Quote: Uncle Rico "I will offer a different view and point out that for many years the play offs were taken from a large league format where teams were part time and due to travel and costs not everyone played everyone else in an equal home/away format. your fixtures were organised along county divisions and the play offs therefore regularised the seasons' campaign.'"
I've tried explaining this myself many times in the past but people simply aren't receptive to it I'm afraid. Tradition trumps all and they're not interested in the original logical reasoning behind using a playoff system to determine the champions, it simply always was a playoff system and that's all they care about.
Considering in many other areas history and the reasons for things being the way they are (broken time payments, the social divide, the fact Northern clubs routinely handed the southern teams their asses, etc) is a subject of interest to lots of RL fans, it's pretty sad really.
I have to say though that, as the rules stand, I think the sport has an absolutely fantastic end of season show piece (if you ignore the fact that the qualifying games attendances are poor), which really lets the sport end the season with a bang. But, also as the rules stand, I'm having a hard time defending the sport to casual observers who are interested in RL but simply won't stop saying "You decide your champions with a playoff system? Well what's the point of an even home&away fixture list then?" - I've simply stopped defending it now and started shrugging my shoulders.
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