When will you people get it through your thick skulls that league position means nothing? The fixture schedule isn't even weighted evenly for gods sake, besides the most important fact that everyone knows before the season starts finishing top does not render you champions, thus rendering league position irrelevant.

You really don't know how the play-off system works do you?

The TRUE Champions are the ones that win the Grand Final. If it were those that won the hub cap you'd probably see a different approach to the season from Leeds.

Anyway, it's not like your lot are going to get anywhere near Old Trafford, so you take solace in your deluded views and carry on believing that the world is flat.

A playoff final is the traditional way of deciding the Champions in rugby league. It's sad you're willing to dismiss over a hundred years of RL as bollox.

I'm surprised it's taken flyingpoop this long to post his traditional bollox rants.
His carer obviously had other chores to finish before logging on for him!

Is it sad that you're willing to dismiss the 37 seasons where the champions were determined by league position? Which also included the first decade of RL history? Or are you experiencing difficulty with the term "traditional"?

No I'm not experiencing any difficulty thank you William, are you? You seem unsure of the definition of the word "traditional".
I don't dismiss those seasons, it was an interesting experiment, but those teams are deserved champions regardless of the system. Flyingprop however was the one dismissing playoffs as a "money-spinner" and suggesting that playoffs were effectively an RFL/SL gimmick and playoff winners aren't "true champions". That I find strange when playoffs are the traditional choice of defining the champions throughout RL history.

Which ever way the title of Champions is decided, Huddersfield have failed on an epic scale. It's alright talking-up Wigan and Warrington's claim to be "true" champions of recent seasons but this is about Leeds and Huddersfield. Let's say 6-0 in favour of the Rhinos (+ 2 runners-up).
So if we never make it to the GF again and Huddersfield win the next 7 or 8 they can come on here with actually something to shout about!
See you lot in 2020...

It was only the traditional way because every team did not play everyone else.

And how does that compare to the current or previous fixture format? Does every team have exactly the same fixture list under those?

Ooh, ooh, me me. Is the answer "no"?

Gold star to El Diablo.

In fact - one for the proper stattos here - since the introduction of the playoffs, how many seasons has SL had a straight home and away fixture format with no Magic weekend, on the road or repeat fixtures?

McShane still worries me in defense, he got put on his backside quite a few times yesterday.

None.

I think the 69 times that a play-off system has been used since 1906 underlines what is "tradititional".
To get a number of 37, we have to include the years 1896-1906 when only regional champs were decided (during your mentioned "first decade"icon_wink.gif plus another one from somewhere.

I do think the current system of top-eight playing-off is making a mockery of playing consistently through the season and should be seriously modified.
I don't subscribe to slavish adherence to tradition, to me the invocation of tradition is the sign of a lost argument... but, if I did, I would obviously lean towards playoffs.

Regional county championship seasons were 1896-97 to 1900-01. The first season in 1895-96 was the full monty championship decided by league placing and the full monty championship returned again from 1901-02 to 1905-06 seasons. That's 10 seasons right there. I haven't included the 1903/04 season since it was intended to be settled by league placing, but two teams finished on the same number of points on the ladder which created confusion and it was decided to have a play-off to settle who were champions. League placing returned for two seasons in the 60's... 1962-63 and 1963-64 seasons... then another 25 seasons from 1974-75 seasons until and including the 1997 SL season.

Interestingly, Leeds have never been champions courtesy of finishing top of the ladder which might explain why some Leeds fans prefer to wear blinkers by considering 37 seasons of RL history as a mere "experiment" as opposed to the so-called "traditional" way of deciding things 13.21484375:10