I agree with Dan. Reduce the number to 6 teams in the play-offs. 1st v 6th, 2nd v 5th and 3rd v 4th. Highest ranked winner through to the GF and the other two battle it out for the second place.

The round of play-offs should be played at a neutral venue all on the same day. Preferably somewhere close to the heartland areas, as to take a play-off fixture out of the heartlands would be pointless. I think Manchester City's ground would be a good venue. Great facilities, in a good location and I think people would have the incentive to go to event. The RFL should implement reduced prices. £10/15 for adults and £5/£10 for children, depending on the seats.

The second round, the game should be played at the home ground of the club left in the competition who finished the highest in the regular season.

Attendances have been poor in the play-offs and the RFL need to take a serious look at it. I think season ticket holders has a lot to do with it, but also the fact that a lot of supporters from all teams go to the Grand Final, could also be a reason. The games haven't been great so far and the play-offs have been a real let down.

Simple answer to this problem for me.....ditch the pointless offers that come with the season ticket package, like a free away trip to a game, or a £10 voucher to spend in the club shop (both of which are being offered by Leeds Rhinos for 2012 incidentally!), and simply make home play-off games part of the season ticket package instead. I fail to see the point of folk paying for a season pass to 27 games which count for nothing except a Hub Cap (no disrespect to Wire fans!), then dont bother to attend any games which actually count when the title gets decided. At least if they knew their season pass got them into any home play-off fixtures their team was involved in, they may bother to attend and the crowds would hopefully improve.
And then you wouldnt get situations like our game at Huddersfield last Friday night when I'm pretty sure we travelling Rhinos fans were outnumbering the home support, which is a pretty poor state of affairs two weeks before the Grand Final.

It's the sponsors and shareholders that get me, they get to sit in fancy boxes eating their prawn sandwiches while the rest of us plebs have to slum it in the South Stand. I wonder how many of them were with us in that freezing downpour in Barrow away in the cup in 2002....not many I expect....one rule for the greedy rich and another for the oppressed masses...

There seems to be a general apathy for any game which isn't a regular round of SL, genuine semi final (ie when the winner goes to the final) or a final. I don't think it's as simple as the cost as wigan, Saints and ourselves have known for several weeks now that we would have at least two playoff games (plenty of time to 'save up').

Rather than season ticket holders having priority when it comes to the scramble for final tickets perhaps priority should go to those with ticket stubs from the playoff games.

On a related topic, I still can't get my head around why a competitive game, on our doorstep, between the two best sides in the world[i (NO, not wigan v wigan U20's if any crusties read this)[/i hasn't sold out despite tickets being available now for weeks. If the chance to see Billy Slater, Darren Lockyer, Benji Marshall etc up close doesn't get RL fans off their backsides then perhaps there is no hope!

It really is very, very simple. Season tickets are hugely beneficial to the club. They provide vital cash flow and security of income and help generate bigger crowd figures. Therefore, it makes huge sense to make them attractive to buy. So therefore anything that makes them more attractive - i.e. more benefits - can only be good things.

Surely you can understand that?

As for the playoffs format - I started coming up with alternatives based on a top 6 format. But then I remembered the answer I have had in mind for lots of debates that have cropped up lately. Such as: should SL be reduced from 14 clubs to 12 or even 10; why are there so many high scoring games; why are attendances poor etc. The answers suggested by many usually involving getting rid of clubs, changing the overseas quota rules, changing the rules of the game itself.

But the simple answer is the one in my mind - the clubs need to get more competitive. Look at the NRL - blowout scores are much less common and games are more unpredictable. Warrington's average score this year - great for us as a novelty, but would get boring after a while - was 40-15. NRL top team Melbourne's average score was 22-13. And after their playoffs - played in front of huge crowds - the NRL Grand Final will be between 2nd placed Manly and 6th placed NZ Warriors. Obviously a much more competitive, even league.

So what I am saying is instead of constantly tweaking the sport and the rules, the clubs need to work harder from bottom up to get stronger. If you only have a few top teams excelling, then regardless of the rules, no. of clubs or format of playoffs, you will have problems.

bring in the NFL draft system, teams from the bottom of the table get to pick players from the academy of the top clubs, that'd shake things up

The problem with having more competitive clubs is that there just doesn't seem to be the money to go around. How many of the teams do you think are spending the full salary cap? At a guess, maybe about half of the teams, possibly even less. There's always going to be a huge difference between top and bottom teams if you've got clubs like Wire and Wigan spending (presumably) near the cap playing against teams like Crusaders and Wakefield whose budget seems to have been found by having a root around under the cushions of the sofa.

Credit crunch?

I am fortunate, I can afford the extra games, but in the present climate there are plenty that can't. I was surprised at the low attendance at the DW, but I don't think our 10,000 was that bad. I remember being a bit gutted that we didn't finish in the top eight in 2009. The eight team format does keep the interest up for some of the lower teams. It's easy for us now We're Not W***** Anymore, to say that that those teams shouldn't be in, but how do you raise standards? It hasn't worked this year, games have been predictable, but it may do next year. One of the teams lower down could win a play off game, and kick on from there. It may give the fans some hope.

Did this happen to us?

And, I don't think constantly comparing ourselves to the NRL is a good thing either.

Given the gates this year, really cheap tickets for season ticket holders ought to be considered (maybe £5 a ticket?). If you want crowds above all else, you could extend the same deal to the away fans as well? That certainly would help at the bigger grounds.

Having done some work for sporting teams I can tell you that season ticket holders are massively more important to any team than casual fans. The money they provide is what the club can use for budgeting, paying upfront for one-off expenses, borrowing (including credit from suppliers) and unforeseen expenses. Since nobody can genuinely predict how many casual fans will turn up (and even when they do it comes one game at a time), nobody outside a club will use the revenue they generate as any form of guarantee.

Even though a season ticket holder gets discounts on entrance over a year, every sporting club's financial ideal would be to sell out the ground to season ticket holders and have no casual spectators at all. That's why, for all the laughter it seemed to cause, Bradford's idea of selling very cheap season tickets was not a bad one at all if they felt that otherwise they'd sell hardly any.