Edinburgh is emerging as the favoured destination when Bradford Bulls join the Super League roadshow in July.

Watford soccer club's Vicarage Road ground was expected to stage the champions clash with the London Broncos but talks have broken down with the Nationwide League Second Division side who claim their pitch is being re-seeded.

Bulls chairman Chris Caisley had already hinted he was not happy with the venue anyway stating that Watford was not a rugby league development area.

Now I understand talks are at an advanced stage with Hibernian soccer club, in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle, for them to stage the match at their Easter Road ground which has a capacity of around 16,000.

The proposal looks certain to win approval from the fans with special weekend packages on offer.

An added attraction for Super League officials and the Bulls are that the club's main sponsor, Compaq, has a major base at nearby Livingston, and they are keen to promote the game.

Cardiff, Swansea, Gateshead, Northampton and Reading have are also in the running to stage one of the six roadshow matches. Other clashes are: St Helens v Wigan, Leeds v Salford, Halifax v Sheffield, Warrington v Castleford and Hull v Huddersfield.

The games will be held in a three week window in the main Super League fixture list in July and points gained will count towards the race for the top five play-offs. Meanwhile tickets for the Super League opener at Huddersfield on Friday week are now on general sale at Odsal.

The match is not all ticket but fans are being advised to purchase them in advance as a crowd well in excess of 10,000 is expected.

Prices in the all-seater McAlpine Stadium range from £10 to £12 for adults and £5 for concessions.

The Odsal office will be open late until 8.30pm tonight and between 9.30am and 12.30pm on Saturday.

Meanwhile Super League clubs have agreed in principle to a new salary cap for their sport but are calling for modification.

Six of the 12 top-flight clubs have exceeded the 50% limit on gross income set aside for players' wages, with the worst offenders Wigan, who are spending 74% on salaries.

Chief executives of the Super League clubs agreed yesterday to take a resolution to next Wednesday's meeting of the RFL Council calling for lucrative contracts agreed at the time of the Super League war with the Australian Rugby League to be taken into consideration.

Club representatives also called on the League not to withhold News Corporation funding to clubs "only marginally" above the cap.

SLE and Bulls chairman Chris Caisley was set to hold talks with RFL officials today in preparation for the Council meeting.

"Everybody's position was examined and, although the principles of the salary cap were agreed unanimously, we need to put operational information to the RFL to enable them to police it effectively," said Caisley.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.