He's right though, the league leaders is deliberatly devalued to make the grand final more attractive, which is wrong as being consistantly the best all season is more of an achievment for being the best for a few weeks at the end of the year.

I'm not neccersarily saying that who tops the league should be 'champions' but it should certainly be given the same level of prestige as the gf.

It's fairly simple though. The 'Championship' is decided by a league system to decide seeding for the play-offs - as in Australia, as in many American sports - if you change that to just being a league, the play-offs become as worthless as the old Premiership was.

What I don't understand from Wilkin is this has been the way since 1998, and for most of rugby league's existence. I have no problem with players having opinions, but when the Grand Final is a key reason we get the money we do from Sky, and, in effect, is an element in how much he gets paid, why would you talk such a major event down?

The league leader's shield isn't deliberately devalued. It simply has very little value. It is a pat on the back for the team that happens to be doing the best part way through the competition.

Corrct it is for winning the 189 game qualifying competition before the 9 game ' real ' competition starts

SL is a competition that started back in February and ends next Saturday at Old Trafford. That is the 'real' competition involving all 198 games.

Opinions

Spot on. The annual RL Champions have been decided by a knock-out, end of season competition for the vast majority of the time since the game began. A bit late now to be criticising this policy.

In your opinion. For me the trophy which shows which team was consistantly the best throughout the course of the season has a lot of value. A team could struggle all year, be half way down the table and get lucky or there opponants might struggle with injuries/fatigue. Its possible a side could win the grand final by fluke, but you wont come top of the league unless your the best side in the competition.

:3j5j3o0e

True , ever since Leigh cheated their way to the championship in 1906 by only playing the crap teams