Quote McLaren_Field="McLaren_Field"Seriously - flying out on Thursday or Friday and back again on Monday is, far, far cheaper, by a factor of at least 10, than flying out on Sat and back on Sun.
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I did the weekend trip last year (out Saturday / back Sunday) and at the time of booking (around 3 months before departure), as I had the option to fly out earlier, the prices were not significantly different for a weekday flight as compared to a weekend flight. Certainly not 'by a factor of 10' as you suggest. I've paid roughly the same amount this year to fly out on a Wednesday and come back on a Monday, as I did last year to fly Sat / Sun. I paid round about £100 return in total with Ryanair of which a sizeable chunk (60% ?) of that is tax to keep our MPs or MEPs in expenses for another few days.
Last year's game fell during school terms and thus, it was possible for the son of one of my mates to go to the game by flying out on the Saturday and coming back later on Sunday afternoon. In his case, he had one of those old fashioned parents that believes that every day of school is important and he wanted him back there Monday morning .... Which a weekend trip delivered, but would not have been possible otherwise.
Back to the original point with this game, I would suggest that the reason it is being 'tried on' with the Quins is the relatively low numbers of fans perceived to be travelling. I remember during the Catalans first season, there was a lot more chopping & changing of game times and venues (Figures ? Carcassone ?) and there was much protesting by the fans of those teams affected by those changes. IIRC, significant changes wern't done after that for a good couple of seasons until now.
We could argue that our game has been messed around, with at least three different kick-off times published. Thankfully, none of them have affected most people's travel plans (I'm not heading back on the overnight train to Paris this time
), but on the very lowest level the excessive mucking about of kick-off times makes the game look unprofessional. Our away games to Quins are habitually messed around, making it impossible for the independant travelling fan to get back by public transport due to later kick offs and the last trains back from London on Saturdays.
If the RFL truely cares about the supporters of the game in general, it really should be stepping in and refusing to sanction changes to games for television that involves the swapping of dates / venues either within a certain window (say 3 months for Catalan games against English sides both ways) or having the bottle to say 'Non' to the TV company concerned. Maybe it should be looking for a deal that is good for the game (which includes it supporters) with clauses covering the changing of fixtures, rather that just having its eyes fill up by the number of Euros it can screw from the deal.
Maybe in truth, the travelling support or fans at games is commentary to the needs of the RFL ? Given the lack of organisation, zero marketing and massive amounts of empty seats at televised big games in the past, finally the game might be heading to the prophetic statement of jovial Jack Mysercough the Leeds RL chairman of the late 60s ? He is reputed to have said something to the effect of (with regards to tv rights money) [i"Pay us enough and we won't even bother having the fans in"[/i
If the RFL wants the Catalans project to be a success and also maybe develop other sides in France, not to mention the Eur.5 million the supporters seem to have added to the local economy, then it better not kill the goose that lays the somewhat golden egg ....
