I WENT to the Challenge Cup Final on Saturday as a fan.

My wife and I were due in the south east anyway to visit my best mate and his better half and somehow, I convinced them all that an afternoon watching a game only I would truly appreciate would be the best way to spend our time.

And what was it that convinced my friend who doesn’t follow rugby league in any way other than being supportive of my work? The novelty factor of the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

In fairness, that is probably what attracted me too – I’ve never really been one to just go to games as a neutral, but the chance to go and experience the newest “super-stadium” this country has to offer seemed too good to turn down.

Sure, I could have just paid to take the tour but when it ties in with the great game, how could I not go?

My oh my, what a place it is and it got me thinking – is there a case to be made for a more permanent move to this new corner of North London for one of the game’s showpiece events?

For this breaking of new ground for rugby league is, the RFL say, a temporary one for next year, we will be back to Wembley and a mid-July date.

From my experience and – by the sounds of it at least – that of tens of thousands of rugby league fans on Saturday, however, I think there will be a strong swell of support for the Challenge Cup Final remaining where it is.

For one, it’s slightly smaller than Wembley and the sad fact of the matter is that rugby league is currently not in a state to fill a 90,000-seater leviathan of a stadium at the moment.

Whether it will get back to that point remains to be seen, but I’ve always been of the belief that a full – or close to full – smaller venue looks and sounds so much better than a half-empty large one.

Of course, Tottenham is no slouch at 60,000 and the place definitely was not full on Saturday, but the acoustics in that place made it sound like it was.

The ground reverberated and pulsated at even the smallest ripple of noise – I’ve no idea how it sounded on TV but inside the ground, it felt like the atmosphere was pumping and exactly how you want it for a game of this magnitude.

The seats, the concourses – everything just felt fresh, modern and exciting.

I like the way the cup has been done this year, too – done and dusted with still half of the Super League season left. Plenty of time for hangovers to be shaken off in every sense of the word and still have a meaningful end to the season.

Keeping that kind of schedule would fall in Tottenham’s favour, too, with Wembley often hosting football play-offs at that time as it was this year.

There’s no getting away from the fact, however, that Wembley is special – one of the great arenas of world sport.

The fact rugby league gets a day on that kind of stage every year is a big draw. For many, it always will be the spiritual home of rugby league.

Tottenham hasn’t reached that kind of status yet and probably never will, but is it time to move on from the kind of sentiment attached to having showpiece games at Wembley?

There are a lot of things that will need to fall into place naturally, but I certainly hope this is not the last rugby league the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium will ever see.