The point is that 5th-6th-7th-8th are not good enough having lost half there games and are closer to the bottom placed club compared to the top placed club. Everyone was equal at round 1, clubs have had 6 months to put in a challenge, thats long enough to sort the wheat from the chaff,
They are lumbered with dead rubbers but they can still influence the top 4 final positions for the home advantage.

Some pathetic posts on here from, I suspect, fans of “big clubs”.
Clubs like Trinity aren’t in there to have a tilt at the play off final but if the season so far is anything to go by they might well influence which teams do get to OT. Perhaps that’s what the “big clubs” are scared of - losing points to crappy little Wakefield!!!

And with Catalans and Huddersfield hitting form, there could be some 'nuisance' teams in those 5, 6, 7, 8 spots.

Why not go the whole hog and just have four teams in superleague, if the rfl is doing its best to destroy Rugby league the kno**eads on here are doing far worse why not just enjoy the game and stop whining about it.

It is a pointless format and clearly hasn't worked. Pretty sure last season we had 7th and 8th so far behind that mathematically they couldn't make the top 4 even if they won every game. The competition does need to stop with this desire to make sure every team has something to play for though. In all sports you will end up with nothing to play for games towards the back end. Other sports get on with it so I don't see why super league feels it has to be different.

If we had the depth of the NRL then super 8's would work. From 1st to 8th it's so tight. Shame we can't create that in super league

It's impossible to have something games start to finish for every team. Personally I would like a 5-6 play off system.

We don't have 8 good enough teams for an 8 team play off. Although if we did have it this season at least you could have the argument that nobody would want to play the in form Catalan. I think it would be exciting to see a dark horse in the play offs.

The argument that teams who finish outside top 4 don't deserve to win the competition is ridiculous in a play off format. The play offs is a separate competition and it rests on how teams perform on the day.

The best system was the top 6. There was a perceived benefit to finishing top, with a home fixture and a second chance. It's ludicrous that Saints are far and away better than anyone else but could fail to reach the Grand Final in one off-key performance. Same as last year. Cas were brilliant and deservedly top, but if Mark Percival had been wearing his kicking boots they wouldn't have been at Old Trafford.

Super 8's don't work. The problem is the Middle 8's do. Great for Championship income and keeps that league alive (although a similar top six and Grand Final would do the same, with the winner being promoted).

The Million Pound Game works too. It isn't a loser goes down game but a winner stays up, as the teams in it have finished in 12th and 13th place in reality and would already be down in old money.

People will complain whatever the system. Even the top 5/6 playoff format didn’t escape moaners because of the same advantages people are praising it for now that it gave the team finishing top or 2nd proper reward were used to criticise it when we kept getting 1st vs 2nd Grand Finals with the odd 3rd place making it.

It was “Too hard for teams finishing 4th/5th/6th to make the GF”

16 team SL gives 15 home fixtures plus magic weekend (don't like the idea of playing 1 club 3 times but it appears to work). Play off should revert to the original top 5 system. Bottom club in SL to play top of championship (or winner of championship play off) in million pound game.

When I first started watching the game, it was 1st place in the table that took the spoils and it was 4-up and 4-down. Not saying that we go back to that, but whatever format you come up with can look daft depending how results pan out. The Championship has been a great competition this year for the top 4, but if we were just playing for top spot then TWP had it sown up weeks ago.

If, and a big if, we go the franchising route again, then (imo) we need to manufacture a more level playing field, in a similar but not same way (we don't have the same college infrastructure) as the American draft system. Ok, not similar, but somehow contrived to level things out?

How many people complained when Leeds won the competition from 5th and said they didn’t deserve it?

Personally I think the top 4 we have now is spot on, if you don’t finish in the top 4 you don’t deserve a shot.

No matter what the play off system is, there’s a chance top of the league club will get knocked out. Saints will receive a trophy for finishing top, the League Leaders Shield.

Top 6 would be a farce and promote mediocrity, if we apply it now the 6th place team has only won 50% of there games have lost 6 x as many games as the top place club, so the 6th place winning an extra 3 games in a play off could make them super league champions the 3 games would supersede the 23 games that went before it.

So you would only need a 50% win rate to potentially be champions, thats not good enough and would not happen in any other sport. The top 4 are worthy of there position and have earned the advantage over the remaining 4 teams.

I really hope this was posted in sarcasm, because the suggestion you've made its ridiculous.

Surprised it didn't get more pick-up. One of the daftest things I have ever read on a rugby forum.

No. The alternative is that clubs work harder to generate more revenue from the games they do have and generate more revenue from non-matchday activity, rather than flogging our talent as much as possible because their revenue would fall otherwise.

How many clubs have actually grown their matchday revenue this season? I'd wager that the answer is depressingly few.

its up there with drawing the magic weekend fixtures on the friday night so its completely random.