photo by Jane Harris

A four-day weekend of rugby league is planned for South Wales when the “Millennium Magic” is staged on May 5-6 2007.

The two days at the Millennium Stadium will see six matches involving all 12 Super League sides but Wales Rugby League and Celtic Crusaders have plans to make the weekend even bigger for rugby league fans.

With Celtic Crusaders already announcing that they have plans to apply to stage a home league match on the Friday night, Wales Rugby League have announced that their prestigious Scott McRorie Nines tournament involving all Welsh Conference Premier rugby league clubs, will be held on the Bank Holiday Monday.

The tournament, named after a young rugby league player from Aberavon who tragically died aged 17, is entering its

fourth year but only really started to take off in 2006 when Blackwood Bulldogs successfully hosted it as a pre-season competition that was won by Cardiff Demons.

And it is the Demons who have been first to come forward to stage the tournament in 2007. Simon Davies from the Demons said: “It’s a great idea to hold the Nines on this weekend and we will apply to host the tournament. As we’re so near to Cardiff city centre, we are the ideal venue and I’m sure we’ll have plenty of rugby league fans stopping off to see the tournament on their way home.”

St Peters RFC has a brand new state of the art club house and plenty of room for multiple teams to change making it a fine choice to host the day but Wales Rugby League’s executive chairman Mark Rowley said that nothing had been decided on yet.

Rowley said: “The tournament will go ahead on May 7th but we haven’t decided on venue yet. We will put it out to tender to all the clubs and I expect it to be highly contested off the field as Blackwood made a lot of money from it this season. Cardiff Demons are welcome to apply to stage it, just the same as all the other Welsh clubs.”

article by Ian Golden
15 September 2006