We have just got back from a great weekend in Edinburgh.

A few points.....

1). We really liked Edinburgh as a city. Some great pubs, restaurants, and lots to do and see.
2). A lot of Edinburgh 'locals' and people who worked in the city obviously didn't know about the rugby league. A number of taxi drivers asked us what was going on and had no idea or no interest in it.
3). The facilities around the ground were crap. I saw little to do for the kids and I can understand that they must have been bored.
4). Why did the city council not get their act together and put on a shuttle service from the city centre to Murrayfield? If they had charged say, £1 per person, (and the ticket was valid all day), they would make a killing, the shops etc would have more RL fans throughout the day, and it would have also meant that you could have picked and chosen your games. For people who find it hard to walk, (like my auntie and uncle), it was hard going doing the walk.
5). I said to Danny on the way back today that it is a shame that we did not meet up with half the people we had said we would, BUT everything was just too spread out.
6). The scottish RFL missed a great opportunity for marketing. Why not give away a load of things associated with Scotland, or produce merchandise for people to buy to do with Murrayfield and the magic weekend? I saw little merchandising available! To be honest as well, we could have been in any city in the world.
7). Great weekend, but Cardiff by plenty.

My main points as a whole;

1.There was nothing to see or do around the ground.

2. Everything was too spread out.

3.There was no decent concourse, meaning you had to trail a distance up and downstairs to get food.

4.There was no atmopshere in the ground, it just didn't work due to the layout of it.

5.The prices of food and drink were a joke, £4 for a burger and £3.50 a pint meant that it was far too easy to blow a fortune.

Does anyone know if your club was actually better off financialy for trailing all the way to Scotland given that you normally get a good home support anyway? Or would they lose out ,as who pays all expenses etc and is all the ticket money shared out. Do you get extra from the RFL to recompence as there are a few games where you do not get away support eg. Quins,Celts, Cats.To be honest there looked very few at the Huddersfield game but plenty at yours.

great game leeds .credit to rob burrur and ryan hall

This is a ONE-OFF fixture, outside the Home & Away set-up, it's also a promotionally exercise to expand the Game to other areas.

Have to say we had a great weekend , have got no complaints about the stadia or Edinburgh , thought the whole concept was pretty well thought out . there will always be things that can be done better and maybe with legitimate input from attending fans these will improve year on year . prices were a bit steep in the ground but certainly no worse than rip-off wembley , I hope this becomes a regular fixture although like a previous poster , I would probably prefer spring bank weekend .

I had a fantastic weekend.

Stayed just outside Edinburgh, a 10 min train ride from the centre, on the same line as haymarket train station. The city of Edinburgh had plenty to do being a historic city. Was only £2.70 return by train from the city to the haymarket train station, then a 10 min walk from there.

Behind the west stand as a mass of activity with bouncy castles and the lot in a "family fun area". Next to that were the warm up pitches, the coaches would pull up so you could see each team enter and see your fave players up front!

I saw all the games, bar about 15/20 mins of the Hudd/Celtic game and thought all the rugby was of a good standard. The atmosphere for all the games IMO was excellent, seeing the north stand fill and empty before and after each game with fans of all clubs was excellent.

The whole crowd was willing Wigan on vs Saints and the same again for the Leeds vs Catalan game. Mixed in with the Catalan fans I could see Hudds, Cas, Wakey and Bulls fans singing along with their new found French nationality.

I was in the west stand - upper tear and if I was a bit fitter and not such a fat blob would have enjoyed it more. Beer prices £3.50 vs headingly £2.70 per pint isn't that much more and £3.50 for a burger vs £3.00 at Headingly is again not much different.

The RFL sold 6000 + tickets to locals who from all the Scots I spoke to knew I was up for the rugby and said it was good for the city.

All in all fantastic weekend and shall be doing the same next year.

Travel up on Friday and back on the Monday!

Best match of the weekend - Hull KR vs Warrington.

Try of the weekend - Ryan Hall's 70 meter effort. Fantastic!

Funniest chant of the weekend - "It's a long way back to France when you're poo!" (there were kids around you see!)

Random moment of the weekend - Bumping into Paul Sculthopre on Sunday and asking "What did you think of the game yesterday?" and his response being "Shocking mate absolutely shocking!"

I am aware of that ,my question was does your club have to pay for all the expenses or do you get recompense for it. Also is all the ticket money divided out equally or would you get more because you had the bigger crowd? We know it`s to expand to other areas so have you made contingency plans for all the Scots who are going to be coming down like you have to for all the Celtic supporters?

what was the in cardiff for them to do??

Totally fantastic weekend. Loved it all and will definately be going next year.

Agree with all of that.

And to add if it had rained it would have been a wash out, as it was fans could sit on the grass in the ground and enjoy a drink or two and gather in the beer gardens of the few local pubs to the ground but if it had been raining then what would have happened?

We had a great weekend and very little to complain about. a 10 min bus ride to the ground is fine IMO and rather a 20-30 min walk back or a taxi (if you can flag one down). We spent alot of the mid-afternoon of both days at Wetherspoons on £8.18 a round for the 4 of us which is spot on. Watched the Man U game and Hudds game in there then went down to the ground. Met and spoke to alot of fans which was great.
Also loved the Jimmy Chungs all you can eat chinese last night

The bus was all well and good other than at the end of the games where the queues were massive for the buses - as has been said a shuttle service or something should have been set up as the public transport couldn't deal with the volume of people wanting to use it after the games.

yeah i can understand your point, but it dint really effect us. We walked back to the centre for a few drinks and a meal on sat, then on sunday we managed to get a taxi (£4) between 6 of us. A shuttle service should have been in order as mentioned before as this would allow more people to explore the city and have more to do

Just got back and on the whole agree with most of what the Admiral says.

Just to add:

Running out of lager by mid-afternoon on day two was inexcusable

£3:50 a pint, £2 for a soft drink and £3 for a portion of chips was pushing the limits of decency, especially with the knowledge that most would be in the ground for the duration.

No body cavity search (like at Cardiff) on entry which meant that on Day 2 we could take what we liked in the way of food, drink, fire-arms, etc.

We purchased ‘Unreserved’ seating but were never challenged for our tickets wherever we went so those who paid the little extra for reserved seats were unnecessarily overcharged.

Had good-hearted banter with virtually all other fans with the distinct lack of Celtic supporters, did anyone actually see any because we didn’t?

Which just strengthens my belief that awarding them a Franchise above Widnes is becoming increasingly more folly.