Looks like the Storm are favs for everyone then, no real surprise

Hope Melbourne win. North Queensland finished half way down the friggin table.

Stopping at China city for post game buffet after playing Leeds are they.

Very dull one sides final, if this is the Nrl, keep it.

Nice wally lewisesq pass by that second rower there, highlight of game, Melbourne and Craig Bellamy just bludgeon and bore sides to death.

That the beauty of real play-off football and a competition with depth. A team can finish 8th and be competitive.

The storm are a super team. A fantastic full back, a great 7 with Cronk, a great 9 in Smith.

Those three players alone make such a difference.

Bloody hell Leeds won from 5th and it was a joke apparently that a team could win from that position in SL, but in the NRL a team reaches the final from 8th and it's great.

The point isn't the cowboys got to the final. The point is they have a competition where they can have a play off system which can have 8 sides competing. We scrapped play offs due to the lack of real competitors down the league.

Why do you think this is?

Salary cap where the vast majority of sides spends the full cap. Players moving all through the league which creates a more balanced competition. Top players don't just stay at the same side or move to other top teams due to the wages on offer all throughout the league.

The only side of who is at a real disadvantage is the Warriors simply because players don't want to leave Sydney or Queensland for Auckland.

We scraped 8 team playoffs because people moaned that it was unfair that teams could finish that far down and still have a chance at winning the title.