Quote Orrell Lad="Orrell Lad"In the SL era, Wigan have failed to qualify for a semi-final (Cup, SL or old Premiership) in only 99, 05 and 06.
A near certainty every season, and only 7 of 22 SL seasons have we not contested a final. No excuses, but some of the fans being critical would see exactly the same if their club was as successful.'"
Yep. It's an additional expense for fans whilst not being particularly unique or exciting in the context of if we lose this season we're likely to be in 1 next year anyway.
I went to the semi final this year mainly because it was an opportunity to have a day with my family, not particularly for the rugby. If we hadn't gone I wouldn't have been that disappointed to miss the game.
Maybe moving it back to May might help, maybe now the league is more competitive some "smaller" clubs might get more success in the cup earlier in the season while the likes of Leeds, Wigan, Saints etc aim to peak toward the end?
However I think the main issue is that Cup games aren't on season tickets. People clearly don't like to, or find it easy to pay out for extra games.
I've thought for a while the sport should look at some kind of RFL season ticket to replace the standard club season ticket.
It would obviously have your clubs home league games included but would also include home cup games and it would include either free or discounted entry to event games such as Cup semis, the magic weekend, playoffs and any home internationals, whether your team is involved or not. There obviously would have to be some kind of system to register for tickets for those games that also ensured people didn't abuse the system but im sure it's not beyond the wit of man to design such a system.
In my opinion, the sport needs to be driven forward as one sport rather than a disparate collection of clubs all pulling in slightly different directions.