Funniest thing that has happened a few times is a team losing by 14 points at the end of the game kicking for goal to get a bonus point.

Thems the rules but at times its laughable. The RFL are so confident in it that they havnt bothered bringing it in to the only league that matters.

Totally agree Greg.

You also get an extra point for a win or a draw these days - not just a narrow defeat.

Bonus points are more likely to affect the bottom of the table, where teams lose a lot.

You still get (at least) two points more for a win than a defeat - just like the old days.

I wouldn't say bonus points have been an unqualified success - they make little or no difference to positions in the final table. But I'm comfortable with them. The only teams who lose out are teams who lose by more than 12 Everybody else gets an extra point.

ESO keeps banging on about Barrow coming to us for a bonus point in 2009, which gave them the League Leaders trophy. But the fact is that they wouldn't have had to do as well as that if there'd been no bonus points. Any old defeat would have done the job.

Will they ?

But then you'd be three league points behind a win, instead of two, just for losing by 7. Which is not all that much of a tupping, really.

Doesn't take away from the fact they started kicking drop goal after drop goal with 20 minutes left to ensure they lost by less than 12.

Pathetic rule.

You must have given them plenty of possession in kickable position.....

Fact is that most of the arguments against bonus points that you see on this forum don't actually stack up when you look at them hard.

Contribute to the game and don't get beaten by more than 12 - then you won't have a problem.

Featherstone are top because they have secured three bonus points from losing to Swinton, York and Doncaster - three teams that they should be beating comfortably.

Batley are two wins behind us but have lost five more games than us!

Sorry, that just doesn't tick the fairness box for me.

Surely it's down to us for loseing by more than 12 points, instead of playing to the end of full time, rather than us gifting the opposition the bonus point?

We've only lost three games so even if we had got bonus points in all three, Batley would only be three wins behind us.

It's a futile argument as you have to work with the system as it stands but how can it be right for any team to be ranked lower than a team that has a worse win/loss/draw record than it does?

my idea of the bonus point coming off the winners three points leaving them with two would keep both teams playing until the final second.

Exactly. You can't argue with that. Fax could have put the effort in and lost by less than 13. Like Batley have done.