Putting aside the result and the shocking news about Adrian Purtell how did everyone rate the Manchester experience?

For me it was a bit of a mixed bag...

The positive was without doubt the venue, what a superb stadium - great viewing, great facilities and a cracking atmo...Obviously the Beer was overpriced but that's to be expected i suppose..

The negative for me was Manchester itself with regards to the pubs, very poor in comparison so Edinburgh/Cardiff. We walked all over and everything was really spread out. Deansgate was rubbish and that Printworks is nothing to shout home about IMO, very disappointing.

Be good to hear thoughts, cheers.

I just can't summon up any enthusiasm for this event. If we're going to use the playoffs to decide the champions, at least make it a fair league where each team plays the same teams the same amount of times.

Warrington and Catalan might as well have just been given a two point start at the beginning of the year. If the RFL decide to make the event as fair as possible by either determining fixtures on last years placings or just by random draw, I might be inclined to attend one of these events.

I actually thought the attendances were pretty average considering how close to the heartlands it was this year so I am obviously not on my own with these views. Watching on the telly, the stadium looked empty and low on atmosphere for much of the time.

I do concur with some of your points Bully_Boxer, the games seem to favour a couple of teams (Catalans, Warrington) but Salford did beat the Giants so its not a given.

As for the attendance and atmosphere i can only speak for the Sunday but it was pretty much 3/4 full at the second half stage of the Bulls v Rhino's game and very good.

The event seems to be here to stay in the short term so how do people rate Manchester?

Are you serious? The ground looked dead?

I loved it and there's a couple of people who are interested in going next year based on value and location.

The weather played a massive part for me seeing as the result didn't suit but with the number of games on show, there should be at least one to enjoy.

Personally I like Manchester; easy to get to and decent facilities.

I would change the way teams are selected - why not balls in a bag like a cup draw- surely that would be fairer - I wouldn't have a problem with Warrington playing Widnes if the draw was random and not down to some bright spark at Red Hall.

Also IMO I would have referred a bank holiday weekend.

From where? were you there?

Probably not. On the TV it looked near as full as it was in reality.

Best media facilities - end of discussion.

Ground was good, outside entertainment was OK, transport links around Manchester were good and will be even better when the tram station at the ground opens, pubs in the city were fine.
Prices in the ground were expensive, and fed up with seeing our team losing every time we go.

7/10

loved it, 8/10

I would love to see it where 1st plays 2nd, 3rd plays 4th right down the table. Seems much fairer to me.

They can take it as the league table stands the week before. It would also cause some excitement wondering who might play who.

I have to declare an interest as I like the format and have been to all the magic weekends so far.

So my take on last weekend:

1) Weather - excellent for the specators - no danger of Edinburgh frostbite - but must have been punishing for the players. Got to be the one of the few things the RFL has managed successfully!
2) Venue - very impressed with the stadium - easy access, excellent view, and lots of legroom ( I could not walk straight for a week after being crammed into my seat at Elland Rd for the 4 Nations final). Yes food and drink was expensive - but it always is at this sort of ground.
3) Matches - 3 very tight games, but yes the two weakest sides - Widnes and Saints! should have been playing each other - especially when you think that would have given us Wigan v Warrington.
4) Attendance - from the pre-weekend publicity and the location I was expecting more. From the offical stats the ground must have been about 2/3rds full for the evening games. I did see some billboard adverts for the weekend in the - but talking to taxi drivers and shop and restuarant staff most people didn't seem to know what was going on?
5) Manchester - OK not a capital, but the wife liked the retail and we found some good restuarants. Cannot comment on the pubs as about 30 years ago accidentally had a pint of Tetley Walkers and vowed never to drink a beer in Manchester ever again.

So overall 7.5 out of 10. Would have been a bit higher if the Bulls had not reverted to the one up rugby the opposition defence must love, and am not convinced we could have scored in the 2nd half if the Rhinos had all gone off for a drinks break. As we don't seem to be able to get close to filling a 60/70,000 ground we should give the venue another go. The only other ground I can think of with similar size and quality would be the Emirates - must be something to do with being sponsored by an Gulf airline.

I have never attended a Magic Weekend. Not through any kind of boycott, but mainly due to circumstances. But I do not like the way it makes the league unfair. Why should Warrington (top of the league) get to play Widnes (bottom)? How is Catalans and London a derby? It's nonsense. And as someone on here already said, they may as well given Wire a two point start in the league.
A league to me is every team playing every other team twice - once home and once away.

If the Magic Weekend is going to continue then a random draw is the only fair way for me. Make it a big event like the CC draw and add some excitement.

The 1st v 2nd, 3rd v 4th idea seems impractical, as the teams could change places the week before, so you may have tickets for Sunday but your team then play Saturday!

How about Dublin for the next one?

Top drawer weekend - 90% of it not captured by watching from an armchair..

Well organised, well presented event, fabulous facilities, carnival atmosphere on the concourses, around the ground and in the stadium.

Great creativity from some fans in the fancy dress department, great cameraderie throughout, Catalan fans brought a touch of the internationals, were sociable, passionate and colourful, collecting photos of shirt swaps with any passing fans of other clubs.

Watched every minute of every game and enjoyed all of them - particular memories on field- Salford over Hudds, HKR's last minute winner, trying to work out who the outstanding Hull full back was (Now know - yet another Wigan star on the way!), Bulls workrate - could not ask for more in that temp with no subs left, Wigans style of rugby - something to aspire to and result of a few years hard work (I think). Off field - impressive magician! (but not as good as Dynamo), Bananas, Cows, Arab security guards, players past and present, Catalan fans having a ball, heat!

Plenty of food options in and outside the ground, loads going on around the stadium, Stobarts presence added to all this with the "celeb" drivers from the TV series drawing huge queues for photos (beyond me!)

Throughout the weekend - there were as many fans enjoying the music and other entertainment on the concourses as were watching the games. Had everyone sat in the stadium regardless - it would have "looked" better.

In summary - this is a no miss event of you truly enjoy TGG and its something RL can be proud off - the cops on duty just looked on in amazement. You will never ever understand this posting if you watch on TV.

Finally - on day one - the spoiler was the state of (some) people from Hull - who in our section were very drunk, abusive and provocative. This was reserved seating -fighting broke out in more than one area of the lower tiers and the stewards had all on to keep control. This continued as fans left the ground and police were scattering to quell it. As a result - on day two - city centre pubs would only issue plastic glasses to ANYONE wearing a rugby shirt!!!

Day two was devoid of any trouble (as far as I experienced)

it would have been but the jubliee has meant it moved back one week.

Perfect venue for the magic weekend.

The faciliies were outstanding, it's a lovely stadium.

Agree with comments, even if they'd have had Wire vs Catalans and Widnes v London it would have been fairer.

Think league position would be fairer, but would there have been the same amount of Wigan/Saints fans (they were the best supported teams on sunday)

IIRC the RFL changed it from derbies to league positions but then changed it abck as there was less interest in the positions option. Derbies for me.

Yeah, there's the problem.

Derbies will get the crowds (which is obviously why RFL go with it), but it still feels like there's something wrong as they're never going to all be derbies and you get complete mismatches and non-derbies aswell.

Even though I loved the day out, I still have concerns about the event when (it wont affect Bradford or Cas though!) Warrington get given Widnes, Catalans-London etc.

But if it can pull in a decent crowd and most of the games are a good advert for RL then the RFL won't scrap it.

Personally id keep the derby games but make a slight amendment and have - Wire Vs Catalans & Widnes Vs London, for me that would of been more entertaining regardless of wire/widnes being a derby

No I wasn't, I watched at home. It looked 50% full at best at its busiest. Based on the ticket sales even if everyone who bought a ticket was in the stadium at the same time it wouldn't even be at 60% capacity.

Wasnt that because the 3rd tier wasnt opened tho anyway, from what i could make out throughout our game with leeds is that the lower tier was more or less full and the second tier becoming clsoe to filling up, so that 2 tiers of a fairly big stadium that were more or less full, id say that was a good turnout and also wasnt the attendance for sunday about 32,000 ??

Didn't go on Saturday but it looked to me that the attendance in the ground on Sunday peaked at the start of the Wigan v saints game at 20-25,000

I went on Sunday and during the Bulls v Rhinos it felt and looked fairly full. Generally there were tonnes of people outside going round the fanzone. I think people need to get over looking at the inside of the stadium as a measure of how popular or not the event is, the bits outside make it different to a normal league game and as such people spend time there.

A really good event overall

I agree. Very few fans are going to sit through several hours of continuous rl. They're just not used to it, don't have the appetite. If they're going to continue with the event there has to be an acceptance that large numbers will be outside the ground. And that's a legitimate part of the entertainment