SOME slippery thoughts on the second Millennium Magic weekend..
First up what a try-tastic, try-errific feast of rugby. In the home of the best rah-rah side in Europe, ahem, there were 62 tries scored in six games - that's 12 more than the entire 15-game Six Nations.
Wigan fool-back Richie Mathers will never want to see one of them again after being swatted off rather pathetically by Jon Wilkin in the final encounter.
And there were at least two other tries scored in that game that I blame entirely on the awful playing surface.
Sean O'Loughlin lost his footing in the build-up to Sean Long's second try and Paul Wellens slipped when Thomas Leuluai burrowed over at the beginning of the second half.
Mathers went down like a dying Drogba every time he fielded a kick return.
The Quins v Cataland game was littered with similar incidents.
And yet no-one can explain why the roof is shut, causing the pitch to sweat and fabulous athletes to resemble Norman Wisdom on It's A Knockout.
It's no good trying to salvage any common sense from the bickering tedium of Eddie, Stevo, Barrie and Terry.
And when Sky wheeled out RFL chief exec Nigel Wood - and they'd need a big set of wheels - he said it was to "protect against the weather".
What weather? I didn't go to Cardiff this year but 12 months ago it was a glorious hot, sunny day while we sat inside. This year it wasn't raining.
Yet the roof was shut as it was for the Challenge Cup finals played there.
Grand finals are meant to be played under floodlights – not Cup finals.
So it’s time to move on from Cardiff. Crowds were not up significantly enough to suggest the great Welsh public has embraced the event.
Sure, Sky and RFL will tell us the people of Wales love it. But they would, wouldn’t they?
Let’s go to Edinburgh or Dublin. First up there are more hotels in two cities better suited to coping with hordes of drunken invaders.
Ah yes. There are more pubs too and considerably better ones than Cardiff.
I’m not too sure the Scots would give a toss about RL but maybe the Irish would. And I’m certainly not suggesting it as some kind of expansionist route into Ireland but, marketed correctly, I think they’d bite.
But that’s half the problem..’marketed correctly’ and rugby league never go in the same sentence.
Nice gesture by Cas after their weekend whupping at the hands of Wakefield and that legendary Scotsman Danny McBrough.
They’ve offered fans discount on tickets and merchandise if they produce their Magic ticket.
Wigan should do the same after their lackluster effort against Saints.
And if Giants continue their run – six games without a win and one victory in nine – when will they start dishing out gree goodies to the disgruntled?
Jon Sharp linked with the Catalans job too. Uneasy times at the Galpharm.