Quote: Conroy "I agree to an extent on the final date but they would have to ensure the first round wasn't pre season as it was before the move to August.'"
It's amazing and sad how things have changed.
I used to love the way the Lancashire Cup kicked off the season. It never felt like a meaningless tournament to me, or to many others - 25,000 at the last ever final between Wigan and Saints!
If only we could readjust everyone's thinking, and turn the CC into something along those lines. Perhaps mingle a few league fixtures in there, so people don't feel the real action hasn't started yet, and make the final the half-way point of the season (get it back to the merry month of May), so the second half is all about the league.
Then we'd also do away with this overkill of important games at the business end when there's a dearth of such earlier on.