It gets even worse this year when your allowed to pick your own opponents, to me thats the sign of a marketing lunatic being allowed to call the shots instead of a competition purist.

There's nothing wrong with the end of season play-offs culminating on a fantastic night out at Old Trafford.

There's also nothing wrong with properly celebrating the 26 or 27 week long consistency of a team who have finished top of the league, nor for instance in celebrating a side like Huddersfield this year who have shown their own consistency.

The problem comes when Sky start promoting the league fixtures as a prefix to the end of season play-offs and supporters start following them sheep-like in believing that actually, the league is only part of the play-off system - its not.

Its time we started to celebrate the league achievers and not wait until October (and my argument has been consistent for years in that respect)

Show me a person who blindly recites Eddie Hemmings in dismissing the LLS and I'll show you a person who has only been watching RL in the Sky Superleague era.

Can't have both those things, mate. I agree that a league is a better way of working ou who the best side in a year was in terms of accuracy, but the danger of a runaway title depriving the whole league of any meaning makes it untenable for SL. People don't seem to recall how different the Premiership was from the GF of today.

I disagree, I believe that you can have both things.

I take your point and maybe they did have to do something when you had a team who won every trophy going for seven or eight years and still dominated up until a few seasons ago - but we've seen for at least a couple of years now how the salary cap is working, and how it will continue to work in future and we're probably as close to a "fair" fixture list now as we've ever been (ok its still not perfect).


How would football supporters feel if winning the Premiership Trophy at the end of April was consigned to a plate and the hope that they'd now go on to win the European Championship ?

I think the Bulls sealed the fate of first past the post with the procession of 1997. Had there been no relegation, seasons would have started dying in April and everyone would have been done and dusted by July.

As it is, we now have a situation where even a team as seemingly dead and buried as Bradford were a few weeks ago have seen their season revive (jinx for this afternoon), while in Australia what would have been an intriguing battle between St George and the Doggies has been expanded out to include eleven teams right up to the penultimate week.

The prestige of the title is key. I guess it comes down to gut feeling, but I don't think the Premiership can be raised above tinpot status without alloting it the title of champions. The LLS does have its own prestige, born of that longstanding respect for the league ladder. It' not perfect but for once, the status quo in SL in this regard is probably the best it can be.