Would love it if they could televise it over here and if there are super league clubs there then surly Sky would show it.

Don't rule out premier sports showcasing the event.

An insomniacs wet dream!

I am amazed I'm going to agree here. But for me nines is the way to reach a larger audience outside of RL. Quicker shorter games. Bit like 20/20 for cricket. And make earnings except from any salary cap. If the tournament can fund it then it will pay atheist going rate.

Wow, is this the first thread in the history of RLFans where everyone has agreed with one and other?

Would be great to get something over here, having championship clubs involved possibly even a mixture of League and union clubs too

Would have been great to have given the SL winners an invitational place to use as a warm-up to the WCC. The 9s schedule was sorted well before it was announced the WCC was going to be in Oz though unfortunately.

Didn't we have the Carnegie floodlit 9's a season or 2 ago?

Timing would have to change for it to appeal to SL clubs. They're not going to release their top players for a friendly tournament once the season has already started

There will be nothing "friendly" about the Auckland Nines.

Perhaps there will have to be adjustments of schedule to allow the tournament to be played just before the Super League season starts.

Was hardly as high profile as the Auckland 9's....

1. The organisers have made no bones about presenting this as an alternative to the Wellington 7's. Expect "sold out" signs erected but swathes of empty seats due to 38,000 of the 44,000 attendance being at the bar dressed as super friggin Mario brothers or the Von Trapp family!
2. Holidays here are 30 days + over Christmas. Imagine if you in France/America...(shall we call it Canada?) had your summer holidays and Xmas all at once! People leave work about the 20th of December and are not back until Feb......nobody will be interested in rushing back from the "bach" in mid January to watch Gareth Hock take someones head off.....

No. The Magic weekend should be replaced by a 9's tournament over two days to take it out of the regular season and give us a different spectacle to watch.

Thoughts:
1) Regular randomly drawn knockout competition
2) Mini-league, one or two games per team (40mins per game) with highest points winer.
3) Rules to entourage fringe players to get a game
4) And why not, winner of the comp to play the antipodean winners at a later date. Who wouldn't mind a good game around the Christmas period for example? It's not like Boxing day is the same anymore.