great post

Leave the qualifiers alone they're working a treat.
What's needed is more work on the top 8s to make them more exciting at the beginning, question is how do you do that without playing about with the points each team starts with?

There is a massive difference in being the bottom club and getting relegated, compared to having an all or nothing game.
Emotions are sure to be running high and there is massive tension in the build up and all through the game, especially if it's close.
If it had been a blow out score, there wouldn't have been the same kind of scenes at the end.

The new structure has contrived this fixture and ramped up the pressure on all concerned, is it really necessary ?

If we must have this crazy structure then ,perhaps the top 4 of the Middle 8 should go straight into SL and the bottom 4 into The Championship.

There seemed to be inadequate stewarding in Hull yesterday and lessons need to be learne.

Not sure about playing with the points as it would lessen the original 23 rounds.

For me one thing has to be moving the Challenge Cup final to earlier in the season. We start the Top 8's and people are looking at two teams who have reached the final and looking at their form pre match and then particularly post Wembley and to have the Final right in the middle of the 7 extra games just feels like a bit of a comedown with regards to the games either side of it.

I think moving the cup final is a good idea and thinking a bit more about it, next season Leeds should be back at the top end so really we could have 6 or 7 clubs on similar points when the super 8s starts which is what we need to make the comp exciting for everyone who loves watching rl

That's just the way sport goes really. Not every MPG will be a golden point game, some will be a one sided SL win over a Championship side. In football I've seen teams have the title won with a few games to spare and I've seen Aguero score in the last minute to win a title. I've seen Leeds Rhinos win a GF with 20 mins to spare in 2007 and seen it go down the last tackle in 2015. Leeds won the LLS with Hall's try in the last second last year, in 2004 we won it with 3 games to spare. North Queensland in the NRL last year won in extra time after Thurston hit the post with the last kick of normal time, several years ago the GF was won by Manly in a 40-0 scoreline. Ryder Cup golf is on, been some big winning margins recently and also has the Miracle of Medinah in 2012 (will need similar today if Europe are going to win).

Some seasons the fight for the top 4 spots will be close, some times it won't. Only two years ago in 2014 with two rounds left the table looked like....

Saints - 38
Cas - 34
Wigan - 33
Wire - 33
Hudds - 33
Leeds - 32

People are being too quick to overreact and probably just showing their pre-determined thoughts on the system to be critical because the top 4 was settled early. That's just sport and you can't guarantee closeness every time.

No there isn't. Even in a standard league format you could still easily end up with a single game that decides the fate of two clubs - we've had them before and the last one wasn't all that long ago. Any such game would still be hyped up and would probably be dubbed 'the million pound game' by the media even without the 'formal' title.

Oh - and Rovers did finish bottom of the new League structure. They did so by virtue of losing yesterday's game. The season didn't end last week.

You mean like the Million Pound Match between Cas & Wakey in 2006?!?

I would keep the structure as it is, but then have the bottom club in SL relegated, the top club in the Championship promoted and a play off game between 11th in SL and 2nd in the Championship, then if the SL loses they can have no excuse for losing to a Championship team.

This is exactly what I would have in terms of relegation. It is similar to the Scottish football system I believe.

Yes we should follow Scottish football, the pinnacle of sport.

I don't like it because of the Scottish football link, they just happen to use the system I like.