There are 8 places available for the play offs, there aren't 8 good teams. All the good teams will make the 8 no problem. So the season lacks intensity for the best teams and therefore becomes boring for those teams. Imo since a team has won it from 5th it has shown that being highly placed is no longer that important. I'm sure supporters from clubs like wakefield and hull kr do enjoy the league season, for them it is a fight to make the play offs and therefore exciting. The reason warrington fans are now complaining as they are one of the better teams that stroll through the league whereas we used to be a team fighting to make the play-offs. For the better teams to have an exciting league campaign and keep the play-offs, you would need to make it a top 4 play-off , make them fight to make play-offs and points valuable.

Intensity isn't there at many fixtures. Topping the table needs to be given back its value and finishing bottom should mean relegation.

You are 100% Wrong.

Do you honestly think that last year we would have been able to win the grand final via the route that Leeds had to take? I really don't think any other club in SL has the strength to have done that two years on the run. That is why they are Champions.

It goes back to what I said in February about the World Club Challenge. I don't think that any other club in SL could have run Melbourne as close as Leeds did that night. Similarly there is no other club that could get to three successive Cup Finals (the monkey on the back there is a strange one) and five of the last six League finals. That takes some doing, and it is not very often a true Champion side like that comes along in any sport. We are nowhere near that level, however that is no reason to throw the proverbial dummy out of the pram.

The players want to win as much silverware as they can in their short careers, and that includes the shield. We all saw their celebrations at the KC and Halliwell Jones in September 2011. For me the only people devaluing it are the fans who insist on saying it is worthless.

Scratched record and all that I know, but how anyone can think that a top eight helps the excitement of the league is beyond me!!!

No matter what sport you are talking about, if you have a league system, at some point in the season, some teams will have very little to play for.
If you don't have relegation, then the amount of teams with nothing to play for increases.

The answer is not to increase the amount of playoff places though.

What has happened to Super League since we went to 8 playoff spots?
The middle of the road teams are now where all the focus and excitement is at come the end of the season.
Everyone scrambling for them last couple of playoff places.

This would work well, if there was also an incentive for the top for 4 or 5 to be battling for top spot, but they are not, because finishing top of the league has been reduced to nothing but a token gesture.

There is no way that any sport can get away with having a league that lasts several months and there be no reward at the end of that time for finishing above everyone else!!!
The RFL obviously think they are the exception, but they are now starting to see the result of this, and that is fans are starting to question what the point is with the regular season.

The format should be very simple.
Top team wins the league and a big deal is made of that, and then the top 4 go to the playoffs to compete for the ultimate trophy.
It is harsh and seemingly unfair on the other teams in the league, but this way it gives them something they need to strive for. They have to improve because they need to be a top four team. If everyone is trying to be a top four team, it can only lead to improvement.

Also, the excitment is then focused on getting into the top four, so now the focus switches from the middle tier teams to the top teams, and the exciting matches are now the big teams which is what the sport needs.

I know it is difficult and harsh at the moment due to the fact that there is not enough money in the sport and not enough talent for clubs to compete with the top four, but this is sport and it is supposed to be survival of the fittest. Teams need to know that they have to be the best to be in contention and if the talent is not there, then there needs to be incentive to go and find it.
The answer is not to say "the talent is not there so lets allow over 50% of the league to make the playoffs", because when you say that, the mid tier teams have nothing to strive for.

It might mean that for a few years, it is the same 4 or 5 teams winning everything, but isn't that the way it is now?
If you don't give the clubs an incentive to improve and grow, then they never will.

I wonder if people said this when Dewsbury won from 8th under the old system in 1972/3? I really don't understand why people seem to think that play off football is something new or unique to Super League.

Try telling Fergie Man U won't be champions in a few weeks time and that Everton could yet become champions...the hairdryer would be in meltdown.

I think this is people's main problem, we are used to soccer. Before the grand final I was talking to some lads from Canberra in the pub about how some people had a problem with Leeds winning the year before. They couldn't get their heads round how anyone could have a problem with it because play off systems are the norm down under.

The NRL gets better crowds because it's the most popular sport in NSW and Qld. The games are closer because they have more quality players per team because they are the most popular sport and don't lose many players to soccer, union, aussie rules.

We compare ourselves to them but the only thing we have in common is the game we play on the field (and even then the rules are different in some cases!)

It's common that people lose interest when they get to a certain age (distractions of family etc) or when the games they see are often a foregone conclusion. It happened at the Bulls. Our gates flat lined at the peak of our success. It's the price of success.

I don't think there are enough quality RL games to gaurantee close matches every week unless you cut the competition to about 6 teams. Alternatively you can spend heaps of money developing and spreading the game which will in the end produce more talent and raise standards but nobody's got any money to do this and it would take decades to bear fruit.

It's slightly different at Bradford this time as we had a brush with oblivion. The team is on the up and the fans are enjoying themselves. Crowds are down slightly but that's due to the price of season tickets doubling rather than disillusionment. Each game is a "possible win" and no game is a foregone conclusion. When you're at the top like Wire you don't have that.

There are some things that bug me like the lack of biff and and the blow out scores. But would we really want to go back to a 5m PTB to keep teams closer on the scoreboard and headhunting like in the 80s?

I think this pretty much sums up the problem perfectly. As for fixing the problem, not sure a straightforward league campaign would help or that, as a sport, we're strong enough to run it that way any way. Like it or not, the GF makes the sport a fair bit of money (if not the clubs) walk away from that at your peril.

As for the "team finishing top is Champions" and the comparison with Manchester United, well, as pointed out, that's patently wrong. We do have a playoff system. Until we don't, then the team finishing top isn't Champs. I cannot for the life of me understand why people keep banging on about this. Oh actually, yes I can, it's because we finished top and didn't win the Grand Final. If we'd have beaten Leeds at OT, there wouldn't have been a single person on here declaring Wigan as worthy champions.

On the subject of Man United, a mate of mine went to watch them play Reading (I think) the other week and he was bored off his rocker. FPTP isn't the answer.

Sorry Ganson's that's gibberish, he might just have been bored because the game wasn't exciting rather than because of the system under which it was played, it does happen

And likewise people were bored on Monday because it was cold and we played a poor side with no away support, not because we have a play off system? That is what I am getting at. Even in the super dooper NRL there are a lot of mind numbingly boring games.

lets not forgot, since the start of the premier league, with the exception of about 5 seasons, most people have been complaining about it being a one team league, with man u dominating with massive leads on the top of the table, its only in recent years with city's and chelsea's financial boosting it's become slightly different,