Dave Craven: '˜Magic' does the trick again but should it remain a permanent fixture?

IT WAS at 7.32pm last night that the customary email arrived from the RFL, hailing the success of Magic Weekend.
OPENING UP: Salford Reds and Widnes Vikings walk on to the pitch at the start of the 2016 Magic Weekend at St James's Park. Picture: Richard Sellers/PAOPENING UP: Salford Reds and Widnes Vikings walk on to the pitch at the start of the 2016 Magic Weekend at St James's Park. Picture: Richard Sellers/PA
OPENING UP: Salford Reds and Widnes Vikings walk on to the pitch at the start of the 2016 Magic Weekend at St James's Park. Picture: Richard Sellers/PA

It is like clockwork and pretty much the same every year, someone from the governing body – ordinarily chief executive Nigel Wood – extolling the virtues of the concept, revealing some tenuous attendance record has been broken and saying how much everyone enjoyed it all.

To be fair, on that last point, most people who do attend Super League’s annual feast of rugby – for those wondering what this is all about, all 12 clubs play at one venue over one weekend – do relish the occasion. What’s not to love?

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It was the same at Newcastle this weekend, where the event was held for a second successive season at St James’ Park.

Fans and players alike seem to enjoy the Toon as a host, the fourth in Magic’s 10-year history after Cardiff, Edinburgh and Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium.

However, whether or not Magic is an essential part of the rugby league calendar and worth continuing is still open to debate.

At a time when player welfare is becoming increasingly prevalent, is there any real need to put players through an extra fixture on top of their regular home and away games?

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Let’s face it, with the new league format that includes the Super 8s, sides already play a minimum of 30 games per season, 31 if you include the Challenge Cup.

With the number of injuries suffered, collisions seemingly just getting bigger and bigger, and the sport looking to get faster and faster, should those at the heart of it all – the players – truly be put under more pressure with this auxiliary fixture?

With an international cap on, too, it is just the sort of game that could easily be removed to help reduce burn-out and improve chances of the national side succeeding against Australia and New Zealand whose club sides, in all honesty, have it comparatively easy with their workload.

That, of course, is at the heart of it all – is the need for Super League and the RFL to strengthen the domestic game greater than its desire to see success on an international level?

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That has been a burning issue for a long time and, in reality, there seems no likelihood that Magic Weekend will disappear from sight.

For fans, at least, creating a mid-season weekend away has its own merits and rugby league certainly knows how to put on a show in this instance.

Clubs, many of whom were originally indifferent about the Magic concept, are now more positive even if it often does not really generate them massive amounts of revenue.

Speaking to Gareth Ellis and Michael Shenton, the Hull FC and Castleford Tigers captains, last week, they are both supporters of the weekend although some players would play every week of the year if they could.

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Newcastle are keen to have it back for a third year, not just the football club but the city council especially, unsurprisingly given the boost the event brings to their coffers.

It raked in £4m revenue for the local economy last year, apparently, and probably will have done likewise this time around.

Personally, I do feel it is a great venue – for all Manchester were fine hosts, it is in the middle of the heartlands – and I would like to see it continue there.

However, given one of the reasons Magic Weekend initially originated was to spread the rugby league word, after three years, everyone in Newcastle who wanted to try out a game of rugby league will surely have had ample opportunity to do so.

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If St James’ Park, therefore, does get it again in 2017 – and the RFL are truly serious about it breaking new ground – that should be the end of its run there before it moves on elsewhere.

Undoubtedly, Magic does earn the sport some much-needed extra coverage. The Mirror, for example, ran a special front page for its editions in Newcastle on Saturday, something that paper also did, to their credit, in Hull recently when the great Roger Millward sadly passed.

Magic does look like it will be here to stay and maybe that is no bad thing.

One last point, however. If it does become cemented in the sport’s fixture list, there can be no more cries of a lack of quality at certain stages of the season when over-worked players are not at their best.

Rugby league cannot have it both ways.