Maybe, or perhaps they looked at the Floodlit 9's last year and saw that it got a couple of thousand on a midweek, and have tried to tie it in as a Magic Weekend type event.

Standing out in the sun having a few beers watching 9's sounds pretty good to me tbh (hence looking for tickets).

I can understand people being disappointed that tickets are hard to come by, but the 9's looks quite a good event, although it will be interesting to see how it goes in it's first year.

The Carnegie 9's

A midweek one night competition where non of the clubs will be playing for 10 days after

Were most will be putting out reserve grade players

Only clubs that want to enter have to do

Wheras the NRC 9's are over 2 days

Played probably in very hot weather

All clubs except one have to enter

Clubs have been told they have to put out 1 st team squads despite some clubs not running reserve sides

It comes at a point in the season where 3/4 s of the clubs are all still going to be either trying to get PROMOTED

Not get RELEGATED [ remember that ]

Or win the chance to get PROMOTED to SL

It is in the biggest dump in the NW of England

Totally stupid idea

Not keen on it then Starbug

It shows does it

It might sound sweet to you but its patently obvious it doesn't have the interest the RFL thinks it will, which is the point.

if it is as appealing to you and others as you're making out, it could hold its own as a seperate event.

As it is, the ground chosen for the NRC final is too small already without having to share with another event.

They;ve dropped the ball, big time.

Just a little

What is the point in the 9s competition.I we where not in the final i would want a weakened team.I dont want my players injured for important league games.I would never go 9s comp.Another poop idea by the rfl.They are a bunch of idiots.

SOmebody pointed out that this game has only sold out once before, so how is the stadium too small for the event? They had to make the decision before they knew the finalists.

Also, with regards to the 9's people are being ridiculous. If the clubs don;t want sponsors and profil, fine, don;t bother with things like this, but to bang on about injuries is nonsense. The players will be playing less than they would if it was a full round of league fixtures. This adds some variety to the season, an okay, you may not like the sound of it, but that doesn;t mean the RFL have cocked up. Let's just see how it goes first. It may turn out to be an event which goes well and runs each year, just like the Union tournaments.

Also, with regards to the capacity, they will have looked and seen that Widnes get less than 4k fans, Barrow get around 2k, there is plenty of space there. As I have said, they are not here to cater for the armchair fans, which would mean them hiring a bigger stadium which leaves them at risk of thousands of empty seats if two lower teams were to make it to the final.

I believe the Blackpool stadium will be bigger next year anyway, so this should be the last year with issues?

Look at 7's events in Union, they attract thousands and thousands of fans, whereas League fans would rather sit at homemoaning about how the RFL are idiots.

Dave T, I know this is a very long shot but do you know if there will be any tickets on sale for neutrals for your CC semi at the Stobart??