Having only watched Rugby League since 1999 play offs is all I've known so I can really only comment from that side of it. I'm sure those fans old enough to remember the 1996 season and before will be able to compare winning the league from 1st and from Old Trafford better.

I have always liked the play off concept and have been in favour of it because, as I say, it's what I'm used to. When it was Top 5 or even Top 6 the league games still felt important enough and the play offs felt like huge games with a magnificent occasion at Old Trafford as the climax. Each league position had a clear advantage over the one beneath it, especially with the Top 5 so there was a desire to finish as high as possible in the regular rounds. Also the intensity and tension of the play offs themselves was great in my opinion.

However, with the move to Top 8 my opinion has begun to become less fixed. Although the games can still be tense and exciting its diluting of the league has made it have more of a detrimental influence than a positive one. Teams only have to finish in the Top 4 in reality to have a potentially good chance of reaching the Grand Final and a good side might still be able to do it from outside the 4. The league games are undervalued far too much with the present system. And that's not to mention Club Call which goes against the whole ethos of sport in my view.

I would still answer Yes I think play offs are a good way of deciding champions but only if the play off system is not seen to detract from the weekly round 'bread and butter' games we watch all year. The previou play off systems just about avoids doing this but the Top 8 does have a diluting effect in my opinion.

Like the Grand Final format and have done since their inception, however there is the contingent of fans that believe top spot should be champions... Why play in the Super League when you know that to be champions you have to be at Old Trafford in Early October?

Thank you sir, although I don't know where you get the dramatic from hererl.



Superbly put.