Youre not!!!

we won it from third in 2005, beating you lot in the final. We may be down at the moment, but at least let us keep the memories of what we once had!!!

NO it hasnt!

in 1996 and 1997 the Superleague Trophy went to the league laders, ST Helens and Bradford BUlls.

The reason the playoffs came in is because in both years, the league was won before the last round of games meaning sky were left with meaningless games to show!

in 1997 Bradford played 22 games. they won the first 20 on the trot, won the league and lost the last two, then got knocked out of the premiership playoffs by Wigan at home.

however you look at it, players cannot play 25+ games a year at the same intencity. Its about managing the season and a squad. in 97, Bradford won the league and forfeited other comps. Leeds forfeited a few league games to win the GF, Wire forfeited top of the league to win the CC.

these were all calculated risks.

I stand corrected (again) so then the revised system was devised to be a better system

Would "some of us" be Wigan and Wire fans by any chance?

I wonder what would've happened had Wigan had won it from 6th in 2007 after cheating the cap.
Or if 6th placed Wire had won it in 2006 after knocking 3rd placed Leeds out in the first round.

This is just another example of the Rugby League inferiority complex. No fans of other sports are laughing at us. In fact, if anyone other than us actually gives a toss, which I doubt, they're probably impressed at the achievements of Leeds in winning 5 out of the last 6 finals.

As has already been pointed out, Chelsea didn't win anything to qualify for the Champions League, yet they went and won it. The biggest club competition in football. Nobody was laughing (apart from at the ridiculously large slice of good fortune on the way). Nobody was good enough to beat them, so Chelsea were crowned champions and everyone moved on.

There are still meaningless games to show if the league is won before the last round of games.

I will nail my colours to the mast here, I am a Rhino's fan and proud of it.

If you had won 5 of the last 6 Grand Finals I don't think you would be moaning so much about the playoffs, get a grip, toughen up.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going, as your coach and captain said, 'the best team one'

So don't try and fix something thats thats not broke, test yourself against the best and see if you can win a Grand Final. When you do, or if you do I am sure you won't want to change anything.

I do agree with one thing though I don't think the RFL wanted the Rhinos to win, with all the bum decisions we had from Thaler and Silverwood in the Catalan, Wigan matches :and Grand Final !!

Again, you are talking about a minority. Most absolutely accept Leeds achievement and that a) they are worthy Champions and b) the fact they finished 5th doesn't detract from it at all.

Don't generalise - it's like me saying all Leeds fans are toothless simpletons purely based on what I saw on Saturday. Completely wrong and unfair.*

*One of them had 3 teeth...that is a joke by the way...she had 2...also a joke.

Thing is, it is broken. How a team can lose more than they win and still be in with a chance of being called champions is broken.

I've no issue with Leeds winning it from 5th. We all knew the rules at the start of the season. The issue is teams, Wire being the main example, rested and rotated their team all year and still managed to coast to 2nd place. Had we took every league round seriously, we would have sewed up top spot as well but whether we would have made the CC final or GF after that is another question. Fans paying £20 to go to Salford or £15 to London to watch half a side isn't going to encourage the "fair-weather" fan to make the effort to attend these games. I'm happy, I'll do it anyway. Every player that pulls on the P&B has my full support whether they're 21 and a rookie or 34 and a veteran. But I have to admit, there were a couple of games this year where you do think, what's the point?

The playoff structure does not favour the most consistent teams considering the amount of work they go through to achieve their league ranking. There is a place to argue 4th is tougher than 5th. Going to top spot in week 1 and getting a hiding will massively dent your confidence going into week 2. Vice versa for 5th building theirs by playing the worst team left in the comp. Having a week off also showed it is not necessarily an advantage nor disadvantage since we introduced top 8 and club call is a farce.

I don't know the solution, but to say it's just bitter Wire opinions is totally wrong because we lost in the final. FWIW, you'd have to change the qty of teams in the league to make the regular season games more interesting and meaningful before sorting the play-offs. Reducing it from 8 to 5/6 but still having 14 teams would just mean 2 more teams have nothing to play for at an earlier point in the year. Problem is, the people who decide on the structure of the competition are its member teams so the likes of Salford, Cas, etc aren't going to vote for themselves out are they?

So you weren't bothered when Bradford won it from only 3rd in 2005? FWIW Saints were the 'best team' that year but I think you'll find Bradford were the Champions. If it hadn't been for Tez's one-man demolition on Saints I doubt we'd have reached the GF. Were you outraged that a 6th placed Warrington team beat the 3rd placed Leeds team in 2006 despite losing over HALF their league games? I don't recall anyone complaining about the format on the West Terrace as they leapt about frantically celebrating. I shook a few hands and wished them luck in the next round! You should try it.

I've moaned about the play off system for years, Leeds fans that come on here are getting the wrong idea, we (well i don't begrudge leeds) it's not the play off's per se that i don't like. It's the weekly rounds that lack intensity because of the play off system.

The weekly rounds lack intensity............. because there are to many teams in the league

Cut the league to 10 teams and play a top 5 playoff

Leeds
Warrington
Wigan
Saints
Catalan
Huddersfield
Hull/HKR merged
Wakefield/Cas merged
Bradford
London

But the lower clubs will not agree this and the speccies will not pay increased gate charges to fund the reduction in games.

No club would ever agree to a merger if they wanted to avoid rioting every home game, and calling for teams to be merged simply because they finished lower in the league recently is insulting for everybody. I remember the fury at the idea of merging Wire and Widnes back in the day - how would the Rhinos fans feel if they were merged with Bradford to 'improve the league'?

I've said it before and still people seem to be ignoring it and talking nonsense about mergers and splitting the leagues instead - we need to bring more money into the sport, through better marketing and better rights deals, so clubs can afford to build up their youth teams [iand[/i to spend to a higher cap to keep our better players.

I remember when warrington went to leeds very early in the season, neither team seemed that bothered about winning it, in fact jamie peacock said that. That is nothing to do with number of teams that was 2 of the best coming together. There is very little to be gained coming top, so why worry. Under the old league system that would have been a blood and thunder game.

I think that the problem is that 7 of the top 8 picks itself.

the salary cap doesnt work because it does not govern every cost that can influence player performance. The feature on your lad Fitzpatrick (Forget his firstname, the ex Salford Full back) on sky last week shows how much time energy and money can be spent by some clubs on player welfare, and recovery.

Last year at Bradford we spent the full cap. To do this, even before we went T**s up, the club had to shed people in other areas of the organisation over a number of years. How many full time staff does Mr Moran support at the Wolves?

the way to improve the competitiveness of the sport is to create the real threat that a club might not make the playoffs! The only way to do that realistically is to reduce the playoffs back to a top 5!

Perhaps moving the CC back to Mayday bank holiday weekend might enable clubs to do a leeds? Getting up for two big matches in 8 weeks proved too much for leeds as they were well underdone in the wembley final.

Both comps need looking at as the CC is very important nationally for our game (perhaps more so than a london club!).