so close to keeping a side below 30 points, admittedly against the second worst attackers.
where is the logic in bringing in a winger on loan then playing him outside kirk "cant pass wont pass" dixon who after missing easy kicks is now offering little and needs an enforced rest

Rhys Williams was crap anyway - bombed a try and had 2 errors...and was taken off in the 2nd half!

Waste of time bringing him in.

For me, Dicko has always been a very average player...not particularly good...yet not overly bad either. His saving grace being that a year or two ago he was nailing kicks from all over the ground. If his kicking has now deserted him, then he brings very little to our game and must be the slowest winger in SL.

I enjoyed the thrill and the tension of toda'ys game, however the quality of rugby on display from both sides was pretty poor and it's very easy to see why both teams are at the bottom end of the table.

Two poor sides and some strange calls from the ref and VR, not a great advert for the game.

For a local neutral it was very entertaining

We are boring to watch. Do the exact same thing every set and have a none existent defence. What was Rangi doing on the final tackle too? Why didn't he just kick it up?

Worst "team" i've ever seen.

I found that game very entertaining - as predicted, it wasn't a great display of silky skills, but it was a nail-biter.

I'll second that

thought the best side lost!! chase still magic and orr was inspiring....unlucky

Which game you referring to Cas and Wakey
or
Hull v KR

Kirk Dixon is, and never was, a centre. He is a winger - although we certainly don't play to his strengths. A few years back we used him on the wing and kept putting up high bombs to the corner. More often than not Dixon would climb and get the ball. I remember one in the stuffing against Hull at Wheldon Rd. How many times do you see us employ that tactic now? Rarely - think we used it a couple today but most were up in the air into the ingoal.

Both teams tried there damnedest to lose this one and cas tried fractionally the harder. A thoroughly entertaining game though none the less, which is what the game of RL used to be about.
The Hull derby was the same, arguably a "bit" more skillfull but also very entertaining.
Can someone tell me where the entertainment went in game 2???

with regard to kirk dixon, a guideline i employ is ....if he was released by cas today with no fee attached how many super league clubs would show an interest ?
widnes possibly, wakefield maybe before signing sykes but no one else.
so if no good to other teams why cas?

I think both sides need a bit more credit, there was very little shade and it was red hot.
Yet they still managed to play in an entertaining game.

2 poor sides granted but they both worked very hard.

What do they expect when they promote a team that finished 6th in the championship

Very rare but I don't agree, hugely entertaining game, reasonable skill levels and commitment - oh well.

TBF to widnes, they were on a hiding to nothing in this game, and I would imagine their side bore little resemblance to that that finished sixth in the championship, I may be wrong.
Someone posted somewhere it ought to be 1v2, 3v4.........etc, rather than derby games, I think this makes sense, either that or scrap the whole shabang!!
It will be interesting to see how many attended the weekend.

Wouldn't be shocked if it comes out less than the combined individual attendances of the derbies when played in the teams actual stadia.

I would imagine this to be the case, although some creative accounting may prevail!!

Maybe so, but a brilliant day out and much more fun than just another home game. Especially as the only other trips out for us cellar dwellers are London and France, which can both be v expensive.

The attendance for the whole weekend was announced at 63k I think.

It looked well on TV, with the exception of the Catalans game.

Sunday with four games seemed to luck a lot better attended than the saturday (unsurprisingly), but there wasn't much in it according to the stats:
Saturday 30,763
Sunday 32,953
Still down i would imagine if those games were played at the normal venues, do the clubs get a cut, or do the RFL pocket it all?

I did actually think the best side lost out of a very poor contest. There were some 'skills' on show from some players that would have got you dropped on a Saturday afternoon at Panthers/Walton/Lock Lane - let alone at that level.

Cas managed 16 minutes of joined up play out of the 80, where we put ourselves in a position to end sets effectively and if we had found 5 more minutes could have won, but that would have papered over the cracks of an average team performance, we didn't care for each other and the shirts enough to defend well and win.

Williams was poor, but barely had time to learn everyones names, so we see how we go. I still think this side if they got together and decided they were going ot have a dig for each are capable of winning half our remaining games.

It was always going to be close with having two poor sides playing each other.

[iOver 5th & 6th April this season:[/i

Wakey v Cas: 9786
Wire v Widnes: 12042
FC v KR: 18979
Total: 40807 (against 30763)

London v Catalans: 1829
Hudds v Salford: 6988
Bulls v Rhinos: 20851
Saints v Goons: 17980
Total: 47648 (against 32953)

On raw attendances then it would have been better to have played the games at respective clubs home grounds, although there will probably be savings to be made by bringing everything together. Same ground staff, same entertainment, same stewards, etc, etc...

In terms of putting more bums on seats though, Magic's evidently failing. However they hype it up, fans preferences seem to be pretty clear based on the numbers.