Might also be a good time to look at the difference the Magic Weekend has had on the league this year. Wakefield played the joint bottom club Castleford who have only won 6 games all year.. they obviously won that game. We were once again paired with a top 5 club versus Leeds..which we lost.

Complete farce of a concept that I just cannot support. If we're to continue with the play offs, the actual league has to be a completely fair process. It just isn't at the moment.

Have to agree with that.

I agree broadly, but if you look at the teams when the fixtures were announced, we were playing a club who had just missed out on the play-offs and we had finished next to bottom. Cas had the easy draw, not us. You're rewriting it with hindsight.

I'm not. If you were somebody that had too much time on your hands you could look back at my previous views on the magic weekend. I think the event is a farce and have said so on many occasions.

magic weekend should be round 14. play round 13 then look at league....play a challenge cup round then the week after play round 14 1v2, 3v4, 5v6 etc etc...then no-one gets an easy game........or do you want Wire v Widnes.......

I'd rather it was scrapped completely, but a random draw would seem to be the fairest solution. Or perhaps Nigel could expand his club call concept.. 1-7 pick their opponent!

Oh Hell's Bells - now I'm plaguing myself again with conspiracy theories....Jeffries sent off for a foul that never was, Seymour excused for a red card offence, Widnes ably assisted to a defeat by tries that shouldn't have been tries and now they move the Salford game to Wakey's advantage. Is there a feeling in anyone else's stomach-pit that it would be just too embarassing to have a team in the play-offs that you intend to demote to the Championship?

Don't forget the try that Silverwood gave us against KR when he thought Dobson got his foot to the ball from the kick off. After all, it's not like Bradford ever get the rub of the green is it? (except at BV this year when Wakey were pulled for a forward pass from a break that had TRY written all over it - only for the ref to visibly wince when he saw it on the big screen and realised it wasn't - or that Wakey ever get robbed like when Halibut cost us the game against wire when they scored the winning try from the seventh tackle of the set). We can all bleat about refs decisions, and we all do, but it does even out over a season (except for Wigan, Wire, Leeds and Saints - you know, the big clubs, remember when you were one?).

As for conspiracy theories - as a Wakey fan I can tell you that the RFL is bent, that Tony Smith practises black magic and that Neil Armstrong NEVER walked on the moon - we are the KINGS of the conspiracy theories!!!

Chicken's coming home to roost for some. After victimising Sykes for 2 years it seems quite ironic that his two late drop goals recently have eliminated us from the play-offs.

If you go into Admin then a points deduction - even if not totally clear how many - is the punishment passed down to the club.

The problem is the collateral damage inflicted on the players and fans. Over the season the players "earned" a place in the play-offs the hard way but like the fans are effectively being punished for the club's poor management.

I guess you didn't watch the Wakefield v Widnes game then when James Child tried his best to give the game to Widnes. We were discussing conspiracy theories at the game.

Let's face it, we all see decisions that go against our club and in Arsene Wenger style don't see the decisions that do go in our favour. It's the nature of being a supporter.


As for the decision to move our game to Saturday and a neutral venue because Salford's ground is not available, that is a complete farce.
The only reason that there should be for moving the game is so that our game and yours kick off at the same time, anything other than that is unfair on one team or the other. If you're not going to play them at the same time then don't move them IMO.

To be honest it just shows how silly the play-offs are as a way of choosing the champions. As a cash generating scheme it's fine, of course but decisions like this which clearly impact on the integrity of the competition just turn it into a joke. The sooner we go back to first past the post the better, then we can have the (more obviously) unimportant premiership, like before.

Not much point in moaning about it, tbh. Wakey are now as good as in and good luck to them.

Paranoid fans seeing the smaller picture.

75% (or near enough) of Rugby League's history has been decided by a play-off system.
The first 6 years and a period between 1973 and 1997 being the exceptions.

This is not saying I agree with it but it's how we've pretty much always done it in RL.