On the plus side, there should be a lot more rooms available. cant imagine tourism being that strong for that time of year.

If that rumour is true, that the Millennium Stadium surely will be packed. Hope they can pull it off!

Same story from the BBC 5-live commentary last Friday evening.

doubt it will stop the cottage burners from over-charging but a good move IMO....ROOF ON, long weekend (friday/monday) booked off and no excuse for a less than 50k turn out....take quins, Salford and catalans out of the sums and 80k is easily achievable. 3...nearly 4 months of not seeing your team play and 500 notes for a weekend should be nothing.....might even get a bit of national attention if the BBC do a 1 hr summary programme at 9pm 9NOT 4 AM) each day....with a full highlights package on at 7pm Monday BBC2. If it happens...i might even trouble the travel agents over here TBH.....

Its the Six Nations around that time of year. If the rumour is true you'd hope the RFL have checked the dates for availability. Then again.....

You would hope they have. You don't want Wales playing England at Union in the stadium and us lot playing in the car park!

Joking aside it might be a good idea that works.

that would be brilliant, both because of the location and also as a season opener

thats a great way to start the season with a bang

whoever thought of this needs a real pat on the back

I just dont like the derby fixtures.
As a Wire fan I must say its unfair on Wigan/Saints having to play each other a third time while we get to put the annual 50/60 on Salford.

Gods Own Country against them lot from across the River Severn is on Friday 4th Feb next year so that weekend would be out for the Millennium Stadium. the only way to do it would be to move the start of superleague XVI a week either way so that it either starts a week earlier or a week later than this year. If this idea does go ahead what would happen to the GF winners rearranged fixture for the WCC? Personally I would love to see the maginc weekend back in Cardiff - if only because its on my doorstep!

This year was moved forward a week to give time for the England team to get to Ockerland for the four nations.

Not just that, but given the difficulty in maintaining a playing surface at that time of year how likely are the WRU going to be to allow 7 games to be played on it over two days with the roof shut (thereby not allowing any natural light into the stadium)?

Good idea if true!

Would open the season with a bang rather than a snowy Crusaders vs Leeds for the 3rd year running and it may be cold and pitch may not hold up but i'm sure numbes would up as people would need their RL fix after months away plus could keep the temperature up and pitch in ok condition with the roof shut.

Don't see the WRU buying into this at all - the pitch would never take it. If they did agree I'd be very suprised. There's also the problem of a season launch when the GF winners and possibly Quins as well have played the previous week to accommodate the waste of time that's the WCC.

If it's a season opener then i very much doubt we'll see many families. After Christmas i'm always struggling for cash and i can't justify spending xxx so soon. Sorry but it's a no from me

A tangerine and a small handful of nuts stuffed into a childs sock always delight kids on Christmas morning and are an ideal gift from those discerning parents who would sooner spend their money on a trip to the footy than waste money on lots of expensive chinese plastic junk for their offspring.

does the stadium belong to the WRU?if not they may have very little say in it.

I would be wearing one of those beer-jackets. Always warm after a few of them.

If you need to get the GF winners playing an early game, the best solution would be to get them to play Catalans in Perp the week before. You would still be kicking off the SL in the UK that weekend and this would allow for a fixture that gives Catalans a week off the same week as the England-France mid-season match.

its been said before and worth saying again. if you are going to have it as an opener then you need the millennium stadium as it has a roof.
would it be a bit closer to the six nations time though?

never understood why wembley wasn't built with a roof but thats for another day

According to [url=http://www.wembleystadium.com/brilliantfuture/thenewdesign/keyfeatures.htmthis[/url, Wembley does have a roof...

Surely the idea of having the weekend opener at the Millennium Stadium is to start the season off with a bang, and not have a fixture moved to the start of the season to accommodate the WCC.

It's not difficult to solve really, is it? Move the season a week early and have the WCC on a stand alone weekend. The season opener is an event in it's own right then, and the WCC is also an event that people may want too attend (rather than it interfering with their club's SL fixture that weekend). The RFL seem to have managed to make both of these as small an event as possible the way they've got it!

Wembley does have a retractable roof. It just doesn't shut all the way.

Move it back to Cardiff and have it as the first game, maybe with the WCC being there.

Also bring back the derbies.

Bring in the championship teams on the other pitch which Cardiff RU play on.

Do this and we will easily get 45k on each day, maybe more.

So simple & makes far too much sense.

We need to be careful with the bold predictions. I don't feel we will get an almost 30k increase on previous Cardiff events.

There is no Bank Holiday weekend in Feb, meaning the Sunday would have a lower crowd than normal, and put simply, it's not a great time to go away for a weekend. One of the charms of these events is being able to sit outside and have a drink, sitting inside the dark Millenium Stadium for two days is not going to draw the thousands in.

That said, there are plenty of pro's for this, so it would be interesting to see if they went for it.