Why not? After all they play in Norwich and Bury St Edmunds

Not all players will like the magic weekend concept but they should at least try to be professional about it and put their feelings to one side in order to promote the event. Why should fans make an effort to attend the event if they think that they are going to be watching players who would rather be somewhere else?

Graham did not only mention Cumbria in his argument.

rlMan of Steel wants to dump the Edinburgh weekendrl


Given player burnout has been identified as a cause of England's failure in RLWC 2008, and detailed studies in both codes of Rugby have identified a player's workload (as measured in part by the number of games played per season and rest periods in blunt yet reasonable manner) as a major factor contributing to burnout, then it is reasonable to compare the workload of England's players to NRL based players. When it comes to these studies, NZ Warriors Doctor John Mayhew (who used to be the All Blacks Doctor) said that playing 30 games in a season was what was "reasonable" to expect of an elite player. Super League based players seem to be acutely aware of the negative impact of a long club season and inadequate rest on their performances.

Going back to the topic of the Magic Weekend, Graham has every right to question the demands it puts on players.

Burnout was to blame for England reaching their full potential in the world cup (Failing!)?


Wow....and excuse for everything.

([ian[/i excuse)
i'd have said it's cos we were nowhere near good enough

Thanks for correcting me, thank god you did...I couldnt have lived with myself otherwise.


And be honest, you dont care about the WC, just as long as you local pub team is doing well.

"Can you imagine Premier League clubs complaining about travelling to Portsmouth or having to play away in Europe a few times a season?


good point but it did amuse me as Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn has done exactly that - travelling for a monday night game - to Portsmouth is tough on fans and players - Fergie's not happy either about a saturday lunchtime at Middlesboro- theyre getting as bad as us

RL needs to develop a bigger presence across the country and internationally, we surely can all accept that? The players have a responsibility to promote and develop the sport of RL as a whole. They are not bigger than the sport, even though they may be beginning to think so.

If they don’t like the weekend, fine – I can accept that. But publicly slating the event before it has even happened is completely pointless. Did James Graham express these views in his post-World Cup review interview? Who knows, but suddenly going public 4 days before the event and causing all this negative publicity goes a massive way to ensuring that it will be a flop. A Jocko who may have been thinking about attending (or even watching it on TV) will see these top players commenting on what a waste of time it is, and probably decide that if the players can’t even be bothered with it, why should he.

Magic Weekend has never been held in Scotland before - interesting how you can already label it an ill founded concept. How much money does it make for the RFL? That will be the deciding factor as to whether it is ill-founded surely?

RL is not a sport rich enough to turn it's nose up at cities offering to pump over half a million pounds into the game for playing some matches in their back yard.



How do you know they will "balk" at it? Shouldn't we give it until the end of the contract next year to decide that?



It ticks the profit box and the getting 7 games on TV in one weekend box and the introducing new fans to the game box.

Seems like a decent number of boxes to me.

Playing one less league game a season as a result? Maybe he's driving the coach or something? Extra stress of playing in a big stadium?

Yes and the fact that the saints and leeds players didn't get on and there were fractions in the camp.

I don't ever recall Wigan complaing about the number of games or promoting the sport when they were winning everything (although I admit its easier to discuss things and see interviews due to the internet). saints seem to think they are above the game as a whole.

Maybe Cunningham, Wilkin and Graham should opt to not play in the play-offs and Gf in order to prepare themselves physically and mentally for international footy?

Quote from FTV
RL is not a sport rich enough to turn it's nose up at cities offering to pump over half a million pounds into the game for playing some matches in their back yard.
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Thats a valid point but are the Scottish Tourist Board giving the RFL Cash or is it a contra deal - i cant see them doing fronting up a wedge of cash and picking up the tab of the RFL and the teams and its unlikely that the RFL could afford to hire murrayfield/Millenium for 2 days off its own bat

i asked that question in 2007 of the Welsh Tourist board and the reply i got said that they picked up the tab for the clubs/RFL and came to arrangement with the Millenium over the hire cost- - the Tourist board looked to cover their financial requirement and make a profit through the influx of visitors - all sounds logical.

But no Cash payment up front - the RFLs main income was from ticket sales and they publicly said that the first millenium produced a net profit of about £400k on ticket sales of 57000 - more free tickets/concessions had been made available as it was the first MM and they wanted to maximise numbers- no problem with that its speculate to accumulate- there were less giveaways in 2008

anyway clearly there is some sort of deal otherwise the event wouldnt happen - but im not certain the arrangments are quite so advantageous as you make out hence the very hard sell from Red Hall

£400k profit for 1 weekend sounds pretty good to me. add in the SKY deal for 27 games, sponsorhip based on 27 games etc and you will get well above £500k profit.