...and a nice young man asked me what I was doing at the weekend?

First, I thought that maybe the RFL was branching out and was setting up some sort of dating agency and I almost replied and said 'I am a married man!'

Then I hoped, that with Saint Steve Ganson on the ref's injury list, that maybe the RFL had seen my eloquent, in depth posts and analysis on both the Laws of the Game and the Operational Rules of the RFL and decided that maybe I was the man to replace him in the middle given their injury crisis... but alas no!

He did however want to know if I was going to Murrayfield for the Wacky Weekend? I said that unfortunately no, we have a 16 month old boy in our house and while he did well at the Hull FC v Leeds cup game, getting him to sit still for longer than 5 seconds was becoming an ever increasing challenge, never mind 4 matches in a day! Also, he is of course mad about the Rhinos and they don't kick-off until 8.00pm and it was past his bedtime!

He thanked me for my time and we both hung-up.

So, ticket sales not going well then!

Still, pleased to see the RFL actually using their marketing database and they tried my mobile prior to them getting me on the land-line, so they were determined! Wonder if they can get around 80,000 fans by the weekend?

got mine yesterday £5 for the day cant complain with that

It may have been on here, may have been in the press but I read somewhere that sales were struggling to reach 30 000 for the whole weekend. It also said that some clubs have had direct sales of.... zilch.

I received a similar call a couple of weeks ago. Imo i feel the Muryfield magic weekend will die a death, it may look embarrasing on the TV

i had the same last week, the bloke asked me would I be attending - I said "no" and was prepared to give him my reasons why not, but he just said thanks and hung up.

surely if they are going to try and do something like that, they should be prepared to get feedback from those that say they are not going to try and improve it for next time.

looking like a record low turnout for the Wacky Weekend - hopefully back to Cardiff in 2011.

have you seen the superleagues supermen thing on skys website? in the interview with Jamie Peacock he suggests that the whole season starts in London, Magic Weekend style. he argues that it would get the attention of the london media and help out the quins market themselves and the sport. dont think its a bad idea myself, if there was a suitable ground to do it, assuming wembley is either too big and the pitch too fragile, i think it would work rather well.

Hmmm, February, London? Cold - yes, wet - probably, snowing - possibly given this year, cheap time for London - yes, the weather is rubbish! Not for me unless they build a London Super Dome!

agree if could find a smaller stadium could work, but conditions will be poor, and it could be rather embarrasing in a empty wembley stadium infront of all the press, could set RL back even further

Stick it in the Emirates in July time.

Going to ring for mine today, who do you reckon is the better option? HQ or the RFL?

This presents some of the same problems having it Edinburgh in May does. Hotels in Edinburgh are probably more expensive than in London in May I suspect, as there are less beds available, but July & August in London is peak tourist season and weekend hotel beds are very expensive. Plus, you are now less than 8 weeks away from the Challenge Cup in London at the end of August.

Cardiff worked to some extent because it was cheaper than either Edinburgh or London, the stadium has a roof, weather good, keep it open, weather bad, close it.

Pretty good idea. But could only see it happening at Wembley as they 1) Are desperate to hold any type of revenue-generating event there 2) Have to keep relaying the pitch anyway. It wouldn't sell out, but would sell a hell of a lot more tickets than Murryafield.

Arsenal/Tottenham etc would not allow 7 RL games to be played on their pitches during the football season. The Stoop is too small and unatmospheric. The Olympic Stadium would be an option post-2012.

thats a good point i hadnt considered, no premiership team would allow 7 rl games in 2 days to be played on their pitch

I think holding it at the City of Manchester stadium would be a good call. A few problems though. Like craig said, a football club is unlikely to let 7 games of rugby be played at a crucial time in their season and holding it in Manchester is kind of getting away from the whole 'weekend away' idea that the RFL are going for. I'd say given the distances involved, only Quins, Crusaders, Catalan (if any) and maybe Hull fans will be more inclined to stay in Manchester for the whole weekend. You've then got to think about how good the attendance will be based on how likely people are to go on the day that their team isn't playing if they're not making a weekend of it.