The high road to Edinburgh

Fri 18 Jul 2008

Martyn Sadler, the editor of 'Rugby League Express', welcomes the decision to take the 'Magic' weekend to Edinburgh next season.

I have to admit to a certain degree of bias when it comes to making a judgement about the decision the RFL has taken to have a 'Murrayfield Magic' weekend for the next two years.
Edinburgh is one of my favourite cities for a variety of reasons, and, although many supporters will be disappointed that the Magic weekend will move from Cardiff, I would guess that the two years in Edinburgh will be a terrific success.
After all, if you can't enjoy yourself in the Scottish capital, the chances are that you can't enjoy yourself anywhere.
At the time of writing the RFL hasn't given us much detail about the format of the Murrayfield Magic weekend, other than to say that it will be held on Saturday and Sunday, 2nd and 3rd May next year. That means, I assume, that there will be four matches on one day, and three on the other.
That, perhaps, is the only concern I would have about the event.
Three matches on one day is difficult for some fans to take, so four on one day will of course represent an even more difficult challenge. On a day with four matches I imagine the first game will kick off at 1.00pm, while the final game will probably start at 7.00pm.
It is by no means impossible to achieve, although there will clearly be a tremendous amount of pressure on the Murrayfield pitch, particularly when you recall the 2000 Challenge Cup Final, and the heavy rain in Edinburgh in the week leading up to the game that put it in some jeopardy almost until the day of the game itself. So let's all hope for some good weather next May.
The other unknown factor about the Murrayfield Magic weekend at the time of writing is how the fixtures are going to be selected. Will the RFL stick to derby matches, or will the games be selected on some other basis?
There has been a suggestion that the matches may be based on some form of seeding.
My advice to the RFL is to have a random draw, perhaps at the time of the launch of Super League in February. I'm not certain that the derby matches at the Millennium Stadium were the best way to organise games there, simply because we found that most of those derbies meant that the clubs were meeting each other four times during the season. It slightly devalued the idea of derbies. And any other pre-determined draw would tend to replicate fixtures that we may expect to see in the Super League play-offs at the end of the season.
A random draw, on the other hand, would be, by its nature, more unpredictable, and would give a sense of excitement to the Super League launch at the start of the season.
Whatever happens, however, you can bet that Edinburgh will be awash with Rugby League supporters over the first weekend of May next year, and my advice to all the fans is to book your accommodation early before hotel prices start to rise, although, to judge from our Mailbag, that process already looks as though it is starting to happen.

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