I don't think leeds will make the grand final this year. Yes, never write them off, still got the ability, dangerous playoff team...(insert cliche as appropriate). But last year leeds barely got a mention going into the playoffs, they then, without being disrespectful got to play what can only be described (to quote a very tedious poster) as rabble, up until the final eliminator.

Leeds would probably have a tougher run in wherever they finish this season, unless some of the good teams implode from nowhere. Plus, leeds are defending champions, everyone knows what happened last year, teams will be ready and waiting for leeds, they will be gunning for them.

I really fancy warrington to win the grand final personally. They've got the ability, but they seem to be biding their time this season and waiting for the playoffs. I don't think they care about finishing top like last season, I do think they've learnt from last season.

Wigan are very structured and systematic in their play. Warrington can be unpredictable and ''off the cuff'' but they still posess that forward power and defensive steel needed. That's why i think they'll be able to win the grand final this year, with the experience of what happened last season.

I'd be surprised if that list of his doesn't need altering after every remaining round. Hardly a week goes by without a shock somewhere or other as coaches play ducks and drakes with team selections.

The whole play off format is flawed IMO. By finishing in the top 4 you get the advantage of a 2nd chance if you get beat, fair enough. But 5th and 6th have (on paper) an easier home game in the 1st week than either first or 2nd do. This is why I don't get why the top 8 (I think 8 is too much anyway but that's another argument) is split in to a top and bottom four. The likelihood of a repeat fixture in weeks 1 and 3 also makes the whole format dull and is the main reason the first few weeks are so poorly attended IMO.

Repeat fixtures have always been a bit of an issue in the playoffs. Back in the days of 5 and 6 teams, 1st would play 2nd, the loser would then usually go beat 3rd/4th place to reach a GF rematch with the team who beat them 2 weeks earlier. The 8 team way whilst seeing some repeat fixtures, Saints/Wigan '11 and Leeds/Wigan '10 hasn't produced a repeat fixture in the Final itself.
If the RFL could be a bit smarter with the regular season fixtures and not have games like the Wigan vs Saints match lined up for the last weekend of this season then that would help a lot. I suppose they and Sky want some big games though to build for the playoffs and also because BBC have the CC Final around that time. Planning Warrington vs Wigan for the weekend after last years CC Final was daft considering you could tell at the beginning of the season the odds were at least 1 of those would reach the CC Final. It turned what should of been the biggest league game of last year into a disappointment.

5th is a far better place to finish than 4th.
You get the easiest of ties in round 1 playing the worst team left in the comp at home.

Then you get to go to the 4th placed team who has had to got to the top team in the previous round.

The five team play off system was by far the best in that it rewarded the team that finished top and made it very difficult for the lower placed teams.

If 5th is so easy, why was it only managed for the first time last year?

Because the previous 5th placed teams under the ridiculous Top 8 format were whipping boy SL rabble like Huddersfield and Wakefield?

Viewed from the viewpoint of the 5th placed team, this makes sense. But if you look at it as the 4th placed team it doesn't, unless you accept that 5th are better than you. To look at last year, we had to go to 4th placed team's ground in the second round. They had home advantage. How was that easier for Leeds? 4th and 5th played the same match, but reading the logic of some here it seems that Leeds had a fairly easy draw and Hudds a really hard one? After Hudds had already had a second chance. This just seems to be nonsense.

It panned out being a favourable draw because Hudds imploded horribly at the end of the season. THey still had the advantage in the draw, they were just too gash to take advantage of it. If we'd finished 4th and Hudds 5th but our relative end of season form been the same would Hudds have come to Headingley as big favourites (assuming they beat Hull and we lost out at Wire the week before)? No, of course they wouldn't.

People are mistaking the performance of individual teams for structural effects of the competition.

4th place had played top in the previous week, whereas 5th had played 8th. I'm not commenting on this in terms of specific examples, and obviously if you take it as "on paper" 4th would be favourites in week 2 but they'd be going in to it on the back of a tougher match.

The playoffs should be structured so that the higher that you finish the easier your route to the final. The only format that has acheived this IMO is a top 5. At a push I think it could be stretched to a top 7 (I wouldn't want this, but it would give Sky an extra game). Atm there is no real difference between finishing top and 2nd apart from a hubcap. Playing a top 5 (7) where top skips week one and a straight highest v lowest knockout (there would have to be some sort of 2nd chance element for 7 teams) would also free up another week throughout the season.

The higher you finish does give you an easier route to the final.

Whilst the game is against more difficult opposition for 4th, that is mitigated by the massive advantage of that game not being a knock out game.

I would ask why, if finishing top in our uneven season, is such an achievement and such a barometer of relative quality, the team finishing top needs such an advantage and why they need to make it so much more difficult to win it from lower down.

Leeds beat, 8th, 4th, and 1st to get to the grand final, thats a pretty tough run, and much tougher than Warringtons run which would have beating beating 4th and 5th, and Wigans run which would have been beating 3rd and 6th.

5th isn't automatically 'easy', if Huddersfield had beaten Warrington in the first week (which wasn't the mission impossible some are making it out to be considering the Giants had won 2 of the 3 league meetings between the two teams that season, as well as winning at Halliwell Jones in the 2010 playoffs) then Leeds' playoff route would of looked like this....
- Hull @ Home
- Warrington Away
- St Helens Away..........Saints would of had Clubcall and most likely would of picked us over Wigan.
- GF vs Wigan/Hudds

That is incredibly tough going away to Wire and Saints followed by a possible GF against Wigan, what stopped that happening was Hudds usual poor end of season form. So what do we do? Change the playoff format just to factor in Huddersfield's expected playoff crumble?
As for the Giants having to play this tougher game in Week 1, haven't people been saying of late that England won't beat the Aussies because we don't play enough tough or intense matches? A wake up call beating from Wire should of been a kick up the backside for the following week compared to Leeds having a stroll against Hull when they hardly had to get out of 2nd gear.
Leeds did have a fairly comfortable passage to reach the Warrington game but that's because of the attitude of some of the teams in the playoffs and not the structure of the thing.

Personally I'm not trying to say what Leeds did last year was "easy" by any means and I'm not trying to take anything away from the acheivement. You still had to go to a red hot Wire team and then beat Saints in the final. I was simply highlighting that there are too many aspects of the playoffs I don't like.
- There is no real discrepency between finishing 1st and 2nd
- 5th and 6th get "on paper" easier home games in week one than either 1st or 2nd
- Likelihood of repeat fixtures in week 3
- Too many teams in the first place

There was a massive difference between 1st and 2nd last year. 1st were at home to a s**t-out Huddersfield, 2nd were at home to eventual runners up Saints. Big difference. The difference is variable dependent on how closely matched the top 4 are, but you might generally assume that 3rd will be better than 4th.

Certainly Wigan lost their match while Wire won theirs. I would have expected Wigan to beat Huddersfield at home pretty comfortably.

Bottom line is, Huddersfield would have flopped in the play-offs whatever the format. Had they won (somehow) at home to Hull in week one and Leeds lost at Wire in Week one, Leeds would still have been a better side at that stage of the season.

If i was in charge

top 6

Week 1

3v6
4v5

Week 2

1vthe lowest team still in
2vthe other team

final

Job done