I had a good day, thought it was great
I also found it funny when walking back to my car seeing a ed up henry paul chatting to some wire fans saying he loves it when saints get beat hahaha, and then was shocked to see Stapo and Cashmere in the same premier inn as me with thier families

Was miles better than Cardiff however the event is never going to work as most fans are only interested in their own clubs games (myself included) so despite the aggregate attendance of 60000 I bet there was no more than 15000-20000 in the ground for any one game which looks pretty poor in a 70000 stadium.

Did not go as it is a RFL/ Sky deal to fleece the fans of even more money.
I can not think of any other sport who would move a whole weekends fixtures to a stadium and an area who have no concept of the game that is being played there.
To listen to Sky you would think it was a huge success.
I watched United then Salford drunk a load of beer, had a nice meal and then collapsed to bed.
All done at home for a fraction of the cost of going to Edinburgh.

Thanks to the Salford lot, great bunch, great laugh

The bouncy, bouncy song was class, see you all next year

from the Times online Blog, not it all but bits that nicely sums up the weekend, at least one very good point,

"The Ain't Rugby League Brilliant Award to a Rugby Union Correspondent goes to Iain Morrison, who wrote in Scotland on SundayBiggest travelling supportI thought it was Hull KR from TV

One final thought. Anyone under the illusion that Edinburgh is a sporting city, think again. It's a great hosting city for an event like Magic Weekend but expecting the locals to get involved - and 6,000-odd is a very respectable figure, believe me - is a folly as great as wild talk about a Super League franchise eventually in Scotland. In Edinburgh, Hearts and Hibs are low on the public's radar and people don't much care for club rugby union.

I was struck by an interview in The Sunday Times Scotland with Edinburgh chief executive Nic Cartwright - the same Nic Cartwright who was at London Broncos. A similar hearts-and-minds battle for spectators applies here. Edinburgh's average attendance is 4,274 - a figure swelled by a Scotland record in the Magners League of 12,534 against Glasgow. The core Edinburgh audience is between 2,000 and 2,500. Let's enjoy Magic Weekend again next year but, please, no more talk about professional rugby league north of the border."

the bottom bit from a man in the know.

Thanks to those Reds sat near me who made the weekend so enjoyable.
Thanks to all RL fans for showing how the Rugby League family works.
Thanks to Edinburgh - a fine town with excellent pubs.
Thanks to RL - trying out experiments to show what we have to offer.

A success as we moved away from the M62 (heresy) and showed entertaining games (anathema) featuring colourful fans enjoying themselves (blasphemy) in a national venue (evil).

Apologies to the frequent posters on here as I am not being negative in the post. I understand that this is difficult for many of you but ...
you can give up moaning, belittling, and carping.

As I mentioned on Saturday, during a Scotland union game on TV some while ago the commentator, discussing an Edinburgh player making his Scotland debut, said words to the effect of "he'll be used to the Murrayfield pitch, but not playing in front of anyone."

Having said that, if my Sunday sat on the pan is anything to go by, they may well have had 60,000 fans in the past with the 58,000 of them killed by dodgy hotdogs.

Please refer to individual post. I did say that I'm sure those that went had a great time and as a rugby league fan if I could have afforded it I probably would have done too. However I was actually trying to start an intelligent debate as to whether or not the weekend was a success or failure. If the idea behind it was for a bunch of rugby league fans to go and have a weekend away and watch some rugby that they would have watched anywayn then ok it was a success. If however, the more likely idea was to market and expand the game then I feel it was a failure. Don't feel like this is moaning or carping. I reserve the right to have my opinion. If you want to join the debate then fine but to say we had a great time so the debate does not stand is ridiculous.

So was mine a serious post.

Look - we have potentially the finest sports-audience watching event in the world. Yet it is limited to one huge city in Aus, one small area in NZ, a tiny part of the UK, and a small area of France. Yes we're massive in Papua New Guinea. Yes we have a Lebanon/Tunisia/Moscow league. So what?

Knock it or support it. We show the world what we can do. The Aussies should be doing the same in the state of Victoria (soccer is gaining ground on the "Sydney" game).

I believe that Rugby League is the greatest sport in the world both in participation and watching. I remember the efforts in Oldham to support the league in Dublin. I remember the last efforts in South Wales. Let's keep on trying because if we do not, we disappear. So any effort to rid us of the M62 image, I support.

Failure - NO.

And you know my commitment here.

Yes but once again we appear to have a them and us situation here.
You went and good on you.
But if you think it was a success then you are deluded.
Next year I can arrange a few games on the field outside my house, organise a barby and have loads of beer laid on.
I can even arrange hotels if you wish.
Scotland will never be a Rugby League area, End of.

Before you can make a definate call on the success of anything you have to define how you are going to measure it. Measured by fun in the sun and a great weekends entertainment with rugby and beer then a success it was. Measured by a serious long standing benefit for the game of Rugby League and a seriously effective way of expanding the game in a non rugby league area..debatable.

Nice idea, just doesn't work.

"Next year I can arrange a few games on the field outside my house, organise a barby and have loads of beer laid on.
I can even arrange hotels if you wish.
Scotland will never be a Rugby League area, End of"

[sizeOK do it - [/size
with international media interest
with every SL team sending supporters who dress up and enjoy themselves
with all the buzz and flair that speccies expect in the 21st century.
with a fine stadium and hotels around you.

Fulham are to support the soccer craze in Australia this summer - do they expect Broncos to become 11 man teams overnight? No.

Scotland is only an excuse - to be fair we should be in Morocco or Lebanon or Moscow.
If you want, I'll dig out my cloth cap, black pudding butties and think of Alex Murphy ... no not the last. Then we can be side-lined.


If anyone here thinks the main aim was a SL team in Scotland by 2010, they have been sucked in.Read beyond the marketing hype. It was taking the finest team game in the world to the world. We go to Manchester(OK Trafford), London and ... now Edinburgh. Perhaps 2012 will be Dublin.