I disagree, it cannot be an even comp to finish top while there is magic weekend. It is never certain the team finishing top is the best.

Would be a valid point but most SL teams try to place themselves in the top8 to be in with a chance of getting to gf so performances on a weekly basis are geared to positioning ourselves into the back end of the season with as strong a squad available so it's a fair assumption to make that some teams don't try to finish top or will take a loss or two to rest players etc as it is very few teams actually aim to finish top of the league all it means now is that the team in top spot was the most consistent over a season and has been relatively lucky injury wise.

Premiership football brings in plenty of money from tv rights and the winner of the league at the end of the comp gets the trophy. SL is a pauper by comparison and contrives ever more complicated systems: 'top six playoff', 'super eights' etc etc ( we know it will change again next year) in order to keep the fans coming through the gate and the money rolling in. If clubs didn't need the gate money we would still be playing 'first past the post'.

Its only advertising that makes the "SUPER LEAGUE TROPHY" the one to win. Lets face it, if you put a million pound advertising campaign behind a bag of dried rabbit turds people would be fighting at the tills to get it. How many Syrian refugees are coming over here and then investing in a pair of ripped jeans to keep the cold out in their Glasgow squat ?

The reason the LLS is played down is because the RFL / clubs don't want it to become coveted by the fans - because then there would be no need for the Super 8's and a few more money generating games would there ?

The format has not changed I was young at the time but did we not have the premiership or regal trophy which was the top8 playoff for a trophy ??

It's probably about TV money more than gate money. Maybe first past the post would be better for gate money as it would place more meaning on league fixtures for the top clubs which can start to become a bit immaterial towards the end of the season when you know you're likely to make top four.

The important money in the game is the TV contract which is based on how many subscribers the game can draw in as a product - and some of these will be people that watch multiple sports and aren't hard core rugby league fans affiliated to a team but will value the overall TV subscription higher because it has these games on it - and RL is a very attractive television product because it's easy for a newcomer to pick up and has a lot of action. Having the season build up to a crescendo of big games makes the TV product more exciting for a casual watcher who is less bothered about the fairness of the best team over the season getting rewarded, but wants an exciting product to watch on TV.

In countries where there are huge distances between sporting teams, like USA, Australia, there isn't the same culture of being an "away fan" as there is in the UK, so TV is really the key market for their sports, and they tend to have all of their sports based around playoffs and Grand Finals.

I do agree that TV is a key driver to SL having a play-off system to decide the champions, but I think you're missing the the point with your last paragraph. In Aus the two dominant codes of football were, until relatively recently, based almost solely in the two major cities, so the travel distance for most away fans was actually less than in the UK. And in both the US and Aus, play-offs to decide the champions were established long before TV was the dominant media. Tony Collins writes (in I can't remember which book) at some length about the relationship between sport and the media, and his exploration of this theme is very interesting; for anyone wanting to criticise Sky too much or pine for 'the good old days', it's worth a read.

The fact is professional sport is an entertainment business, now more so than ever, and to generate revenue organisers will exploit whatever means they can. The football reference always makes me laugh, as people completely overlook the convoluted way promotion is decided when saying 'football doesn't need to use play-offs'.

All that said, there's a prize for finishing top, and those rubbishing it are predominantly in the 'Smith out' camp (not that it's a campaign, mind), and it undermines their argument that we won this last year, so bizarrely they have to downplay our success.

This is getting tiresome. I could easily say the "Smith In" camp (not that it's delusional blind faith, mind) use the winning of an award that is not coveted by any of the teams that do not win it, to attempt to obfuscate what has been a steady decline since 2012, masking the fact that we have 0 GF wins from 7 attempts since the 2010 season. At least this season that white elephant will not be available.

I just don't understand how people idolising Smith are blind to how we are playing currently. We are rank.

I cannot believe people still debate the gf win vs LLS shield nonsense. 1 is THE prize to win....the other a little bonus (no more). It doesnt matter who or what made the GF the thing to win....but it is the thing to win, and we havent yet. Sport is cyclical and great teams make hay when it's their time in the sun and they even grab the odd trophy when they're in the shade. The last six/seven years shouldve seen us win a lot more than we have done. 3 challenge cups is ok but we really should have at least 1 championship in there. The worst thing is we are awful to watch....as we were last season bar sandow. I could put up with the turgid rugby if it grabbed that first GF win....but that's not gonna happen.

Does Stuart Pearce still watch us? I haven't seen him on TV for ages.

I think, Uncle Rico, if you take a big step back, what you'll see is that certain posters/people on here, will criticize the club, no matter what. Some people are just pre-disposed to it. The Leeds board for example, has had people adamant about sacking McDermott, for years and years, and were quite happy last season to go "HA HA, i told you so!"

I can guarantee you that the same people on here were criticizing the club back between during our time winning trophies, as its more important for them to be right in their own minds. The club can do no right whatsoever in their eyes.

I agree FMC and although I'm a supporter of Smith I can see, or more correctly, I will level certain disappointments that I have as 'his failures' we aren't a bunch of 'Stepford Wives'. As an example, hanging on to an aging team a few year's back giving them one last chance to win the GF and the poor recruitment that immediately followed.

There has to be a balance and that's what's often missing, the holding on to he aged team was a gamble that didn't pay off so is to a degree understandable. Imagine the furore if we had a massive 'Allied Carpet' clear out and got nowhere near the second successive GF attempt? The poor recruitment that followed is more disappointing perhaps he was expecting more from the youngsters and his signings, another gamble?

I'm not overjoyed with where we are at the minute, but, will reset my view later on this season, when we have a better understanding of where we be ending up

Ah and there we go with the personal attack. Classy.

Anything to back that up with like usernames and posts or is that wild speculation?