Different reasons for different gates and the arguments of counter attractions on Sundays could equally be levelled at Friday night fixtures.

The harsh realities are we play in a unattractive league and the current cup competition is not of interest to the majority until the semi final stages, the games ruling body and clubs need to look at the NRC as we have a (rare) loyal sponsor at this level but we need to ensure the competiton isn't just a means of 'giving money' to clubs due to a small regular league season - supporters won't/ aren't buying into it (and never have done).

Friday evening KO when for the longer daylight parts of year are perfect. KO time should 8pm IMO though.

As for NRC - I just can't see why the 1st and 2nd places can't mean more when knock out stages draw is made. ie if you finish top of group you avoid other teams that finish top, and get home draw as well.

Be a decent shout if we do.
I think that nights counter attractions include Manchester United and Manchester City both live on TV.
I think so long as the team are playing well (If not winning) and we can get the odd gate over the 1,800 or 2,000 threshold to keep the books tidy then we will be doing alright, all lower league live sport is taking a bit of a bashing at the minute so if we can keep our heads above the water we will be doing ok.

Obviously dissapointing today to get less than 1400 , and like lots of things I dont think it is down to just one thing, and probably isn't solvable by changing just one thing

Today will most likely be our last ever home group game in the NRC, next season we will have 13 home league matches, so hopefully that wont be an issue again

Yes we were up against a football cup final, and perhaps in hindsight it might be prudent to avoid similar situations in the future if we can

Finally we have the ' when do we play ' conundrum? , this is perhaps the most difficult to answer, there is no easy answer, we cannot please everbody , all we can probably do is ' suck it and see '

Be interesting to see what happens next season.
The original scope of these games at the outset seemed to be derby games and if you look at the few decent attendances in the group stages thus far then the Cumrian teams seem to be the only ones scraping above a 1,000 fans as they have had a few local interest games.
I think sometimes we as Leigh fans forget just how bad things arewhen we (correctly) look at our gates - most clubs are struggling to get 800 for these games.
A format that ensured as many derby games as possible took place should have happened this season, I realise it would have involved the odd club being in the wrong group but maximising gate potential and keeping travel costs to clubs to a absolute minimum should have been the order in the group games IMO.

Well I went today with my 2 daughters, I like Sunday games. Fridays are no good for me so I and the family won't be going. The only thing that will bring in more suppporters is free flowing rugby, a winning team rather than one man stuff.

Too much competition on Sundays to be a success. When RL switched from Saturdays to Sundays there was no competition. Football was never played on Sundays, shops closed all day on Sundays, pubs closed at 3 0'clock and didn't open until 7 o'clock, no pubs served food, you had the choice of watching "The Love Boat" or going to watch the Rugby. Now we have all day opening of pubs, the majority serve food, all the big football games are played on Sunday at 1 o'clock and 4 o'clock, the Trafford centre, shops open until 5 o'clock, sport on 24hr tv from around the world, summer rugby clashing with family bbqs etc,etc,etc.

And we only have two teams this side of the pennines. What would I like to do on a Friday night let me see drive across the M62 urrrr nope. Maybe we should just forget away fans and have a home crowd only. That might allow us to have fewer stewards maybe a good cost cutting exercise.

Not worth bothering about away fans until they start bringing significant numbers - even an extra hundred home fans on a Friday night would wipe out the entire away support of most clubs. Having said that, we take similar numbers away from home on a Thursday night as we do on a Sunday so in reality it won't make much difference to the away support anyroad when bearing that in mind.

On the ' when to play ' issue, can I throw Saturday tea time into the mix, that would be my preffered option

And then we've got "it clashes with X Factor", "my night at the pub", "the Super League game is on" in the mix. Can't win whichever way. Let's see how the Friday night's go (though worth mentioning it's a while until one of those as well!).

The lack of incentives to buy season tickets leaves us at the mercy of a million excuses/reasons why people can't/ won't buy match day tickets. I think on occasions we will go close to 1k sadly!

Don't see why that would be the case Ste when in reality we're only a couple of hundred season tickets down on last year.

6.15pm Saturday night.
Up against the weakest TV SL fixture and no live football match (if indeed they still show it live on Saturdays - not too up on what SKY show), allows away support to get here , allows young familys to come , allows people to do things and still get back for the game, allows those who don't live within 2 miles to get there easily, allows people to watch the football then watch the RL, allows a majority of people to get home from work / be off work then go to the game, allows the players to play the game in decent temperatures in summer, can be used as a 'day out' by putting other events on at /near the ground on the day (as per Australian RL fixtures).

Of course there will be people who prefer other dates and I'm sure everyone has a favourite kick off day / time but the above does seem to tick a lot of boxes in terms of what the club needs.

Away support is a ' either or ' situation , you either ignore them completely ( the easy lazy option ) , OR you embrace them , you make it as easy and as attractive as possible for them to attend no matter what day you play , having seen your posts on the Fax site today Matt, you are aware that they put the Fev fans in their own part of the Shay, yes there were other reasonsfor it ( which nobody needs to expand upon ) but it did apparently result in an improved atmosphere at the match

Ultimatly you have to decide what you are trying to achieve, and what is the best way to achieve it, bearing in mind there is no magic wand that will solve our problems, just vision, hard work and taking the odd risk or two

Sometimes you can end up being scared of doing anything in case you make your current situation slightly worse, almost ' frozen' with fear, you have to have the courage to overcome your fear, you take your leap of faith