I agree regarding a nines tournament replacing the Magic Weekend, however, why fill it with sub-standard French clubs, why not the four teams who didn’t get into S.L via the gimmicky new system?

We won't have [isubstandard[/i French clubs. We will have Catalans which is a top Super League club, and Toulouse, which is being invited into the RFL's second division, whatever that is going to be called. As far as the Manchester Nines goes the 16th club could be the winner of the Championship. So then the lineup would be 14 SL clubs, plus Championship winner, plus Toulouse. A total of 16, divided into 4 pools, just like the Auckland Nines was yesterday.

The Auckland Nines, however, is the prestige event of Planet Earth, and it requires 16 NRL clubs, plus 6 SL clubs (including Catalans) plus Toulouse and PNG. Resullt: a total of 24 clubs divided into 6 pools.

I was purely musing about next season, when there will only be twelve SL teams, therefore four extra clubs will be required.

But I’m sure you could magic a few more French teams who would be competitive.

Toulouse were sub standard in the championship Jean.

That was way back then. Now they have a new coach (very important change) and some new players. I expect them to recruit even further from the Elite, and a much improved performance from them if they step up to SL2/Championship.

Oh, next season eh? You didn't say that in your original post. So here is the answer. The two relegated SL teams, plus the top Championship team plus Toulouse would make the 16.

Wasn't aware there was any union on in Auckland at the weekend jean. I was there and it was a brilliant weekend which will sell out in 2015 in a matter of minutes, but eminen also sold out......I doubt NZRU are fretting about gangster rap or whatever it is he does!

With regard to the millennium nines, it would involve an outside entity to bankroll it as has happened here. Duco events got Auckland council involved and once the base costs were covered, the NRL came to the table.....maybe the good dr at Salford would like to get his chequebook out and show The RFL how it's done

What happened with the Premier Sports coverage?
Was it just me, but the programme came on half way through the 3rd quarter final. We missed all of the last group games and the first three quarter finals.

At least I weren't the only one. Recorded it to watch it the following morning to find out I had missed most of it.

...and yet there were some on here decrying Premier not getting the rights to super league

Live coverage of the Auckland 9's Day 2 wasn't scheduled to begin until after the NASCAR event had finished, which, IIRC would be sometime after 3.30am. This was evident to anyone who made a note of their TV schedules. You obviously didn't do that.

The full Auckland 9s Day 2 schedule (including all the non-aired "live" group and quarter final games) were shown on delay this evening from 8.15pm onwards.

Hope I have helped you resolve your ignorance in this matter.

Ditto



See above.