MAGIC will descend on Edinburgh this weekend but there will be no card tricks or women sawn in half and the result is likely to be hocus-pocus.

The Magic Weekend, which is a complete round of Super League fixtures all played at Murrayfield, is the latest example of the Rugby Football League’s (RFL) obsession with expansion.

I can only stress that Magic is the event’s title and most definitely not my adjective.

It is the third Magic event and not even the most slavish devotee of RFL propaganda could possibly describe the first two Magic events – played at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium – as successes.

The crowds were mediocre with around 60,000 people attending over the two days, leaving vast banks of empty seats, while revenues generated were unimpressive.

The response has been to swap the Welsh capital city for Scotland’s in the hope of better returns.

That would be marvellous if the cause of expanding rugby league was helped by this endeavour, but it isn’t.

The idea is to take over a big stadium in a non-rugby league area, stage an entire round of the weekly competition there, create an event, showcase the sport and introduce rugby league to a new audience.

Sadly there is really very little connection between the ambition and the reality. Rugby league has been trying to expand in England since the great split from the RFU in 1895 and, with rare exceptions, the boundaries of the sport have remained the same since then.

There have been many fine examples of amateur rugby league teams, especially at college and university level, playing successfully outside the heartlands.

But there is a vast difference between keen and enthusiastic amateurs playing in front of their families and friends, on a rented public pitch and the rather more grandiose notions of expansion that the RFL like to talk about.

It is facile to believe that any significant numbers of Scottish people are going to turn up at Murrayfield at the weekend.

The vast bulk of the crowd will be made up of the usual fans of the clubs enjoying a weekend in Edinburgh. They will bring all the friendly good humour that rugby league fans are rightly famous for.

They will have some fun, drink a few pints, take a few photos, walk down Princess Street and then go home.

But that is it – there will be no legacy.

For that to happen the RFL really would have to pull a rabbit out of the hat.