It's worked pretty well imo.Much better than the 8's play off format.Hopefully the semis and the final will be high quality games and they should be, all 4 teams look pretty evenly matched right now.

Certainly need to give it another season or two to form a definitive opinion.This season Warrington have been off the pace and should catch back up with the top 4 and you could say the same for Catalans overall.Next season could easily see 6 or 7 sides all within a couple of points of each other then we would see a real scrap for the top 4, which is what the top brass have obviously been hoping for.

Can't say for certain but Hull's season ticket brochure for next year states that our home games will be played on Friday's, sometimes Sunday's, and sometimes Saturday for TV, but no mention of Thursday's...so hopefully that's the end of that awful timeslot!

Its a good system, it's made the regular season much more competitive , if you start broadening out the teams that will eventually play off you once again take the edge off the regular season games, It's mainly warrington, hull and catalan fans that are complaining about the meaningless games, well 3 out of the two leagues with meaningless games at the end of the season isn't bad.

Last year I seem to recall Saints, Leeds, Cas, Hudds, Wigan and Warrington all bunched together with something like 2 points separating them with about 5 games to go.

Other years we had two teams well out in front with the other playing catch up.

They'll be years when the 7th and 8th place teams face little to no chance of making it, they'll be years when they'll be bunched up fighting for 4th spot.

Catalans, their problem isn't what the league format is, it's that they've only won 1 away game all season (vs Wakey when they'd decided to throw the towel in on the regular season)......under any format that simply isn't good enough.

Just think, some of these people complaining actually wanted a "first part the post" system, where nearly everyone would be out of the running!

I think some clubs have come into the season, no buying the every minute matters and coasted through the first half of the season. Where as Saints, Wigan and Leeds put their foot to the floor from minute 1.

Huddersfield picked up on this quicker than most and have been picking form up all season.

I think Tony Smith for Warrington truly thought he could turn it on after the split, but basically it was more or less too late for them to turn it around and after Leeds pounded them in that first game I think the players realized it too.

Next year I expect the intensity to be higher from all teams, because they will realise that if they are not close after 10 games, it's going to take an almighty effort to get into position.

Some of the crowds have been disappointing no doubt about it, but it's been far from the disaster that the doubts predicted.
Neither would I call it a run away success.

I'm still in favour, but lets see how it plays out. If the crowds have been boosted in the championship, they may allow a bit more money to be spent to increase the competitiveness of the middle 8's.

I think if Bradford and Leigh could have held their own a bit better it would have made that comp a bit more interesting.

Surprising win for Halifax against Leigh today which makes the battle for 4th and 5th spot interesting! Wakefield, Bradford, Leigh, Sheffield & Halifax are now all in with a shot of taking part in the Million pound game.

Leigh versus Bradford next week looks particularly important, Leigh need to win to keep their hopes alive, while Bradford will pretty much secure a spot with a win.

Only early doors but I'm enjoying this Salford and Sheffield game. Couple of brilliant trys from Sheffield so far and Salford look worse than ordinary.

I'd make a slight change to the system.

I don't think there's enough of a benefit to the top 1 or 2. So instead of the playoff being just a straight semi final id expand it to being either the top 5 or top 6 playoff systems we had in the past. I think they give the top teams more of a benefit.

I don't know what can be done but having talked to someone in the commercial side at headingley and one of the groundsmen, there is an issue with the fixtures for the Super 8's. Having only a week's notice isn't much for the groundsmen to prepare pitches or the commercial and marketing sides to sell games. Which is probably why some of the attendances are down from the regular season.

I'm not sure what the answer is to that? It might help some to have a set system that is known in advance (eg the team finishing 1st plays 3rd in week 1, 6th in week 2 etc) but that would only help those clubs who know their regular season finishing position.

Maybe if the split could start the week after the Cup Final? It would at least give clubs 2 weeks then to sell their first games? Or some kind of international game inserted in between the regular season and 8's split?

Some good suggestions there, a cup final end of June, followed by an international game against France/Wales/Scotland should solve the 'no time to market games' thing.

A Top6 playoff format is harder to sort out without making it all long winded again, I suppose you could give the Top2 a week off, then let 3rd play 6th, and 4th play 5th, so an extra round of games. And then 1st plays the lowest team left, 2nd the 2nd lowest. But the fans didn't turn out much for extended playoff series either.

The split happened after the CC Semi so it did give them that 2 weeks to prepare (or 9/10 days as the fixtures were announced on the Wednesday).

Putting the final inbetween wouldn't change things, in fact it would make it harder for any clubs who reach Wembley as surely all their efforts that week would be concentrated on marketing towards the Cup Final and less would be inclined to turn up to a home game only 6 days after paying for travel/tickets/accommodation to London.

Those people will moan regardless of the system. They're not happy unless they've got something to moan about or be offended over.

Exactly, if teams started on zero points, it would effectively make the previous 6 months pointless. Catalans and Hull have been average this year, why should they get an opportunity to be declared champions at the end? If Catalans finished 8th, then suddenly went on a winning run and won the GF, people would be moaning it should be changed so that a team that finished BELOW mid table cannot be named champions.

It is impossible to make every single minute of every single game matter, particularly for those teams who finish mid table. That's just the way it is. You can't give those teams an opportunity to be champions at the end otherwise it would make everything that goes on before meaningless. If those clubs want to be involved in games that matter at the end, win more games. Simple.

Exactly, their is NO system that can guarantee every team has something to play for right up to the last game. Why do people carry on as if we could find a system that would.

And for those saying teams should start on ZERO points.....they do start on ZERO points, at the start of every single season*. Catalans, Hull had the exact same points as Leeds and Wigan before we kicked off. Only their own fault they let that change.

*providing no points deducation for salary cap issues.

What I meant was to combine a cup round (either final or other) with an international or 2 (we need some mid-season ones anyway imo) before the split to give as much time as possible.

Another potential is to move the Magic Weekend from the regular season to the first game of the 8's. Then everyone knows where they'll be playing even if they don't know their opponent.
Something that would excite me would be to maybe include the Super 8's, Qualifiers and the Shield in it. If we moved the Cup Final back to May. We could hold it at either Wembley or the Olympic Stadium over a bank holiday weekend for all 3 days with 4 games a day. Or if that's too much just the Super 8's and Qualifiers over 2 days.
Only a thought to try and get interest down in that thur London.
We could still hold it somewhere else like Man City or Newcastle but with the 2 or 3 of the 8's involved.