Burnout was to blame for England reaching their full potential in the world cup (Failing!)?


Wow....and excuse for everything.

([ian[/i excuse)
i'd have said it's cos we were nowhere near good enough

Thanks for correcting me, thank god you did...I couldnt have lived with myself otherwise.


And be honest, you dont care about the WC, just as long as you local pub team is doing well.

"Can you imagine Premier League clubs complaining about travelling to Portsmouth or having to play away in Europe a few times a season?


good point but it did amuse me as Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn has done exactly that - travelling for a monday night game - to Portsmouth is tough on fans and players - Fergie's not happy either about a saturday lunchtime at Middlesboro- theyre getting as bad as us

RL needs to develop a bigger presence across the country and internationally, we surely can all accept that? The players have a responsibility to promote and develop the sport of RL as a whole. They are not bigger than the sport, even though they may be beginning to think so.

If they don’t like the weekend, fine – I can accept that. But publicly slating the event before it has even happened is completely pointless. Did James Graham express these views in his post-World Cup review interview? Who knows, but suddenly going public 4 days before the event and causing all this negative publicity goes a massive way to ensuring that it will be a flop. A Jocko who may have been thinking about attending (or even watching it on TV) will see these top players commenting on what a waste of time it is, and probably decide that if the players can’t even be bothered with it, why should he.

Magic Weekend has never been held in Scotland before - interesting how you can already label it an ill founded concept. How much money does it make for the RFL? That will be the deciding factor as to whether it is ill-founded surely?

RL is not a sport rich enough to turn it's nose up at cities offering to pump over half a million pounds into the game for playing some matches in their back yard.



How do you know they will "balk" at it? Shouldn't we give it until the end of the contract next year to decide that?



It ticks the profit box and the getting 7 games on TV in one weekend box and the introducing new fans to the game box.

Seems like a decent number of boxes to me.

Playing one less league game a season as a result? Maybe he's driving the coach or something? Extra stress of playing in a big stadium?

Yes and the fact that the saints and leeds players didn't get on and there were fractions in the camp.

I don't ever recall Wigan complaing about the number of games or promoting the sport when they were winning everything (although I admit its easier to discuss things and see interviews due to the internet). saints seem to think they are above the game as a whole.

Maybe Cunningham, Wilkin and Graham should opt to not play in the play-offs and Gf in order to prepare themselves physically and mentally for international footy?

Quote from FTV
RL is not a sport rich enough to turn it's nose up at cities offering to pump over half a million pounds into the game for playing some matches in their back yard.
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Thats a valid point but are the Scottish Tourist Board giving the RFL Cash or is it a contra deal - i cant see them doing fronting up a wedge of cash and picking up the tab of the RFL and the teams and its unlikely that the RFL could afford to hire murrayfield/Millenium for 2 days off its own bat

i asked that question in 2007 of the Welsh Tourist board and the reply i got said that they picked up the tab for the clubs/RFL and came to arrangement with the Millenium over the hire cost- - the Tourist board looked to cover their financial requirement and make a profit through the influx of visitors - all sounds logical.

But no Cash payment up front - the RFLs main income was from ticket sales and they publicly said that the first millenium produced a net profit of about £400k on ticket sales of 57000 - more free tickets/concessions had been made available as it was the first MM and they wanted to maximise numbers- no problem with that its speculate to accumulate- there were less giveaways in 2008

anyway clearly there is some sort of deal otherwise the event wouldnt happen - but im not certain the arrangments are quite so advantageous as you make out hence the very hard sell from Red Hall

£400k profit for 1 weekend sounds pretty good to me. add in the SKY deal for 27 games, sponsorhip based on 27 games etc and you will get well above £500k profit.

can you explain where youve got the additional £100k from i dont see Sky sponsoring MM in any way separately from their overall deal and Engage's sponsorship covers every round anyway - this is not extra to the main sponsors package -

the profit in 2007 was based purely on gate money there were no " extras" . the clubs received very little of this hence some of them feeling a bit miffed .

it might look a nice round figure but given how much time and energy (which is months) so many people have spent on promotion/advertising etc the net return on investment is not that great in percentage terms

Yeah, sod the £400k if we need to work for it.

Been to The Twickenham Stoop recently

come on its a hardly a lottery win is it , probably about a month or 2 running costs at Red Hall covered - probably got more from this years WCC for a lot less time and effort

SKY are paying an amount based on a certain number of games per year they broadcast – it stands to reason that if we give them 7 less games we will lose % of the money they put into the game. I worked out the SKY deal the other day as worth around £500k per round, and whilst I know it’s not quite as simple as that, it gives a good indication as to the value they put on a weekend of games. From what I remember of last year, there was also extra sponsors on hand just for this weekend.



Why should the clubs receive any of it directly? It is an extra game that wouldn’t be occurring anywhere otherwise. As you said, all their costs are paid for, so they are not losing anything.



Well you initially said it was £400k profit, not revenue.

Anyways, that is generally how things work in business (the RFL are a business afterall), you put effort in and get money back. It is not very often that you get given free money.

OK, I get it. You think it's a bad idea and that we don't need the cash or exposure. I think otherwise and can't wait for my flight tomorrow.

Hope you enjoy watching the games on TV, it should be great.

if it covers 2 months of costs at Red Hall, that sounds fairly significant.

Anyway, it is £400k from another budget that can be spent on development in Cumbria.

I get the feeling that phillipk might be there regardless of his thoughts on the event itself

If only Graham and Cunningham had concentrated on preparing for the game rather than slagging off the concept ...

with official attendance less than 30k in rugby unions scottish home, i think we need a serious debate about the pr value of the magic weekend.

1 its bloody embarrasing
2. it shows our sport in a bad light
3. the games are played in a weird atmos
4. kick and clap mob wet themselves
5 real fans miss out to local cheapies / freebies due to expense of travel etc
6 fixtures are random surely whole sport need one home and one away game against each team?
7. im sorry expansionists but it didnt work in wales so why will it work in scotland?
8. and most importantly... i hate it!

I agree

Let it run.

Orville and Wilbur crashed loads of times.

but to be fair not with a product that had beed used perfectly well for over a hundred years!

I agree, I bet they'll take some right stick from the fans this weekend.
Deservedly so, anything they put out should be put through the club

Can't have been that perfect if they're still trying stunts like MM