_draw_store', 'uses' => 'PrizeDrawController#store']);
Changing this route to
Route::post('/foobar',
['as' => 'prize_draw_store', 'uses' => 'PrizeDrawController#store']);
and updating the form action:
{!! Form::open(['url' => 'foobar', ...
say - will get the desired results. Thanks to Darius. V for this.