It's pointless and silly. But for that same reason I can't get wound up about it. It's like if the RFL suddenly announced all the pads on the posts would be painted like barber poles...no point, silly, but not harming anyone. It doesn't motivate or demotivate, players don't take it personally, they all know that clubs don't want to be put in the position of making the call.

The only thing to get irritated about is when trivialities (unpopular ones at that) like Club Call motivates the RFL to go around telling everyone how innovative they are. I'd prefer they stopped 'innovating' and concentrated on running the sport like skillful professionals.

Funnily enough, Barrie McDermott who no-one can seriously say [iever [/i appeared to be lacking motivation, said that perceived slights like that were a great motivator to him personally. So you takes your pick, I guess.

There are different levels of motivation though. Obviously in a game like this a player is never going to be unmotivated.

But theres being highly motivated, and theres 'man posessed' level of motivation.

Today's made up fact

I dont get the first part of your post, but the highlighted part would be innovating if they could do that.

Wire have done Hudds 3 times this year.
Leeds was 1-1 in league, with Wire win 1 pointer.
Wigan was win & draw.

No brainier really with home advantage.

Wire have beaten Leeds in 2 from 2 at home this season.

Arguably it was their best chance to beat us.

Now they [imay [/ihave to play us at Headingley West and in that scenario they will lose.

With regards to the original question, it depends on what context we mean by vindicate. Certainly, the fact that Wire have chosen the higher ranked of the two available means that the ‘choice’ element is at least in effect (i.e. not defaulting the back to the lowest placed team which makes the whole process a tad irrelevant)

If the context is that Wire have vindicated the concept then that is whole different debate. There are many examples in sport opponents being ‘chosen’ (boxing etc) but I have to say on balance that I don’t really like the concept and prefer the high vs. low ranking dictating the games as it is in the NRL

What was Leeds' best chance to beat you? The league game was 19-18. Hudds never got anywhere near in 3 games.

Wire put in an excellent show in the qualifier. Were Leeds at their best? Nope. Wire will look at the two league results as a true guide to what Leeds can do.

Should replace it with a phone vote. Goodbye Club Call, hello Fan Factor.

Considering it's cost the RFL at least £25k to stage the Club Call announcement, charging fans £1 or more a pop to vote for the fixtures they want might pay for itself.

Club Call is a great idea. It provides another reason for ending up as high in the table as possible. Its advantage to the Caller is not so much being able to choose the perceived weaker option as to be able choose which of the other two are most likely to knock eight bells out of each other and be that much more knackered for the final.

Also this year if we'd gone with the conventional format we'd have had the same two games in the semis that we had in the qualifiers virtually back to back. Boring.

Its garbage. Completely agree with Smith about it.

Why is it garbage?

So you don't think that the coach of the team that has been "club called" will even mention it and that it wouldn't be used to help get that extra ounce of sweat from the players ???

I don't really think it is very good sportsmanship, however it is great as a promotion tool and has had people talking for weeks.

Had the Championship clubs elected to use it this year it would have been brilliant as a promotion for their play off series- Featherstone would have picked underdogs Batley, who then obviously went on to beat them in golden point extra time. What was one of the biggest shocks of the year instead seems to have gone unnoticed.