Paul Sculthorpe brings his latest column, courtesy of Super League sponsors Betfred.

WHAT a great weekend - another successful ‘Magic’ weekend in the great city of Newcastle.

For the fourth year running in the North East the rugby league community have done themselves proud promoting our great game.

Fans of all clubs, happily mingling and socialising together while supporting their teams...in what threw out some surprising results!

I do hear reports that there may be a possible change of venue for the 2019 Magic Weekend, mainly due to a possible clash with another sporting fixture.

I sincerely hope this is not the case and we can continue to build the love of RL in a city dominated by soccer...but a place where our game continues to grow, with the friendly, sport-loving Geordies again making us feel so welcome.

Possible alternative venues mentioned are Manchester, Coventry and New York. While I’m all for expanding our game....one of the special things about ‘Magic’ is the carnival-style atmosphere created by all fans, families, community clubs and RFL partners...which a move to NYC would almost certainly out-price most who get to enjoy this great event.

On the rugby side, Saints continued to pick up the points, but with a rare under-par performance again an enthusiastic Widnes side.

However, class told in the end as we ran out 38-18 winners.

A sign of a good team when you can underperform but still get the win. Special mentions to Dom Peyroux who had an outstanding game at St James’s Park, while Regan Grace and Ryan Morgan got over the line for a brace each.

That man Barba too...getting over or his 19th try of the season while having a hand in a couple more.

Two results I didn’t expect...and certainly not as convincing as they were was Wigan’s demolition of the in-form Warrington, and an injury hit Castleford putting the Leeds Rhinos to the sword, both with 38-10 victories. Leeds have had their own injury problems this season, but now face the rest of the season without skipper and main strike player Kallum Watkins who it has been confirmed needs an ACL knee reconstruction.

One story to hit the headlines this week, and shocked me is the news that Wigan head coach Shaun Wane is to end his 30+ year relationship with the club he loves at the end of the 2018 season.

While Saints fans will obviously have their own thoughts on Waney (understandably as an iconic figure at our fierce rivals!), I would like to pay respect to a guy I class as a good friend, and someone we can’t deny has played a big part in our sport over his long career at Wigan, from his time as a player - picking up the MoM award in Wigan’s 1987 World Club Challenge win over Manly, to joining the youth coaching staff helping develop some stars of today’s Betfred Super League, before being given the top job in 2012.

He is certainly a very passionate character who I would hate to see lost from our game.

As we now enter the second half of the season and following those results at weekend the Betfred odds on winning the Grand Final in October naturally have us at 6/4 favourites with Wigan 11/4, Castleford shortened to 5/1 and Warrington drifting slightly to 6/1.

#COYS