Is that down to the system though and not some of the teams inability to win games in the regular season to bridge the gap? Therefore by making each game in the eight more valuable. For example, if Wakefield had won big matches like Salford away, Hull KR and Leeds home we would've been closer to the top four. That's not down to the system that's down to Wakey being outplayed and at the same time being crap.

I can't say I am looking forward to Hll vs Widnes but at the same time I would not be surprised if it was a good match.

And has been said countless times, there will be plenty of dead rubbers. Not just in rugby league, but in Union and football as well.

Since when did the play offs last more than 2 months? The super 8 isn't the play offs.

Hull have one eye on the LLS and one eye on Wembley. Fair chance some of their players could be rested. Widnes, one their unique pitch, gave Hull a pasting last time their, Hull looking to avenge that loss.

But of course many in the RL fraternity are class just about bone dry..........

Anything for a moan

Least in the old setup there was a glimmer of an outsider in play offs causing a shock.

I remember Catalan nearly doing it. Granted we saw more blow outs then competitive games but there was a chance.

If we had straight play offs people would be calling Castleford the dark horses as they can beat anyone on there day.

Instead we have a cas side who will win games but won't actually get anywhere. I understand the argument that they should have been better in regular season but it just seems like the super 8's is a waste of time outside the top 5.

The problem with the old set up was that when the business time came, the big sides stepped up and blew the others away most of the time. This would be negated by improving the bottom of SL and bringing it up to the level of the top of SL.

But that is hard. So we tried bringing down the top of SL to the bottom, that didnt really work because even as wages equalised, big clubs could offer success, something others couldnt.

So when we decided that was to hard we gave up trying to improve standards and brought this nonsense in with the idea being if we keep pretending that there is something to play for people wouldnt notice that largely they werent playing for anything of any importance and the play-offs are now over before they have even really started.

As far as bringing the top down to the bottom, Leeds did really well this season

We have been utterly, utterly terrible this year. Yet have just beaten the top team in successive weeks. The standard of the entire league this year has been atrocious.

The playoffs don't start for another 7 weeks.

Erm, well done on counting i guess.

While you are at it, can you tell us how long they last?

I don't agree with this point. Either the status quo is maintained (they don't get promoted)...or they get promoted - happy days! Any club that doesn't have contingency to cover the worst case scenario isn't being run properly, but that's not down to any format that's down to the club, if they are poorly run things will go wrong regardless of the format.

The whole 'not knowing whether you're going up or not' thing will happen in any which way if you have a league with promotion and relegation. Does that mean you are advocating the ol' franchising thing?

Leeds have played terribly this season, but that's in part down to the quality of some of the opposition. Widnes and cas both finished in mid table yet played like state of origin teams and put 50 on us.