Exactly. It always surprises me how many people think the champions should be decided based on who loses the least games, instead of who wins the biggest game. If a team cannot get to and win the Grand Final they are simply not good enough.

why does there need to be some huge ridiculous advantage to finishing top?

you get a LLS (the worth of which is debatable granted) a home playoff tie to begin with AND a second bite at the cherry. Oh and yeah AND you choose your semi final oponents.

If you can't make the grand final with those advantages you're not good enough when the pressure is on top spot or not.

That's more than ehough advantages for a potential championship team. Especially when half the teams that make up the playoffs are knockout from week 1.

As a leeds fan i don't really ask for much more. You know the rules at the start of the season either you produce the goods or you don't.

When has the history of the game counted for anything? I thought Rugby League was impervious to tradition in a constant desire to evolve itself out of a paper bag. A casual understanding of the first 'play off' era was a natural coercion of two separate county leagues, rather than this contrived anti-climax.

For about three years (I may be exaggerating … but it continued for decades after the end of the two county leagues)


[sizeps: I think you mean consequence

Can't be *rsed to read the rest of yet another whinging topic about the people that run the game and the play-off system that is bad because the poster doesn't understand it, so I'll just read the opening post and reply to that...

Ask how many of your football fans understand the qualification process to the European competitions, and see if that bothers them...

If I understand correctly, unless there were four different leagues that fed into the knockout comp then there would be little benefit to finishing top?

There is no perfect system. You compromise on fairness or excitement. I wouldn't swap the current RL system for the dreary trudge to the top of the Premier League's perennial top four Champions League cartel. Fair enough we could be on for a third straight Leeds-Saints final, but they've done it under a salary cap that is genuinely constraining for a few and that the rest can get close to.

Even the Champions League is cack until the new year. Lots of sensible fans who don't buy into the Sky hyperbole realize this and would admire [iparts[/i of the RL approach.

FWIW my ideal system would be top 7 qualify (ie the top half), to retain interest in the absence of relegation. Top place gets a bye, 2nd thru 7th play-off in three knockout games (2nd, 3rd and 4th getting home advantage). The winners go into the semis with the top placed team. Every game is knockout, only better than average teams qualify and you've got the potential for surprise.

We should embrace the unexpected not view it as a aberration denying the best team their glory. If you don't mind a foregone conclusion and just want to see merit rewarded go watch the Harlem Globetrotters batter the Washington Generals, or Chelsea or Manchester United picking on little clubs like Everton or Aston Villa.

The benefit for finishing top was that you got a home game versus the 4th team and the s 2nd team was at home to the 3rd team just as it is now but the losers didn't get a second chance.

Don't have too many problems with the system apart from the 'lub Call.' Think the biggest problem with it is the possibility of week 3 having two repeat fixtures from week 1 should it be HKR and Hudds who qualify.

Which was exactly the problem with the top 6 system.
Use the NRL system.

There was no crossed wires, only once has a team lower than second won it so why we needed to bother with those overhyped dress rehearsals I dont know. If you go 1v8th 2v8th there's extremely limited chance of repeat fixtures and 1st and 2nd get easier rides, 7th and 8th becomes VERY difficult

If 1st beats 8th, 2nd beats 7th, 3rd beats 6th and 4th beats 5th, then isn't week two 3rd vs 6th and 4th vs 5th again? Which, in SL, is pretty likely that the said teams would win?

Huddersfield coach Nathan Brown is hoping to help make history by being involved in Super League's first 'clubcall' this weekend.

rlhttps://www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME

I find it stange that people are even discussing what moronball followers allegedly "think" on a RL forum

Wierd.