After a two year absence, the magic weekend returns to Cardiff on the 12th February thanks to Edinburgh not been a very popular option with rugby league fans. The concept of this weekend is to showcase our sport in a possible expansion area and I'm afraid that we had no business in going up to Scotland, where rugby of either code is pretty much non-existent unless it’s the odd union international. At least in Wales rugby union has a rich history and is presently strong thanks to that particular code been the national sport, whilst rugby league has always been knocking on its door in the shape of union players, wanting to test themselves out in our sport.
  
Whilst Wales is evidently stronger than Scotland, I’d like to have seen this weekend take place in Manchester or another big stadium up north, as I believe that we need to make rugby league stronger in its heartlands, before we stretch the resources too thinly. I acknowledge all the good that the RFL has done in Wales; however I’m sure these resources would have been to better use in Yorkshire and Lancashire. They would of produced much better results than the results that are coming out of Wales right now thanks to RFL intervention.

At the end of the day we can't force people to come and watch our game. Just like Sheffield council can't force residents of Leeds to keep coming to Sheffield arena once Leeds arena opens. This is what happened when the magic weekend moved to Scotland. People would rather go to Wales to watch a game rather than Scotland and that’s why the magic weekend is back where it is. This is what would happen on a much bigger scale if you moved this weekend nearer to the English Heartlands.

Expansion always starts within and I think that this outward expansion of our game has been a bad distraction. I'm sure there are a few sleeping giants of the game like South Sydney, Catalan and Hull KR once were, that are waiting to re-emerge in the big time once again. We need to be putting money into them rather than some far flung destination that most rugby league fans won't care to travel to like Las Vegas (as suggested by Russell Crowe).
In all I hope that this weekend is a success. However we need to bring the big super league games (like the opening weekend ones) to where the sport is popular and has the potential to grow even more popular. Let the Challenge Cup have The Millennium stadium and Wembley Stadium. Let Super League have Old Trafford or another big stadium up north.

When it was announced that Magic weekend was being moved to the first round of fixtures I thought that was the best idea for a concept that hasn't achieved its full potential; first fixtures traditionally achieve some of the highest gates of the season.

However, its on the same day as a Wales RU match, its Valentines weekend, its miles away, its awkward to get to my car or by public transport, its an expensive weekend, the marketing seems to have targeted on the heartlands, not Wales, its midway through Feb and if the capacity of the ticket allocation is achieved only a third of the stadium will be full.

If the RFL want to promote the game in Cardiff take the England-Wales 4N's match there, possibly with the OZ-NZ match as a double-header, and market it to the Welsh, not us in the North. If the RFL want Magic weekend to be a success get rid of 'Magic', give it a good name. Take the games to Bramall Lane to be sensible and sell the ground out. If they really wanted to push expansion then Nottingham or Derby makes more sense than Cardiff. Newcastle, even, makes more sense to me.

Scrap it.

Too expensive, tricky to get to, the weather wont be nice. The list could go on.

At the very least, i'd play it in summer in a place thats easier to get to (for the majority who are going).

Plus unless its a draw, theres always going to be the argument that the RFL have given some teams a harder fixture than others.

Waste of time.

To be honest I'm still not sure what the KEY point of this exercise is.

Perhaps someone will enlighten me.

The KEY point is to have an event on the calender of comparable level to the cup and grand final.

However, the format of this year's MW (local derbys, season opener) is such that I agree it would have been better had it been hosted in the heartlands as I feel we'd have seen much better crowds if the event was at somewhere like Old Trafford or City of Manchester stadium etc.

Thats a good point,but i dont think too many premiership football clubs would be wanting 7 games of rugby legue played on their precious turf over 2 days in February,i dont think they would be too keen to host it in the summer either,

Good concept but in the wrong competition.
In SL it's the 27th and extra game. It's not needed and not wanted.

Move it to the Challenge Cup.
SL clubs come in at the last 16 stage, then have the MM at somewhere like Bramhall Lane where everyone can do the journey in a day quite easily.
With eight CC games over two days mainly between SL clubs the place would be packed.
It would make money, be a great event with a full house for all the games.

Do you think the BBC would give it the same coverage as SKY though?

Why would the place be packed? The majority would surely do what they do now, which is watch their own game and pick and mix the rest. Even if it were sold out I doubt it would ever be more than a third full at any given moment.

I've always thought of the magic weekend as a good idea in theory, but a bit of an anti-climax in reality.
The Challenge Cup idea is a good one, but again, I doubt it will work.

The simple fact is RL fans don't turn out for events like this...7 top-class SL games on 1 weekend SHOULD be selling out Wembley Stadium, nevermind the Millenium Stadium!

Typo corrected

Wow, what an interesting, original thread.

Great concept-Love the weekend

Man the up.