The RFL have confirmed the Magic Weekend will go ahead next season and will be at the Ethiad Stadium during the May bank holiday weekend. The fixtures will be announced on 19 Nivember but they expect it to be the usual 'derby' matches.

I personally hate the imbalance of the competition that this causes.

Thoughts?

To ensure fairness they need to change the derbies a bit

My suggestion for us is

Wigan V Wire
Saints V Widnes

Then next season

Wigan v Widnes
Saints v Wire

Its rather tougher on us if we get Saints each year. Same could happen to Leeds, Bradford, Wakey, Cas. Then the rest could swop as well if needed.

I sent an email to the RFL just after the last Magic weekend and suggested that
Warrington is a local derby just as Saints are and these games against Saints are getting stale and also an imbalance of the fixtures
I suggested
Year 1 Wigan V Warrington
Saints V Huddersfield
Year 2 Wigan V Saints
Warrington V Huddersfield
Year 3 Wigan V Huddersfield
Saints V Warrington
so the team not involved in the DERBY plays Huddersfield

Huddersfield used to play Salford ,Warrington played Widnes so the new fixture would be
Salford V Widnes a much balanced fixture list all round .
I was very surprised when I received an email back from the RFL saying that it would be put to the clubs for consideration.

I think 1st v 2nd, 3rd v 4th etc at the time of the event is the fairest way. All teams would have something to play for and nobody would know who they'd play until the week before.

Agree.

The games must be selected on league positions. It gives everybody a close fought game then rather then the odd 'bye' that exists now.

Whilst I agree about the imbalance and we (Warrington) got the benefit last year, surely there is more interest playing a local derby of sorts rather than the randomness of league positions particularly at the bottom?

The rumour on our board is we've got Saints but folk are also posting when to book catalan flights so it could be boredom or inside knowledge time will tell.

I quite like Jaws' rotation policy

Think Wire may be playing Saints this year

Local derby games are losing some of their bite for me due to the sheer number of them each season. 3 league games, possible CC game plus 2 play offs is too much. If the 1st v 2nd principal was applied it would indicate that 2 teams with equal form will play each other which should make for close games all round.

do it on the league positions from the previous season. The excitement from the derby is balls. Bar from Wigan v Stains, the Hull derby and possibly Wakey v CAs the others are just a bore fest. The airport derby, London v Dragons, Salford v Hudds, Widnes v Wire.

Match 1 Leeds v Hull
Match 2 Casv Widnes
Match 3 Sts v Dragons

Match 4 Bradford v HKR
Match 5 Hudds v Wakey
Match 6 London v Salford
Match 7 Wigan v Wire

At least on paper they all look to be competitive matches.

agreed with this, the only fair way to have it, nobody wants to see blowouts against inferior teams like Wire/Widnes and Wigan/St Helens

Dammit! I was hoping for Cardiff again this year!

It would have made sense to scrap it this year, what with fans shelling out for World Cup fixtures later in the year. Bring the second half of the season a week forward to give the home nations more preparation time for the tournament after the GF.

didnt they try that once when we ended up playing Hull? and it was a disaster ?

If we reduced the number of teams to 10 with everyone playing each other three times this wouldn't be an issue, as it wouldn't cause as much imbalance There are bigger problems with the league than the imbalance of the magic weekend. They need to sort out the regular batterings, the low salary cap and the lack of importance of the regular season as a whole before they look at this.

That would be great from a competitive point of view, but it'd be a nightmare for advance ticket sales, travel etc, because you couldn't bank on which day your team were playing until close to the event.

A variation on this would be to take the 2012 standings and have the teams finishing in odd numbered places assigned to the Saturday, and the teams finishing in even numbered places on the Sunday. 13th place would have to be with the Sunday group too, or else there's the wrong number of teams.

Example:
Saturday - Wigan, St Helens, Leeds, Huddersfield, Bradford, Salford.
Sunday - Warrington, Catalans, Hull, Wakefield, Hull KR, London, Castleford, Widnes.

That way, everyone knows which day they'll be playing - but, as per your suggestion, each team then plays the closest side to them in the table at the halfway point in the season, which is when Magic is scheduled for, I assume.

Based on last season's standings we'd probably end up with Saints again, but it wouldn't be artificially arranged as such. It would add an element of unpredictability and a more balanced fixtures list over the weekend without leaving absolutely everything up in the air until the week before.