Quote ="saints35 bulls0"Keiron Cunningham has joined in the nonsense now..... www.sthelensstar.co.uk/sport/sai ... gic_event/ do the players not realise they are paid to entertain, not to whinge.'" FFS Tell you what Keiron - instead of focussing on the people who can't afford to go, how about sparing a thought for those who made sacrifices and booked accomodation and tickets months ago with their hard earned and are looking forward to cheering you on at this event that you and your pals obviously don't want to play in. Comare and contrast with the statements coming from Leuluai at Wigan and Morley at Warrington and Graham/Cunningham just sounds like whiney "I'm bigger than the sport" cry-babies. You need to travel for a few hours before playing rather than playing in your back yard at some hick town. Get over it. What's more, if Saints put in a CBA type of performance as a result of the negative attitude from our bigmouth stars, I'll be royally f*cked off.

Quote ="saints35 bulls0"Keiron Cunningham has joined in the nonsense now..... www.sthelensstar.co.uk/sport/sai ... gic_event/ do the players not realise they are paid to entertain, not to whinge.'" FFS Tell you what Keiron - instead of focussing on the people who can't afford to go, how about sparing a thought for those who made sacrifices and booked accomodation and tickets months ago with their hard earned and are looking forward to cheering you on at this event that you and your pals obviously don't want to play in. Comare and contrast with the statements coming from Leuluai at Wigan and Morley at Warrington and Graham/Cunningham just sounds like whiney "I'm bigger than the sport" cry-babies. You need to travel for a few hours before playing rather than playing in your back yard at some hick town. Get over it. What's more, if Saints put in a CBA type of performance as a result of the negative attitude from our bigmouth stars, I'll be royally f*cked off.

Well said.

It's attitudes like this that will continue to hold our sport back. The international scene is nowhere near as strong as it needs to be so the RFL have come up with a way of spreading the game to new areas. Given how quick these guys are to bleat to journalists you'd think they'd welcome the expansion of the sport and the increased opportunities to moan to the media it would bring.
Can you imagine Premier League clubs complaining about travelling to Portsmouth or having to play away in Europe a few times a season?

this is exactly the kind of attitude that appears to be building within the camp - and it is giving Wigan exactly the motivation they need to think they are in with a sniff.

its truly pathetic - and someone within the club should put a stop to these idiots shouting their mouths off, or leave the morons at home and give the shirt to someone who actually wants to play for the club.

Quote ="saints35 bulls0"Keiron Cunningham has joined in the nonsense now..... www.sthelensstar.co.uk/sport/sai ... gic_event/ do the players not realise they are paid to entertain, not to whinge.'" did someone forget to tell him about the deep fried mars bars? He's be up for it then...

Quote ="saints35 bulls0"Keiron Cunningham has joined in the nonsense now..... www.sthelensstar.co.uk/sport/sai ... gic_event/ do the players not realise they are paid to entertain, not to whinge.'" did someone forget to tell him about the deep fried mars bars? He's be up for it then...

It is interesting how you blindly want the players to roll over and play ball with this whole ill founded concept.

Have you ever thought why the players are against it?

The prospects of playing in a cavenous stadium in front of only a handful of people who are interested is bad enough.

Having trekked up to Scotland to prepare for a match the Scouts would balk at is all the worse.

Get over the fact that Magic week is a gimmick. It may be an enjoyable weekend for the hardy souls who have journied to Edinburgh and good luck to them. I really hope the enjoy it.

But the fact remains the event does not tick the right boxes and is a haphazard stab in the dark at creating ripples.

Wherever next? RL for Kings Lynn...

Why not? After all they play in Norwich and Bury St Edmunds

Not all players will like the magic weekend concept but they should at least try to be professional about it and put their feelings to one side in order to promote the event. Why should fans make an effort to attend the event if they think that they are going to be watching players who would rather be somewhere else?

Graham did not only mention Cumbria in his argument.

[url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/rugby_league/article6181929.eceMan of Steel wants to dump the Edinburgh weekend[/url


Given player burnout has been identified as a cause of England's failure in RLWC 2008, and detailed studies in both codes of Rugby have identified a player's workload (as measured in part by the number of games played per season and rest periods in blunt yet reasonable manner) as a major factor contributing to burnout, then it is reasonable to compare the workload of England's players to NRL based players. When it comes to these studies, NZ Warriors Doctor John Mayhew (who used to be the All Blacks Doctor) said that playing 30 games in a season was what was "reasonable" to expect of an elite player. Super League based players seem to be acutely aware of the negative impact of a long club season and inadequate rest on their performances.

Going back to the topic of the Magic Weekend, Graham has every right to question the demands it puts on players.

Burnout was to blame for England reaching their full potential in the world cup (Failing!)?


Wow....and excuse for everything.

([ian[/i excuse)
i'd have said it's cos we were nowhere near good enough

Thanks for correcting me, thank god you did...I couldnt have lived with myself otherwise.


And be honest, you dont care about the WC, just as long as you local pub team is doing well.

"Can you imagine Premier League clubs complaining about travelling to Portsmouth or having to play away in Europe a few times a season?


good point but it did amuse me as Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn has done exactly that - travelling for a monday night game - to Portsmouth is tough on fans and players - Fergie's not happy either about a saturday lunchtime at Middlesboro- theyre getting as bad as us

RL needs to develop a bigger presence across the country and internationally, we surely can all accept that? The players have a responsibility to promote and develop the sport of RL as a whole. They are not bigger than the sport, even though they may be beginning to think so.

If they don’t like the weekend, fine – I can accept that. But publicly slating the event before it has even happened is completely pointless. Did James Graham express these views in his post-World Cup review interview? Who knows, but suddenly going public 4 days before the event and causing all this negative publicity goes a massive way to ensuring that it will be a flop. A Jocko who may have been thinking about attending (or even watching it on TV) will see these top players commenting on what a waste of time it is, and probably decide that if the players can’t even be bothered with it, why should he.

Magic Weekend has never been held in Scotland before - interesting how you can already label it an ill founded concept. How much money does it make for the RFL? That will be the deciding factor as to whether it is ill-founded surely?

RL is not a sport rich enough to turn it's nose up at cities offering to pump over half a million pounds into the game for playing some matches in their back yard.



How do you know they will "balk" at it? Shouldn't we give it until the end of the contract next year to decide that?



It ticks the profit box and the getting 7 games on TV in one weekend box and the introducing new fans to the game box.

Seems like a decent number of boxes to me.

Playing one less league game a season as a result? Maybe he's driving the coach or something? Extra stress of playing in a big stadium?

Yes and the fact that the saints and leeds players didn't get on and there were fractions in the camp.

I don't ever recall Wigan complaing about the number of games or promoting the sport when they were winning everything (although I admit its easier to discuss things and see interviews due to the internet). saints seem to think they are above the game as a whole.

Maybe Cunningham, Wilkin and Graham should opt to not play in the play-offs and Gf in order to prepare themselves physically and mentally for international footy?

Quote from FTV
RL is not a sport rich enough to turn it's nose up at cities offering to pump over half a million pounds into the game for playing some matches in their back yard.
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Thats a valid point but are the Scottish Tourist Board giving the RFL Cash or is it a contra deal - i cant see them doing fronting up a wedge of cash and picking up the tab of the RFL and the teams and its unlikely that the RFL could afford to hire murrayfield/Millenium for 2 days off its own bat

i asked that question in 2007 of the Welsh Tourist board and the reply i got said that they picked up the tab for the clubs/RFL and came to arrangement with the Millenium over the hire cost- - the Tourist board looked to cover their financial requirement and make a profit through the influx of visitors - all sounds logical.

But no Cash payment up front - the RFLs main income was from ticket sales and they publicly said that the first millenium produced a net profit of about £400k on ticket sales of 57000 - more free tickets/concessions had been made available as it was the first MM and they wanted to maximise numbers- no problem with that its speculate to accumulate- there were less giveaways in 2008

anyway clearly there is some sort of deal otherwise the event wouldnt happen - but im not certain the arrangments are quite so advantageous as you make out hence the very hard sell from Red Hall

£400k profit for 1 weekend sounds pretty good to me. add in the SKY deal for 27 games, sponsorhip based on 27 games etc and you will get well above £500k profit.

can you explain where youve got the additional £100k from i dont see Sky sponsoring MM in any way separately from their overall deal and Engage's sponsorship covers every round anyway - this is not extra to the main sponsors package -

the profit in 2007 was based purely on gate money there were no " extras" . the clubs received very little of this hence some of them feeling a bit miffed .

it might look a nice round figure but given how much time and energy (which is months) so many people have spent on promotion/advertising etc the net return on investment is not that great in percentage terms

Yeah, sod the £400k if we need to work for it.

Been to The Twickenham Stoop recently

come on its a hardly a lottery win is it , probably about a month or 2 running costs at Red Hall covered - probably got more from this years WCC for a lot less time and effort

SKY are paying an amount based on a certain number of games per year they broadcast – it stands to reason that if we give them 7 less games we will lose % of the money they put into the game. I worked out the SKY deal the other day as worth around £500k per round, and whilst I know it’s not quite as simple as that, it gives a good indication as to the value they put on a weekend of games. From what I remember of last year, there was also extra sponsors on hand just for this weekend.



Why should the clubs receive any of it directly? It is an extra game that wouldn’t be occurring anywhere otherwise. As you said, all their costs are paid for, so they are not losing anything.



Well you initially said it was £400k profit, not revenue.

Anyways, that is generally how things work in business (the RFL are a business afterall), you put effort in and get money back. It is not very often that you get given free money.

OK, I get it. You think it's a bad idea and that we don't need the cash or exposure. I think otherwise and can't wait for my flight tomorrow.

Hope you enjoy watching the games on TV, it should be great.