Not to be an arrse or anything, but 80 minutes with two evenly match sides - it can go either way. The referee is hugely influential in a RL match, and momentum is not something that can self-accounted for half the time. You either get it or you don't. Leeds only beat Wigan by 1pt via late penalty and were outscored by 2 tries to 1. Who knows it all might have been a different story if Ryan Hall had been penalised for holding down in the 79th minute.

Whether the system is right or wrong. You can't always justify it by saying the "champion teams always find a way to win. no matter what" - especially in a condensed space of time, with variables occurring outside of either team's hands.

Might also have been different if the three ball steals Silverwood awarded as knock ons had been correct, given they took Wigan from defending their own line to scoring a try.

A pure league format means the most important games are the ones where you beat sides you should beat. Leeds lost some of these-away at Huddersfield, Wakefield, Hull FC & Bradford. The current system means the champions are decided by their ability to beat the best teams, not the weakest.

As you'll see in the Premiership, titles are decided not by the winners of the big games, but by which team 'slips up' against weaker opposition.

Spot on. It comes down to their ability to dispatch teams they should be dispatching, and then [inot lose[/i against their rivals.

Well whoopdy f*ckin do. I never really understood the (almost relentless now) opinion that ''da best team should be da team that finishes top''.

Why is being able to dispatch wakefield, huddersifled, salford, london widnes with consistency any better a measure of champions than being able to beat your closest rivals, with it all on the line?

I'm pro-playoffs. I think champions should be able to do both - consistently beat the rest and succeed at sudden death matches. imo, the current system places too much emphasis on the latter.

This would, sort of, make sense if Leeds only lost to those weaker teams, but they don't. They have taken 3 from 24 points against Saints, Warrington and Wigan in the 12 regular season games over 2011 and 2012.

Of course, those games weren't on the line. But the issue and the question being asked is; why should people turn up to watch to watch those games, where even you imply that's there no real incentive for either team to 'dispatch' the other?

How you are so committed to such an obviously nonsensical, circular, logical fallacy of an argument I dont know.

That is quite the leap of logic.

If the pressure so got to Man Utd that they lost to Wigan Athletic in the biggest game of the season then, yes, they would not be showing the required champion qualities (Wigan Athletic would likely not be in the position to be in the biggest game so your analogy falls down of course).

It's not hard to understand but you Pie Munchers appear to be particularly cut up about it this year for some reason. In an adversarial sport like Rugby League it makes complete sense for the champions to be decided in a match up on the biggest, most tense, most intense, day of the season. Applying a football mindset to a completely different sport is where I fear you are going wrong.

You did, and it was a great game (and being a Saints fan I'm glad you won ) But my point is, play off games can be easily won or lost and all this hyperbole about 'champion teams being champions when it matters' is the sort of stuff you find in Greek myth, not in the real world.

Even the all-conquering never say die prowess of the Saints team have the video ref (Micheal Wither's knock on) and the ref (Chris Joynt falling over) to thank for their titles. Yet we decide entire league seasons on these games.

Ok then Barcelona were beaten by Chelsea in last years Champions League semi final.

Consider the majority of the Barcelona players have won the World Cup(the biggest sporting final on Earth), 3 Champions League titles and played in countless El Classico's(the biggest match-up of the biggest sport in the world)

Do you think Barcelona bottled it?

Barcelona clearly bottled it.

Biggest two games of the year and the missed two open goals and Messi missed a penalty, they caused themselves to be chasing a game they should have won and played right in to Chelsea's hands.