Anyway I was offered 2 free tickets and turned them down. If it had been cardiff though I'd have gone. Murrayfield had no pull for me. Went in 2000 and it's the worst final venue I've visited.

Totally agree. It doesn't even have a proper concourse ffs!

Another vote for Cardiff. Loved it there. Edinburgh holds no appeal for me. Would def go if they took it back to Cardiff.

If you didnt go you missed out, it is a great venue and there was a great atmosphere, it helps that there are several rugby fields within the compound which means there were lots of things to do outside the ground and space for a variety of food and drink (although overpriced compared to the North it is usual Edinburgh event prices), i cant think of another stadium that has that

Re-name it the "We hate Rhinos Weekend", it might attract a few more people. After all it was what I heard all weekend. There's a lot of jealous people out there.

it was the first chant of the weekend
the bulls fans who sat in front of us were all excited about us being outside the playoffs and losing the WCC but when I shouted "and this game is over"when crusaders went in for the second try (and I was right!), they didnt seem so happy with a bit of banter
they left at full time in their game

I think the magic weekend concept suffers from one main problem-that of contradfiction. On one hand it looks to be a festival of rugby on a single weekend, and on the other it looks to spread the game to a new region. Both are good ideas, but trying to do them both with one event is foolhardy.

I support having a whole weekend of rugby league in one place. But that place should be at Old Trafford, for round 1 of superleague (as the RFU kick off with the double-header of 4 teams at Twickenham), with the 2 teams from the previous grand final kicking off the season. It would help to raise the profile of the game in Manchester, which should be one of the biggest strongholds of the game.

The idea of expanding the game is also a good one-but it should be done week by week, to give a continuing prescence of top-level rugby. The people of south wales quickly turned off when they realised Celtic Crusaders were going to get hammered every week. Every round, one match should be played away from the heartlands. So south Wales would get weekly superleague to prepare the area for their own team and build up a sustinable supporter base. Also, this should be done in an appropriate stadium-Swansea's liberty stadium or the Cardiff City Stadium-not somewhere so huge it can't be filled.

Another good way of expanding the game would be to bring in teams from other regions. Barrow, for instance, to bring top flight RL back to Cumbria.

just home.... we loved the weekend, had a two night family break in the city centre, wasn't cheap but we spent what we chose to! we went last year but the big diff was a smaller crowd and therefore the atmosphere suffered greatly....maybe a move to somewhere closer that people could easily travel to and home within the day to see the matches would benefit the 'magic' concept!!

and yes mark_w i agree!!

The crowd this year was ( allegedly) twice that of last year though .

i would rather an on the road game. leeds v bradford at leicester, saints v wigan in bristol for instance

Agree with a lot of points in this. Murrayfield is out of the way and once there you were there and there was no escape - although I bet Sainsbury's did a roaring trade! Yes there were things to do and see but how much time did that occupy??

Food and beverage prices had been hiked up from last year (Tea/Coffee by 33%) Beer was, I heard, but would stand to be corrected £4 a bottle. How does that compare?

An idea might be a Super League Sevens competition. Keep 26 rounds of Super League and have a Sevens tournament. Either at the start of the season or over the Bank Holiday Weekend at the END of May when there are no other conflicts. Or alternatively give the players a weekend off!

I did hear the idea of it moving to Dublin next year.

BTW - thought Thayler bottled it when he should have at least shown O'Loughlin a yellow card. Has anyone ever been sin-binned at a Magic event??

I lik the concept, but please, never again at Murrayfield! As much as I love the weekend on the lash in Edinburgh, the stadium appears to exist in it's own seperate eco-system which is about 10 degrees colder than it should be. It's a real endurance test sitting through all the matches in that temperature. At least in Cardifff, they can close the roof.

Just got back from the weekend and it was cracking in my opinion. Excellent atmosphere outside of the ground but a lack of it within. I think it's paramount that which ever venue holds it next time has sufficient outdoor space to fit in all the 'fan zone' stuff.