And no prizes for guessing that Saints yet again get a comfortable fixture. The fixture scheduling is becoming the only part of the Magic concept I’m not behind. I love the event but it’s crackers how these fixtures are being chosen IMO.

Complete joke . Brilliant weekend but RFL trying to people off big time .

Regards EW

Its getting boring now

Anyone know how these are determined? It's not 1 v 2, 3 v 4 etc but it doesn't look like they have gone for derbies either (e.g Cas aren't playing Wakey).

The whole thing made even more ridiculous by the fact that we also have a loop fixture as well. Surely someone should apply some common sense and not let this happen.

The magic weekend has run its course, time to scrap it.

You're asking for a bit too much there, Royal Wire. Common sense and the RFL? Mutually exclusive really.
As a Wigan fan we played Saints 5 years out of 6 at Magic.
Played Leeds four on the trot.
If we'd played you guys last year we'd have played each other four on the bounce.

That's boring! Surely by now the RFL would have found a better way of sorting the six game fixtures?
A plain old drawing balls out of a bag would be better than this shambles.

I quite like Magic but they need to stop messing with the venue and date.

Same place, same time every season. Maybe even pick the fixtures the week (or 2 week) before in a 1st v 2nd, 3rd v 4th format to try and keep the games fair and as closely contested as possible.

Yes keep it at Newcastle been best venue for me and the fans seem to love it . Maybe try something different with fixtures and have a Lancashire v Yorkshire theme each team who wins gets a point and see who comes out on top just a bit more interest

That's the best idea iv'e heard as a concept for the Magic Weekend.Nobody knows who they are playing until a week before the weekend. The only problem being people wont know what day to buy a ticket for and getting time off work, babysitters etc but i like the idea in principle.

That's an issue that would need ironing out yes (maybe do it a month before, but then the table might change dramatically in that time), BUT the idea is that it's a weekend event which IMO is why it needs to be somewhere you would go for the weekend as opposed to Manchester or Liverpool. So it would be Newcastle or Cardiff for me with Newcastle pinching it because it's easier to get there for the day if you want to.

Indeed it is.

If we are going to keep it then it does need revamping.
1) Decide which teams are to play on each day
2) Have a draw one hour before the first game is due to start to determine who plays who and in which order.

This will add excitement for the fans as they don’t know who they will be playing until game day.
Yes teams won’t have had time to prepare for the opposition but that adds to the event and helps to create the occasional shock.
It would also get crowds into the stadium from the start, especially if they hype up the draw and make it a real event.
But whatever they decide to do it definitely needs to be reinvented.

To be honest, most years I’d be inclined to agree but this year I’m just excited about the prospect of it going ahead with fans in the stadium.

So all six teams have to get changed and warmed up at the same time ready to play, then four of them find out they're not playing yet? Besides the fact there are few stadiums with the facilities to allow six teams to all get changed and warmed up at the same time, it would just be messing players and coaching staff about needlessly. There would be heavy criticism of the RFL from the teams for being amateurish and rightly so.

I think it would be pretty poor from a fan's perspective too. You're asking people to buy travel, accommodation and tickets for what could well be three mismatches. I know from our group I can get six-eight of us to pay up for Wigan v Saints/Warrington/Leeds with a bit of arm twisting. For random opposition if would be a harder sell, most likely just two of us. I'll watch any rugby but it's asking a lot of time and money from casual fans to potentially watch Wigan v Hull KR.

We need these to either be evenly matched on paper, or derbies. Of course the problem with derbies is that if would mean the same games every year. 1 v 2, 3 v 4 etc from last season's table works, or alternatively from a set point during the current season (e.g when everyone has played each other once).