Yes I agree.



No offence but have you actually ever been to Cardiff? I recall you didn't even know there was more than one main exit from Cardiff Central train station and also that you didn't think many people from 'the valleys' tend to get off at Queen St rather than Central. Do you know the area at all?



No they don't. You could market RL as much as you want in South Wales and the locals won't want to know about it. Well certainly not enough to justify the outlay. As we know the populace of South Wales failed to embrace the Celtic Crusaders- thats despite them being put almost straight into Super league. And how many bona fide South Walians attended Millennium Magic? You could send Tom Jones and St David himself into the schools armed with freebie tickets and it wouldn't work. And what video would you show them to get them 'excited'? And why would you give away free tickets to an area that offers a better view of things than the ones that people have actually paid for? Not really fair is it?



So if I live in the far north of Scotland or somewhere miles away and I'm forking out £40+ a month for my SkySports package to watch Rugby League yet the only games of the magic weekend I could have watched were Hull FC v Hull KR and St Helens v Wigan am I going to be impressed?

2 games out of 7 available ones for me to watch on Sky does not represent good value for money.


You havent thought your ideas through have you?

Pmsl oh Phipps my dear lad I think cru has probably been to Cardiff more than a few times

PHIPPS - you actually managed to start a sensible, indeed good, thread. Don't derail your own efforts by rerunning yours and Cru's boring and interminable argument over Cardiff. Otherwise I'd be forced to take some sort of moderating action (and that applies to Cru as well)

Im a Doncaster fan so went as a neutral supporter. We also went up to Murrayfield last year and I thought it was better in the Millennium Stadium with the roof closed.Loads warmer than last year.

Had good views inside the ground on the unreserved bottom tier.I think they wanted the bottom tier to look as full as possible for the cameras though by cramming everyone in round one side though.

Has a great weekend all in all. The hotel near Newport was bang on and saw some great games. My only sore point was on the sunday. We watched the first 2 games with no bother at all with nice people around us all talking about the games and incidents in them etc. Then it changed when the Hull derby was about to start. It ended up in us and about 20 other people around us moving to other areas of the ground due to certain fans behaviour which i thought was a disgrace. Especially one classy 40 odd year old woman whose family must be so proud of her! The stewards on the gate didnt want to know either.

Apart from that it was a great time and I would go again but I will sit away from certain fans in the future.

Poor old flips, the poor mans dally. I'm actual warming to him like a lion warms to an injured antelope.

Superb weekend, so many laughs with fans from all clubs and O'Neils on Saturday night was fantastic

although had to laugh at some Wire fans who took offence to barking noises we made!

Brilliant weekend.
If you knock this event you probably have not been so give it a go.

Don't know why as we were making the noises ourselves. Especially when he scored our 1st try, and when it looked like he'd got a 2nd.

I won't be replying don't worry.

I realise it's not just me he tries to wind up and thought he would debate but he seems to just resort to slagging a place off and reverting to type so we get nowhere.

I'll leave everybody else to have their 'fun'. I'm bored of him and his games to be honest.

Nailed on to be Warringtons top try scorer this year.

It wouldn't surprise me at all to see him finish as top try scorer in the whole of superleague actually.

The group that complained were brilliant


1st time we did it, middle aged guy in front of us went to stewards and made a compliant of "obscene abuse", The steward had a word with us and when one of my mates explained the "doggy" story the steward couldn't stop laughing and laughed at the "numpty" Wire fans



2nd time we did it a guy (same group) asked If I had experianced a "dog", I replied no as I wasn't from Lancashire/Cheshire (sorry folks!)

3rd time a guy had a pop at a Saints poster on here (Ski) and didn't know understand Preston wasnt in St Helens

I thought he looked a bit shaky at times but he will do well

BJ-B could be a good bet

3rd Magic I've been to. Loved this one more then the previous 2 as I went for the weekend as opposed to just 1 day. Had a good laugh with a lot of different set of fans. Most people behaved really well considering masses of ale was consumed.

The only negative was travelling home feeling dog rough this morning.

Are you an Aussie who plays for Warrington by any chance?

With the amount I supped on Saturday, I wouldn't rule anything out.

Cobblers! Me daughter's the veggie you cheeky Northern monkey! I'll outdo Desperate Dan when it comes to eating cow pies!!

What you doing taking ' wimmin ' t't rugby ?

Arent the RFL paid a substantial amount by the Wales Tourist Board to bring the event to Cardiff, surely mitigating the outlay of attracting some new fans to the sport?



is your argument here that marketing the Magic weekend would be pointless because no one from S. Wales came this time around? seems like the most obvious solution to attracting more fans would be to market/promote the weekend better.



As opposed to every other round of Super League?




i dont think youve thought your trolling through have you?

i would offer every person that was going to attend a Wales 6 nations game this year a ticket to MM for a fiver. if there were 75 000 people in attendance for the Wales England game, then a 1.5% take up would be an extra 1000 people there.

i would have done something similar with the Cardiff City fans that were in the City on Saturday afternoon. Once their game had finished at 5pm, get them in the ground with a cheap ticket for the Wigan Sts game.

if i was the RFL, i would be employing Gareth Thomas to sell absolutely every aspect of RL in Wales for the next year. starting with the 4 nations games that Wales will be hosting, and then straight into the Magic Weekend off the back of that.

the RFL is doing some really good ticket bundle offers with the Challenge Cup and Grand Final, there is no reason the same cant be done in Wales with the 4 nations and MM.

also, i would be promoting Welsh RL in the stadium between matches. Scorpians play here, there are X number of amateur teams in this area etc etc.

The MM concept is really good theres no reason it cant help develop the game in Wales, and promotoe the game at a national level at the same time.

My main criticism is that arriving at Cardiff Central, there was no advertising to be seen, no highlighting that the weekend was taking place. Hopefully there were activities and events in the city centre, but between the train station and the stadium, all i noticed was a poster in a bar advertising it as 'the official pre and post match venue of MM'.

great concept and enjoyed watching most of the games on the TV. The RFL just need to get better at marketing to the Welsh public and somehow get another 10K+ locals along.

I enjoyed the whole experience, will go where ever it is next year. I know before somebody posts that Saturday was probably our last MM for at least 3 years, but i willl go back for the chance to meet up with other RL fans again.

Why are you assuming that Welsh football supporters would want to come and watch 2 English sides play a game of Rugby league?

I guess with the marketing side of things was that the games were advertised on ITV but only in Granada & Yorkshire. Maybe they could have done ITV Wales & West along with S4C.

Went for the weekend (Friday-Monday) - we've attended all of the magic weekends and although Edinburgh was cheaper (camp site) you can't beat Cardiff. Location, location, location.

Met some lovely supporters of other teams and apart from my team losing, had a great time. Just wish they would put it back to the 2nd bank holiday in May.

Alot of people slate the Millenium magic experience and most of them are people that couldn't be bothered to make the trip down. Yes I know alot of people can't afford it. I've certainly being in that position but when you have people mocking the event due to it's attendance and they say in the same breath I've never being to the MM and will never go. It's rubbish the crowds are crap and the RFL should scrap it you then have to laugh. If all supporters could buy in to what the RFL are trying to achieve then this could be an amazing way to start our season every year. If you don't go for whatever reason then fair enough just don't knock it if you can't be bothered to get yourself down to Cardiff and sample the experience. I think the event should stay and i can see 100% that if the RFL stick with this it will grow just like the grand final has.