Could be first of the season at Leigh and then near the end of the season at Wigan the big one.

I wonder how they're going to give out the 2 points at Magic? The assumption is that whoever plays Leigh will be gifted a win (although personally, I'd not count on that at all) and the loss of KR puts the whole contrived derby nonsense into a cocked hat anyway.

Hull vs Leeds
Wakefield vs Castleford
Huddersfield vs Salford
Widnes vs Catalan
St Helens vs Warrington
Wigan vs Leigh

Probably not a bad shout that - I still say it should be the CC 5th round though (although I've lost the will to live trying to work out the format recently)

A few ways to increase attendances:

1. Make ST no more than £200 in the West/East and £150 in the South. With the regular switching of games, less and less folk are willing to stump up front when there is a high probability they will have to miss 2-3 games of the first 11 home games, and possibly a couple of the super 8s. Ticket prices should be capped at £20 for West/East and £15 for South. True, it generates less revenue, but we don't have to pay for the upkeep of the stadium like Saints, Leeds & Wire do, so our admission prices should reflect this.

2. Play any non-televised home game on a Sunday afternoon up to the end of April and thereafter on Friday nights, taking advantage of the (slightly) warmer Sunday afternoons in Feb/Mar/Apr and slightly cooler Friday evenings in Jun/Jul/Aug.

3. Stick to the kick-off dates/times and if there is a potential clash with the football, let the fans know at the outset rather than maintaining radio silence for weeks on end. There's nothing more likely to alienate a casual fan than a lack of information.

4. Promote the least attractive games through Groupon etc to maximise attendance. As the ST holders will be getting a significant discount on the match-day price, then there is more opportunity to do £10 tickets for when the likes of Catalan, Wakey & Huddersfield play here.

More likey to pair Leigh with either Salford or Widnes, I think.

Wigan v Wire
Saints v Widnes
Leigh v Salford
Hull v Leeds
Wakey v Cas
Hudds v Catalan

We aren't goingto boost attendences without offering a better product. SL at present is not pretty to watch, very few stars knocking around. Go back 10 years, go back 20 years and look at the talent we had on show, look at the rugby that was played. Then compare it to SL 2016, there's isn't a comparison, it's chalk and cheese.

Something needs to be done,crowds are down what roughly 4 or 5 thousand on a few short years ago so clearly it needs to be addressed,

Make it cheaper,more bums on seats more money on ale,pop,pies,programmes and merch,

Hate to say make the rugby itself more attractive,sorry but the players/coaching staff have to step up now and play their part,

Sundays.,sundays,sundays why on earth are all games played on a friday,if at all possible play them on a sunday!

Much prefer Friday nights personally, got used to it now and it's a good way to start off a weekend. Sundays, everyone is hungover and half asleep!

They definitely need to go back to the drawing board with ticket prices. Season ticket and match ticket prices have gone up quite rapidly - compared to other sporting teams in the town - and we are at risk of losing a generation of support. Wigan is not an affluent town and the prices should be realistic.

As a previous season ticket holder who now has a kid the main factors for me are:

1. Price. Compared to football still cheap but 3 games of RL is the equivalent to a weekend away...

2. Times. Fridays are great when you dont have kids. Finish work, go home and get changed, out to the pub and then the match. Brilliant. Cant do that with a 6 year old though so sat/sun afternoon games are a must

3. Entertainment. Nothing worse than being bored to tears for the 80 mins the game is played and then add kn top the dull pre game and half time entertainment and its a big no no for young knes tryjng to get into the game

Sunday afternoon games occasionally will help me for sure with having a 4 year old as I can take her if needs be.

To seriously increase attendances though I think the quality of the league needs to increase across the board. It's good to see a lot of young British kids playing nowadays but some sides still rely too heavily on second raters from overseas. The balance in superleague had never seemed quite right between good Young British players and quality overseas players. I think Hull have hit a decent balance this year with good level overseas lads like Fonua, Manu and Minichello turning out with players like Shaul, Sneyd, Bowden etc. Even they're a little too top heavy with some reasonably average overseas players but they're a pretty close fit to an ideal make up.

It is an interesting point about Wigan not being an affuent town,didnt the latics lower or hold their prices for season tickets?a few more games for the cost of course too the club seriously has to look at itself ask wether its value for money or not,the last few seasons has seen the average attendance drop from what 16k to around the 11/12k mark this season lots of reasons of course why but the team/coaching staff have to realise theyre in the entertainment buisness and do their part over the full season.

Interesting points about making the game more attractive.

A coaches job is to win games (in all sport this is the same). Obviously we all want to win and play attractively. It is easy to define success but how do you define what is attractive? Some people like a close contest. In fact there are those on here that complained bitterly when we were winning by 50+, saying that it was putting them off watching. We were way more attractive in 2011 in Wane's first year than in the previous 2 under Madge. In fact Madge's style was a dull as ditchwater to me. But he was a winner. Easy to enjoy because we were winning after a period when we didn't.

Playing attractive rugby is more difficult as defences get better. Look at Widnes this season in our three games. An average team but great defence. It's why the NRL is better in standard, but not necessarily a great watch. People who say the standard is falling are WRONG. Defence is so much better now than it has ever been, across all teams.

Cas play some great footy. Perhaps some of you should go and support them. It's easy when no-one expects you to win anything. Powell just needs to keep them in Super League. For the likes of Wigan, Saints and Wire, we expect to compete at the top. That has to be the coaches primary aim.

I suppose when I tot it up it's quite a dear do going to games for me. Frankly the ticket cost isn't a biggie for me, it's dwarfed by petrol. hotel, and food and beer costs!

Personally IDGAS about pre-match and half-time entertainment, but more entertaining footy is a definite requirement. I didn't thank God, go to the Widnes game, but I can remember listening to Bilko's increasingly despondent commentary and being glad I wasn't there.

Perhaps a better word would be competent rather than attractive?

I can guarantee you I have never in all my years of watching Wigan left the ground more fed up as often as I did in 2016 at what was on offer regardless of the result. Errors and Penalties were too much in evidence (we are at the wrong end of the stats table for those as proof) and add that to one of the poorest attacks in the league and the stats back up the perception. Some of the play was just shoddy and can't be excused by better defences. How often have people said we had no idea on attack in the last 20m?

We won the GF despite these stats not because of them and I am sure if you look you will see many of these stats were reversed in the last four games. Fewer errors and penalties and a higher average per game for points scored. I think we even outscored Wire in the S8's. Not surprisingly people would like to see similar throughout the season and I don't think anyone can argue it was about peaking at the right time because that would imply all those earlier errors, penalties and lack of ideas were planned which they were not.