I agree scrap it, or exclude it as a superleague fixture. Are we the only sport that play teams home and away then ADD ONE for novelty value (in the name of advertising the game).

If they want a wacky weekend make it a constructive double header international one involving England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales..............each year played at a different venue like Manchester, Dublin, Edinburgh or Cardiff.

Does no one recall the constant thread on here every year complaining about the extra derbies for Millennium Magic being yet one more reason (alongside it being in Cardiff) why the weekend was an outrage and doomed to failure?

=#BF0000How would transplanting 7 SL fixtures with the CC round 5 games give the top 8 teams' players a rest? Most of the top 8 teams make the 5th round of the cup each year. Are you suggesting that these clubs should rest their first team in round 5 and risk a cup exit? I can't see them going for that.

=#4000FFWhat has this to do with the Challenge Cup. The participants in round 5 are decided by the results of round 4 so what is all the top 8 and extra 8 places business?

=#00BF00You seem to have 3 or 4 teams competing in the same games here. Why? Random draw after a 3rd round of what? The CC doesn't use seeding during draws. Is this still meant to be part of the CC competition as well as Magic weekend? It doesn't seem to be that in any way

Cardiff is the perfect venue for this type of event - had we been in Cardiff this year, I would certainly have been there.
I've heard the arguments against Cardiff as a location but from a personal point of view I've been to Cardiff for every CC Final and Magic Weekend and never had trouble getting decent price city centre accommodation.

Got it spot on, for me.

I understand that the clubs want to get rid of the weekend altogether and move one round of the comp from Easter.

If its going to carry on it needs to go back to south wales.

I agree about the unfair fixture list. In 2008 we played saints 4 times, they finished top! Leeds 3 times, finished second, and Catalans 3 times, they finished 3rd. How is that a fair fixture list?

I love the idea but it is unfair.

The fact that Wigan played all those teams that many times was a large part of where they finished



I still think my Royal Rumble idea is better. Start with 13 players from each side on the pitch, one ref. Ball is pumped high into the sky and when it drops it's play on. Anyone being tackled has to leave the arena. Real entertainment and you'd get 70,000 people and more publicity than if David Beckham shagged Mylie Cyrus and Jordan on live tv.

Since when was RL fair ?

I hope so. I always assumed the argument in favour of two games over Easter was the opportunity to pull bumper holiday crowds, but we now seem to have coaches trying to pull strings to get their Good Friday game brought forward to Thursday night to give more recovery time before the second match, which defeats the object and makes it more difficult for a lot of people to see the match. The intensity of the game at Superleague level these days makes it optimistic to expect teams to play two full blooded matches with only two days off in between and still serve up a top class spectacle both times.

The Magic Weekend was less illogical when the Magic games constituted one of five additional rounds, but now it's the only additional round on top of everyone playing each other home & away, it looks a bit daft to me.

Cardiff was a uniquely appropriate venue - stadium right in the heart of a compact city centre, covered pitch so no worries about 48 hours of rain rendering the later games a farce. I enjoyed my weekend in Edinburgh last year, but the rugby itself somehow seemed almost incidental.

Since Ive always pushed the last 16 idea I thought for a change I'd put the fixtures in.



I think the magic concept is good for both the growth of the game and as an opportunity to poke through into national coverage.

But it doesn't quite work on the field for me and at its heart should be the element of knockout competition that the cup brings.

As an extra set of SL fixtures its unbalanced.

To give a minimum of 2 national league sides the opportunity to reach a another showpiece event and be inclusive adds another dimension and it would have the potential to be celebration of RL that since the wembley move back the CC final lacks a bit.

Why would they need to be given a bye? That's just contrived and stupid. Just have a straight competition as now and reduce SL to 26 rounds. Then everyone gets a week off.

if the RFL are not losing money on this event & between 30/40 thousand are turning up to watch it live,how is it failing?

it seem to me the only problem with the event is the promotion in the host city.

I would like to see the Magic Weekend return to the derby format like I mentioned in a previous thread they are not alot of fixtures that are eye catching and that maybe a turn off for people wanting to go, as for the stadium and the city it is hosted in I cant really say untill I go to Edinburgh next weekend however I went to Cardiff two years ago and enjoyed it, and as for what date the event is staged it dosent bover me that it is staged on the May day bank holiday however like alot of people have said it would be great as opener to the new Super League season.

In February? Chances are it'd be fekkin freezing. Can't see too many wanting to sit through 3 or 4 games, particularly kids.

Good point I dont see how it is failing either if the event makes a profit and helps to expand the game. The draw for the fixtures was unlucky this year with not many exciting games. I dont think a third derby fixture is the answer though, id have 1v2 3v4 5v6 7v8 9v10 11v12 13v14 from the previous years table. Fixtures can be announced in september the year before and all should be close games.

That was in 2008 though, when there were only 12 teams. I think the RFL were being extremely stupid when they decided to go with 4 derbies. I mean really, what was the point? 3 made sense: home, away and neutral. 4 was complete overkill. And what was more annoying for me was when they decided to scrap the derbies at TMW because "there were too many" and went straight back to 2 (at the same time the SL went to 14 teams, hence getting rid of the need to play some teams more than twice).

If you have to play one team three times, it might as well be a good match choice. They never needed to go with the 4 derbies route in 2007 and 8.

I think you're confusing what the coaches want to do with what the clubs want to do. I very much doubt the clubs will want a reduction in fixtures, especially when the majority are making large losses.

Personally I'd like to see the Magic Weekend moved to the CC 5th Round (and even the quarters and semis) so that the CC is a neutral competition and all clubs know where they are playing in the next round before it's even been drawn. I think it will bring more magic to the cup (and it's a Magic Weekend after all!), with the draw being after the last game of every round to keep people in the stadium.

Super League goes back to an even 26 games, with the extra fixture being replaced with an international weekend.

And give fans of non-Super League clubs barely a couple of weeks to organise travel and accomodation. No thanks.

As far as I'm concerned, the Magic weekend is a Super League brainwave and as such should be kept as far away from the Challenge Cup as possible.

You're kidding aren't you? Wigan v Hudds looks to be a cracker ditto Saints v KR, Hull v Quins is always an interesting tie and a couple of the others don't look too shabby either. While there are no "headline" games neither are there any games that will be a snoozefest either.

I'm becoming less of a fan of the "magic" weekend the more times they do it.

But they could have easily have created massive excitement by basing the fixtures on the previous weeks league table.

So we could have (on current table)

1st v 2nd (Wigan v Warrington)
3rd v 4th (St Helens v Huddersfield)
5th v 6th (Bradford v Hull)
7th v 8th (Hull KR v Wakefield)
9th v 10th (Leeds v Crusaders)
11th v 12th (Salford v Castleford)
13th v 14th (Catalans v Harlequins)

You can't get more even than that and it would create excitement in the build up to the event, not knowing who your going to be playing.

Personally I think it would be brilliant and apart from maybe 13th v 14th every match would be vital to top 8, top 4 or top spot ambitions and hardly anyone could complain of an advantage (apart from maybe Leeds who for this event would perhaps benefit from a poor start).

Day 1 looks pretty poor this year. Will be interesting to see how many fans choose to attend both days.

Is it? Did you not see the borefest at the start of the season? I find our games against the Quins the most uninteresting fixture of our season.

You could always space out the rounds so that there is more space between games than at the moment. As of now, there are 3 weeks between every round apart from the quarters and the semis (which for some reason there is a 10 week gap?!). Plenty of room to manoeuvre there.

And why is it only non-SL clubs that have less time? Last time I checked, SL clubs aren't guaranteed a 5th round spot (just ask fans of Hull FC, Hull KR, Wakefield, Cas and Salford!).

Then there is always the possibility that a team would draw a French based team or a London based team anyway, so at least you know where you're going and can plan BEFORE you know if you'll be there or not, and then go through with it after.


I'd be happy with it to stay in SL, but think it would be better suited to the cup (neutrality reasons, more on the line, more magic in the cup, etc.)

Fair points, but it would remove all benefits of getting a home tie, while removing the possibility of lower league clubs getting a lucrative draw in the 5th Round.