Plymouth! Coast sun and a stadium that looks like it will be empty next year.

I think the suggestion is that a mill comes from the event overall not that the available funding from the now 4 bodies in wales that support it has necessarily gone up.

lol - bloody right. Not sure the locals ould be as friendly as the welsh though

No. It's a widely quoted figure from the events inauguration in 2007

Aye, that's the way to reach out to a new audience and lose the "insular northern minority sport" tag - hold it in Manchester or Leeds.

Lol love it the season has just started and heartlands has been spouted already.

Please mr mod can we have a heartlands ticker at the top of the forum.

So 3 1/2 years ago and venue has been mIves in-between? I know you like your facts... Maybe you can help out?

I'd say the article was a fair comment on the event. Opening the season with a full televised programme of 7 games is likely to cause indigestion for the less committed. And it was clear that some of the teams needed a game to shake off close season rustiness. There were a couple of good games and a few fairly average.

The event was by no means a disaster but not a major triumph. Pretty much what might be expected.

I think that you would actually have to be there in order to fully appreciate the event. But you just cannot get away from the fact that it is a T.V. event too, and the atmosphere generated from a three quarter empty stadium looks and feels flat. It lacks the vibrancy excitement of a game played in a full stadium. It also does no favours at all to the sports image.

I still think MM is a good idea though. There aren’t as many trophies to win as there used to be and the game is lacking these big events. I think that the RFL should persevere with this idea and keep it in Cardiff as the opening to the season. Hopefully it will grow and more and more fans will turn up.

I wouldn’t go if my team isn’t playing but, if they ever do play at MM, I’d love to go. I think, unless he is simply a T.V. critic, that any sports journo doing a write up on the event should actually have gone too.

So you won't be going then.

Maybe, maybe not.

We'll know on March 31st, won't we?

I look forward to seeing you there next year then



(the think with Kelner is he writes a column on sport on TV - he's not a sports reporter)

Well, if this piece was written from the point of view of a T.V. critic, some of his comments are understandable. I may not like them, but they are issues which the RFL need to address.

I would suspect it is a completely different experience for an RL fan actually attending the event.



I’ve already got my eye on a few hotels in Cardiff.

Just in case like.

I didn't think the atmosphere felt flat but then again I stood with the fans of different clubs with each game, thought us, Bradford, Salford, Crusaders and both hull clubs really generated some noise.

Quite!


On T.V.


Not on T.V.

I have not read any reviews on millennium magic yet but I suppose the majority don't mention the good(and friendly) banter you can have with other fans in the stadium and in the pubs across cardiff. The attendances are not good enough but i love how you can walk into a pub and hear fans singing songs to each other. I bet in other sports the owners of pubs would be worried about fights breaking out when fans mix together.

To be fair although we had a really good mix there are some idiots about namely someone from Salford who decided to shout "f***** come over here and say that" to a Crusader fan who was just chanting and also Hull KR and Hull FC fans who also decided to kick off a little bit.

some mics pointing at the crowd and not the refs gob would make a world of difference!

The article started rubbish and got worse.

It hurled itself into a barrel of mire when it said that not once in 7 games did it come close to equalling the goal celebrations from a troll faced granny shagging chav.

1. It makes the RLF a LOT of money
2. It is a marquee event to start the season (Prime time news on Saturday, Sunday and Monday morning. When did RL last do that?)
3. The most damaging thing RL has against it at times are its own fans.