Marvellous Manchester Magic - Round 16, Round Up : Tue May 28, 2013 7:49 am  

Marvellous Manchester Magic - Round 16, Round Up Now in its seventh year, the Magic Weekend lived up to expectations at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester. We had superb rugby, big hits, sensational tries and a massive slice of controversy. Every game delivered something a little special from the convincing opening win by Catalans Dragons to the late drama in the Wigan v. Leeds tussle. We had reporters and all the matches. READ MORE ON THIS STORY...

Marvellous Manchester Magic - Round 16, Round Up Now in its seventh year, the Magic Weekend lived up to expectations at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester. We had superb rugby, big hits, sensational tries and a massive slice of controversy. Every game delivered something a little special from the convincing opening win by Catalans Dragons to the late drama in the Wigan v. Leeds tussle. We had reporters and all the matches. READ MORE ON THIS STORY...

Re: Marvellous Manchester Magic - Round 16, Round Up : Tue May 28, 2013 10:22 am  

So the `Marvellous Magic Weekend lived up to expectations`??

So they expected a weekend where the stadium was no more than about half full for all but the headline acts?
Where many of the fans only turned up to see `their game`, because it`s little more than a home fixture for anyone at that end of the country.
So what`s `Magic` about the same boring `local derby` fixtures, when they could rearrange the fixtures so that 1 plays 2, 3 plays 4......through to 13 plays 14 (say based on last years table positions), where at least you will be assured of a competitive game for each round.......but no, lets persist with the Catalan v Bronco curtain raiser in an empty stadium, just to underline to everyone just how s**t we are......great viewing, that will get the punters in for the next round of SL.

I doubt the overall attendance has changed much year on year and they should have stuck with Cardiff......but not the RFL, they cannot stick with anything for longer than 5 minutes which is endemic of their scatter-gun approach to promoting the game, just hoping to get lucky with something that works rather than appoint the right management team and a bit of hard work.

Re: Marvellous Manchester Magic - Round 16, Round Up : Tue May 28, 2013 11:15 am  

Under the sticks wrote:

So the `Marvellous Magic Weekend lived up to expectations`??

So they expected a weekend where the stadium was no more than about half full for all but the headline acts?
Where many of the fans only turned up to see `their game`, because it`s little more than a home fixture for anyone at that end of the country.
So what`s `Magic` about the same boring `local derby` fixtures, when they could rearrange the fixtures so that 1 plays 2, 3 plays 4......through to 13 plays 14 (say based on last years table positions), where at least you will be assured of a competitive game for each round.......but no, lets persist with the Catalan v Bronco curtain raiser in an empty stadium, just to underline to everyone just how s**t we are......great viewing, that will get the punters in for the next round of SL.

I doubt the overall attendance has changed much year on year and they should have stuck with Cardiff......but not the RFL, they cannot stick with anything for longer than 5 minutes which is endemic of their scatter-gun approach to promoting the game, just hoping to get lucky with something that works rather than appoint the right management team and a bit of hard work.

Apart from about 60 minutes of our game personally I had a great weekend with the RL"family"

Re: Marvellous Manchester Magic - Round 16, Round Up : Tue May 28, 2013 5:25 pm  

One of the best lines from the RFL Big CEO was how extra tickets were being released before the weekend due to sales of 65,000 tickets, only problem the combined attendance for both days only comes to just over 61,500 plus?

What other sport would stage its Magic Weekend when the City is closed down virtually with a major road/street events & marathon covered by the BBC on national TV?

It is quite clear most fans arrived early to watch their clubs game and caught the end of the game before but then left after their own match, in Cardiff people stayed often for the weekend or made a full day out of it not just one game.

St Helens V Warrington ear to the end the stadium can't have been one third full, the only game there seemed a fair crowd was the Leeds V Wigan! But Nigel will tell us it was the best Magic Weekend ever!

Re: Marvellous Manchester Magic - Round 16, Round Up : Tue May 28, 2013 6:32 pm  

Unfortunately we set the tone, and most of the games weren't great contests, and even Wigan couldn't demonstrate clinical execution - although I'm not sure watering the pitch between games helped.
On the whole though, 7 games of League, good weather, and beer (even cr*p overpriced beer) - what's not to like?