Whenever the FA Community Sheild is, the Challenge Cup Final should be the weekend before.

The double header for the semi is a great idea, put that in late June; keep Magic in late May but don’t make it an EXTRA game (if we don’t make it an extra game it’ll give us an extra free week in the season), make it a home or away fixture for two teams and play the same fixture the year after (but reverse who’s home fixture it is) and then after two years you can change who plays who but make it the same for two years again with AvB in Year1 and BvA in Year2.

Mid-season international game in the USA should be the weekend after Magic. That gives fans who’ve spent a fortune at Magic a week off so don’t have to keep shelling money out.

Then the Super 8s or Play-offs or whenever structure we have will be an uninterrupted run later in the season to the GF.

Absolutely.

Have the CCF here next year!

There’s something in those ideas.

I do a shirt watch each year; excluding Wire & Cats shirts these are my rankings over the weekend;
1. Leeds – by a factor of 10. Fantastic turnout.
2. Hull FC. Usually top dogs & still a good turnout.
3. Wakefield. No idea why, but I saw numbers everywhere.
4. Hull KR.
5. Cas.
6. Huddersfield.
7. Halifax.
8. Saints.
9. Wigan.
10. Salford, Widnes, London, Whitehaven

I’m not sure how you are going to encourage Lancashire fans to turn up when they aren’t playing.

I think there's definitely some mileage in giving clubs an incentive to sell tickets. If they had some initiative they could put together transport and accommodation packages and add in a bit of a margin too. Perhaps ask current or past players to act as ambassadors or escorts too. If the Bulls offered a package that included coach/rail travel, accommodation, transfer, maybe a meal in the evening and all the way through chance to chat to players or ex players then I'd be interested.

You could have a scaleable offer depending on how much people wanted to spend from a basic ticket to something a bit more special.

I think people have got too used to not going and need to be given a reason to go again. I'd also move it back to the end of April.

When the RFL still had a big network of development officers, they were doing exactly what you've described with community clubs; when I was involved, I organised several trips to the CC final and the GF, with tickets allocated by the RFL, which we only paid for after the fact, so no upfront expenditure was required - the more we sold, the cheaper they were, and the community club received a % of total sales revenue.

It was hardly rocket science - from a club with just one age group team, it was a fairly straightforward task to take 2-3 coachloads of people.

The problem is the introduction of the Grand Final. Neutral supporters would rather have their annual day out in Manchester paying reasonable prices for food and drink and be able to do it in one day than having to go to London with all the additional expense involved.

Not a problem if the game actually made an effort in trying to attract people who live in the south east of England.

Part of the problem is costs have increased whilst wages, especially in the north, haven’t.

I used to go to Wembley as neutral, maybe not every year but regularly. I can’t justify it now. I used to be able to get a return train ticket for £35 when I booked well in advance. Now it’s at least double that. With increases to other prices a day out that used to cost me around £70-£75 a few years ago is now closer to £150.

When other bills etc at home are rising I can’t justify spending that every year when it’s not my team playing. Certainly not on top of Grand Final (which is prioritise going to over the Cup Final), Magic Weekend and internationals.

Unfortunately we’re trying to get more out of the same people.

I don’t see low Cup Final crowds as a sign the game is dying at all though. As others have said there are far more RL events than there used to be and the Cup Final has been usurped by the Grand Final which is an unqualified success.

I do think we aren’t linked up enough as a sport though. We should be aligning the entire sport at all levels toward these big events. Getting pro, semi-pro and amateur clubs all involved in selling tickets and travel for them.

When I played local RU, my local club had a link to England RU and was actively selling tickets for the next Twickers game and was taking a minibus full of people. Maybe only 14 or 15 people but if every amateur club did that you can add a few thousand on.

Except now we have amateur games played in summer , even if we don't have a fixture list , it's catch up week , and holidays , and licencing Pi55 ing off lower tier fans as well

Rail fares and hotels are considerably more expensive than 10 years ago, while wages have fallen in real terms. This will have certainly contributed to the fall in the number of neutrals.

So 100 and 50 years ago?

Regards

King James

You're good at Maths I see......