Quote Wires71="Wires71"Another change. The RFL is a laughing stock.
So the format was changed to Super 8s in 2015 to address a problem. Has that problem gone away now?
Remember back in 2014 … RFL chief executive Nigel Wood believes that the changes herald a new era for the sport.“The changes will ensure that every minute of every match in every competition matters and are being implemented following the most comprehensive consultation process in the sport’s history,” he said.
“The return of promotion and relegation in a format that is financially sustainable for all clubs should ensure fans are entertained from February to October, with an exciting season punctuated by a series of world-class events commencing with the World Club Challenge and finishing at Old Trafford with the Super League Grand Final.”
Fully expect another change in 3 years or so. The problem isnt the structure it's low intensity games, boring games played at silly times.'"
LOL yeah we all knew at the time that the proposals were daft and would get chucked out after a few years.
There are always going to be trade-offs in any system. A lot of fans I expect would love the return to a simple league season but that would lose the end of season playoff games and associated revenue and also for all but the top 2 or 3 that would make most games relatively meaningless. In football it works because they have a tiered system of reward: winning the league, qualifying for the Champions League, qualifying for the Europa League and once you get below that it's not too far off the relegation battle. We don't have the same financial incentives here especially at the bottom as it's hard to get relegated and there aren't enough teams to support a 3 up/3 down system, you would just get the same clubs yo-yoing up and down.
The playoffs and Grand Final do bring in revenue and excitement to the game and realistically no matter the moral purity of the arguments for rewarding the best team over the league season with the title, it is not a reform that the administrators are going to make, because they would lose too much other stuff.
So that leaves us with a playoff system. The Aussies have used a top 8 for a while, in recent years they've moved away from the old McIntyre system to one similar to ours from a few years back, but without the daft Club Call stuff. The top 8 does keep the season alive but it puts too much emphasis on injuries/form at the end of the season and means the early to mid season feels like going through the motions. Remember in the peak TS era when we had a great team who played fantastic rugby, it still felt a bit empty watching Wire sometimes because most games we were going to win quite easily but it was just about waiting for the playoffs as that would determine our fate. Meanwhile Leeds were generally in turmoil with all their fans calling for Brian McDermott's head but they also knew that come the end of the season they would have a good chance of winning.
You need a playoff system to be pretty hard to win from 5th or 6th, ie you need a run of hard games winning away from home. The problem with the top 8 was Leeds from 5th always had a nice easy home opener to the playoffs, 5th v 8th, to build some momentum then the next week they played one of the clubs above who was coming off a loss and would view playing Leeds in an elimination game with dread, before the semi finals.
The first two playoff systems that we had, top 5 from 1998 to 2001 and top 6 from 2002 to 2008, were decent systems. Not easy to win there from 5th or 6th but at least you have the prize of getting to a playoff and having a shot. We did in 2006, when we came 6th and went to Headingley to beat Leeds with a drop-goal, which meant we progressed, but to progress to the Grand Final we'd have had to beat Bradford and Hull away.
The original top 5 system was the best for giving incremental rewards to each team who finished higher.
