CHALLENGE Cup Finals always produce talking points and last week’s was no different.

They range from someone making a hash of the cup final hymn Abide with me to the call on not allowing Tony Clubb’s try after the ball had appeared to have been reefed.

My biggest concern - and it was so predictable - was the rows of empty seats in the top tier.

A gate of 68,000 was the lowest Wembley crowd since minnows Sheffield Eagles downed Wigan in the biggest of final surprises in 1998.

In some ways we should count our blessings that Hull and Wigan - two of the sport’s best supported clubs – made it through to the showpiece finale or else we would have been looking at a really embarrassing gate.

There will be plenty of knee-jerk reaction to the gate - and the first one is to say move it from Wembley.

No! Not only is the history of the Challenge Cup, rugby league’s oldest and most traditional of competitions, intertwined with that of the national stadium - suggesting moving it misses one very important point.

During the final’s absence from Wembley, while the Twin Towers were being demolished and replaced by a new-fangled arch, the final produced even lower crowds than last week’s – at Murrayfield in 2002 and Twickenham in 2006.

Admittedly Cardiff came up trumps with three 70,000 plus gates between 2003-05, but moving the venue is not the answer to the shine coming off the cup’s gloss.

It is all about timing.

Since the Challenge Cup has been moved from its late spring slot it has suffered a staggering loss of momentum.

The argument was to stop it becoming a pre-season comp - but did it really ever feel that way in 96? Or in 2004?

There was real excitement to those rounds and they built a real momentum culminating in the final.

But now it meanders through the whole year.

And then the big games are shunted in the middle of the main school kids holidays.

In the real world people spend a lot of money on holidays this time of year - there will be thousands of fans either away in August or skint after coming back.

When you throw in the fact that August bank holiday is now the weekend the trains close down, you can see why people are put off going in droves.

So for me, it is simple, ditch Magic and move the Challenge Cup final back to May, or June at at the latest.

And restore some shine to our crown jewel.