diff --git a/scripts/release-notes.pl b/scripts/release-notes.pl
index 4260c5995a..64bdbd87fa 100755
--- a/scripts/release-notes.pl
+++ b/scripts/release-notes.pl
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
 #                            | (__| |_| |  _ <| |___
 #                             \___|\___/|_| \_\_____|
 #
-# Copyright (C) 2020 - 2021, Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al.
+# Copyright (C) 2020 - 2022, Daniel Stenberg, <daniel@haxx.se>, et al.
 #
 # This software is licensed as described in the file COPYING, which
 # you should have received as part of this distribution. The terms
@@ -95,7 +95,7 @@ sub extract {
     }
     elsif($ref =~ /^https:\/\/github.com\/curl\/curl\/.*\/(\d+)/) {
         # return the plain number
-        return $2;
+        return $1;
     }
     else {
         # return the URL
@@ -133,6 +133,7 @@ for my $l (@gitlog) {
         }
         elsif($line =~ /^Clo(s|)es(:|) *(.*)/i) {
             push @closes, extract($3);
+            printf STDERR "CLOSES $3: %s\n", extract($3);
         }
         elsif($line =~ /^Bug: (.*)/i) {
             push @bug, extract($1);