Franchise its the future

Im not a big fan of the Magic Weekend at all.

At no point is the crowd sufficient to make it look exciting and worthwhile.

I often think the positive local feedback must come from the local pub landlords!!!

I'd much prefer the idea from about 10 years ago being progressed whereby we have a round "On the road" If stategic and well placed in the right stadiums this must surely be much more worthwhile???

When Cas play Catalan there will be about 800 in a 66 000 stadium!!!! Surely the same game somewhere like Bristol Rovers ground to support Bristol Sonics Development or at Notts County to support the Outlaws development is a better idea. there could then be another 6 projects like that nationwide.

Thoughts?

I think a better format would be to not announce any games and have 1v2 3v4 5v6 7v8 9v10 11v12 13v14 based on the league table from the week before. That would work even better if relegation was in place.

If they had gone with that last year we'd have got

St Helens v Hull KR
Leeds v Huddersfield
Castleford v Harlequins
Wakefield v Hull
Wigan v Catalans
Warrington v Bradford
Salford v Celtic

Then again some teams have played 10 and others 11 so maybe that would be unfair?

I still think it's a good idea though!

It guarantees your playing an important game.

were few and far between , and were mostly locals like me , if the match had been more than a bus ride away I would not have traveled

Generally I would agree BUT doesn't the whole Magic weekend exist because the Welsh Tourist board and Scottish (not quite sure who) pay Superleague to go there for a weekend.

Would the on the road games get sponsorship to cover the short fall if there was no Magic Weekend?

Good point. But im of the opinion that the weekend does more harm than good. The games welfare has to come before deals such as that.

Which is why they need the money

But how much do poor decisions lose RL in the longer term?

And so you have said, for the last three years...

Same with most of the empty cans rattling in this thread really.

to make the magic weekend more attractive it needs either all the games to have more importance, or it needs a figurehead game to be the main event of the weekend. my suggestions would be either:

a) hold the last 16 round of the challenge cup as the magic weekend. thus every game has the importance of progressing to the next round.

or

b) hold the world club championship as the main event of the weekend i.e. the last game on the sunday. the super league team left without an opponent could play the national league 1 champions thus giving some national league representation at the weekend. so for example next years fixtures (building upon the draw that has already been made) would be:

Saints v HKR
Warrington v Salford
Wigan v Huddersfield
Hull v Quins

Bradford v Crusaders
Castleford v Catalans
Wakefield v Barrow
Leeds V Melbourne

If the Magic weekend cannot draw the required support , then drop it , what exactly is the purpose of it ?

looking at the fixtures drawn, the rfl must be ting themselves wondering how many fans will turn up, being a hull fc fan, our game against quins hardly inspires me to travel up to edingburgh, especially when we have catalan away 2 weeks later, can only afford 1 of those trips, so catalan it is.

now, if it was in dublin........

You would need a mortgage to attend

on a par with south of france i would think

also depends how much cash you choose to p!55 up the wall, we do ok as we're not interested in sitting in bars everyday

Have you been to Dublin recently ?

no, i do know it is expensive though, as is france, especially when you visit for the rugby

I never liked the CC idea at MM but ya know..it could really really work, would mean you could have 15 clubs in 2012 too...
come to think of it..brilliant idea

Strange as I can't remember a bad game between us.

It's sole purpose is to identify whingeing, stuck-in-the-past Jonahs who would be happiest if a 30 mile journey was the maximum to be made all season.

And this it does very well.

Not me then

So, Leeds and Wakey get to play for no points?

Unbalanced fixture list gets even more unbalanced.

This just gets better and better

So one of the two teams gets home advantage or do we have to find another neutral venue to play the game?

And what makes you think Melbourne will happily come over here mid season anyway?