Was talking to a well known ex-player & you'll find most of the players don't like the Magic weekend, YES it great for us fans but the players this day & age 5 hour bus trip or more can't go into the stadium untill 1 hour before the game it all seems a bit rushed for them & there was 3 teams in the same hotel last year all in each other way that not good peperation & then when it comes to the end of the match there rushed off.
How could the RFL make it better for them maybe a Plane up to the venue could be one don't know about the rest.

As a fan i utterly love it in Cardiff, Mingling with all the other fans having a pint or 2 & i'll be there in Edinburgh hopfully doing the same.

Indeed, because Scotland will wont it!

Whether we agree with James Graham's comments or not, it will be interesting to see if his negative comments have any effect on his team's performance on the weekend.

imo Jamie Peacock's negative comments at the beggining of the season has rubbed off on his Leeds team mates and you can see it in their body language.

As I said on the Saints board, it's the timing of this that winds me up.

there's plenty time for debate after the event - through the appropriate channels rather than a high profile player ranting in the press. Why put a downer on something that is due to take place in 5 days? Does Jammer think they might cancel it midweek?

Graham is developing a propensity for shooting his mouth off - blasting the RFL for trying to take RL to other regions p*sses me off. He has a well paid job and the poor love has to go up to Edinburgh to play in a famous international stadium so that Scots get to see SL live and so that those amongst us who want to go up and enjoy the weekend can do so.

No doubt if the RFU had a similar event their players would hype it up rather than badmouthing it and we'd all look on enviously and whinge that the RFL doesn't have the balls to do something similar.

Two fixtures in a weekend over Easter is one gripe. But if he wasn't playing in Edinburgh this weekend he'd be playing in some little northern backwater town and nobody outside of said town would pay any attention. If he can't be bothered travelling a few hundred miles to play the sport he's paid to play and to play a part in taking the sport to a potential expansion area, then that says more about him than the RFL.

That is the end game, yes. We'll start with a third tier side first though hey.

The guy is clueless as can be seen from his comments regarding Cumbria. I'm all for a Cumbrian SL side but not a magic weekend as it doesn't have the infrastructure. Also, he has no care for the expansion or growth of the game which pays him a handsome wage. Tool

His dad is cumbrian - I imagine that's where that particular flatcapping comment comes from.

That would be you and 'clueless' James Graham in agreement then!!

Agreed he makes a good point.

Magic Weekend should be scrapped - Graham . i agree lets bring STATE OF ORIGIN over

he's up

Does he really have a point? Arent the RFL making a nice profit out of this event? Thats the impression i got, which would make his comment a bit daft because were not spending any money on the magic weekend so how could it be spent on cumbria instead exactly?

exactly!!! i'm sure he wasnt complaining about these ventures as he settled down into his business class flight to Australia for the World Cup.

I do see James Grahams point. We all make fun of Union converts that "sing from the union hymn book". We all exercise our opinions on here why not the players.

27 rounds of Rugby is pretty pointless if you have an 8 team play off and a load of internationals at the end of the season. Surely a shorter schedule would be better and losing the Magic Weekend would be a good start.

I had also thought that having the Magic Weekend (new name please) at the beginning of the seaon would result in a bigger turn out. It also is a distance away from any other event on the calender (hopefully the wcc will move to the end of the season at some point). I would also be more likely to go to the other games to see new signing play for their new clubs.

It is a shame it is not still at cardiff because we could have the roof shut in Feb. It would be an excellent launch to the season.

Graham has an unhealthy obsession with cumbria, if it was down to him he'd kick out leeds for a club in the ar$e end of nowhere just because daddys from there



Ginger t0$ser

hes got a right to his opinion, im another who thinks its getting out of hand. france,cardiff,london,wembley murryfield,and old trafford if you are luckky to get there, it gets very expensive if you have a family. so cas till i die just because everyone does not agree with you we are all t-----s .

Aren't you spectacularly missing the point?

MMis arranged as an EXTRA round of matches, specifically to have a big showcase weekend at a prestigious location, with saturated TV coverage.

If they didn't arrange it at such a place in such a way, there wouldn't be a game. At all. So you're not missing anything if you don't want to go, are you? You're not being "deprived" of a game?

And it's not as if you can't wacth your team - and all the others too - all weekend if you don't want to go, or can't afford it?

Oh dear what an idiot. The classic flat cappers uneducated 'time and money' comment that completely misses the point of it all.

I think its the RFL who are clueless. They promote a welsh team into superleague and move the "magic" weekend to Scotland.

They schedule the games at the time when football is coming to its final phase and cricket starts.

The supporters pump in reportingly 9-10 millionquid into the Edinburgh poulation economy where there is no prescence of rugby league.
The local people propbably get subsidised tickets while the real supports pay full price.

The matches are only available to the "sky" viewers.
If it rains over the weekend then the last 2 matches on the Sunday could be a farce if the pitch doesn't hold up.

Why can,t we just play teams home and away or maybe the RFL are thinking next magic weekend in Dubai = Clueless.

My sentiments exactly.

Here's your choice James:

Play 28 games like before MM (and then whinge about fatigue)

or

Play 26 games and take a pay cut (and then whinge about money)

or

Play MM and keep your wage.



Unjustified moans should be banned from the media. He's talking about investing money into Cumbria instead of the Magic Weekend. I don't think he realises that it's not the RFL investing money in this, it's the Tourist Boards of the successful applicants. Why would the Welsh Tourist Board invest in Cumbria?!

Idiot.

Exactly it saves money, saves games, allows an extra international window and an expansion opportunity to boot. It aint perfect, but his reasoning is really wide of the mark. You can see why he's a prop.

James Graham is spot on. The eater fixtures are a joke now - a relic of the bygone era when players clocked off from down't pit, jogged to the match, and trundled around for 80 minutes. Oh and had a good smook on't pipe after the match.

The game has moved on, but RL wants lacks the foresight or gumption to protect it's players.

All the more galling is it's lame and silly efforts to create 'magic' weekends. We know the RL isn't the best promoter of the game and is still struggling to reestablish it's credibility following the catastrophe of World Cups. Immediately springing to mind are Lebanon vs New Zealand in Reading on a cold Tuesday evening and one of the worst whitewashes in sport in recent history.

Granted the RFL have improved their efforts over the last years, but they are clearly inept when it comes to accounting for the needs of players and spreading the game in the first place.

Quite. It makes me cringe when players from Saints do this. As for complaining about travelling for 5 hours, I guess he'd better thank his stars he doesn't play soccer, where they occasionally have to leave the M62.

Graham's a very good player with the potential to become a great prop for GB, but he needs to shut up on this. After all, if we had never tried to take the game to new areas, then would any big ginger scousers find themselves playing professional rugby league and earning a nice mint out of it ?

Think on, James.

hold the world club challenge as the last match of the weekend. that way the aussies cant moan about it bein a trial game and the weekend has a real important match headlining it.

that would leave 13 sl clubs to play each other. the odd one out could play the national league grand final winner just for fun.

So the Aussies are going to send a team over here in the middle of their season? Get real.