It is, but the hubcap is a by-product in the quest to win the GF-the main objective. Winning the hubcap is the same as winning a trophy saying, 'Congratulations, you're leading the quest to win the GF 3/4 of the way through the season'. We may as well have trophy at the halfway point during May for the top of the table side. I happen to believe that winning the league should be the ultimate but I can't deny the fact that the play offs bring an exciting end to the season.

You think Saints have been anywhere near the best team in the league?
League position on the last day of the season may state otherwise, but this is side that has been criticised on numerous occasions for lacking fight, spirit, application, and skill.

We've seen them more than once getting absolutely embarrassed, the chairman, the coach, the senior players, all publicly bemoaning their soft underbelly.

To compare this Saints side to the one that handed us defeat after defeat for years would be a crime

I would struggle to find a worse team to win the LLS ever.

38 points wouldn't have got 4th place a few years back.....

Its been a terribly weak league whoever finishes "real" champions will most likely be a quickly forgotten team....

Just for two Michael Monaghan passes in the last games and we could have been League leaders.........that would have been a disgrace.....

I cant pick a winner this year probably Wigan If I'm pushed but again the worst championship winning Wigan side in History surely....??

I hate Saints almost as much as I hate Widnes, but the league table never lies, the top team is the best over the season.

I just think it's great for the game that 3 points cover the top 5 places.

Any of the genuinely great sides of the last twenty years - Wigan pre-Super League, then Saints, Bradford and Leeds at their respective multi title winning peaks - are far better than any of the teams in SL right now. There has been so many teams so close together at the top because the league as a whole has got weaker.

Our best team of recent years was our 2011 team that had King, Morley, Monaghan, Briers, Westwood and Hodgson all outstanding. We only won the LLS though and ultimately blew it in the end. If we somehow end up winning the Grand Final this year then history will record 2014 as a more successful year than 2011 - and I will definitely celebrate it as such personally - but we all know this team isn't as good as that team was, and going to matches over the course of the year has been nowhere near as enjoyable.

I personally think Wigan are the best of a mediocre bunch and will end up winning at Old Trafford, but this side won't be heralded as one of their greats if they do, and neither will the Saints or Leeds sides if either of them pull it off either. The only side who have overachieved all year and will genuinely be regarded as their club's greatest ever if they do it is Cas, but even they bottled the LLS when it was there for the taking.

The consolation I take from all this is that it does still give Wires an outside chance, because we are capable of winning four games against these teams if we get a bit of the rub of the green over the next few weeks.

well it doesn't look likely we will make it this year..but if you get there along with baron greenbacks pie-eaters..i hope it is your year and you win it.....one reason being youv'e never won it so i don't begrudge the wire fans one bit..the other being..some wigan fans are going round spouting like theyv'e won it already.. i really hope toadfaces pieaters get knocked out..good luck!

Surely the best team never to win the Superleague. So many records broken that year and nothing to show for it.

Top of the league DOES matter, you finish top, you've been better than everybody else. It mattered when we won it, and judging by the the reaction of some of the Saints fans on the telly during the Hudds game it clearly mattered to them too. Well done to them (in the end!)

This "it's always your year" football chant is annoying. We sing it at Saints, they sing it at us, Whiffness sing it at us and Saints...it's s**t, just stop it.

Our team is a new team. Only Wello, Wilkin and Robes have won silverware with Saints and of the remaining group only Hohaia has won silverware at all and that was at fullback with the Kiwis in the 2008 world cup. The LLS is (hopefully) the first step for this group of players.

It's easy to say SL standard has dropped, but isn't there a defence to say that club standard has dropped but player standard hasn't?

I'll explain. It's taken some time but perhaps salary cap has finally equalled SL out...
When the cap just got going there were just the big 4 winning everything, they had the money so they had the players.
Contracts up and above caps were given grandfather rights and eventually everything became equal. Team outside the top 4 would eventually be offering better players better pay than the glamour club.

So player standard hadn't dropped but the draw of a bigger contract at the lower club means it's spread out more as opposed to the magnets of the big 4.

Isn't the cap working but at a cost of club/team standard. The players just haven't become cr@per.

Not when teams are targeting something else it doesn't. I enjoyed Hull away in 2011, but three weeks later it meant very little. Huddersfield finished three places above Wigan last year, but they weren't better than the double winners who simply focussed on their goals and not on finishing top.

Not every team goes full tilt for the LLS - in fact this year it feels like no one has and it's been won by default simply because someone had to finish first. As long as that remains the case it will never be as simple as "the best team finish top".

This has easily been the poorest season in terms of quality i can remember..... No one really seemed to want to win it (apart from saints) and they almost messed that up because they are so poor.

Both ourselves and Wigan have treated it with disdain. Both turning out hapless performances against lower league opposition... leeds never bother to take it seriously... last season Wigan even appeared to TRY to lose top spot on purpose.

Lets hope this new club series against the aussies does something to make people try and win it again.... I would love nothing more than seeing all clubs go flat out to top the table.

No, i don't think they have been the best team in the league.

It's almost been Saints by default with how it's finished with Wigan just being a point behind them in the end because if Wigan didn't have to travel to Aus for the WCC and rest players and not really take their opening game against Huddersfield seriously, it's highly likely Wigan would have finished top of the league.

The best teams don't always neccessarily win leagues anyway. As examples, when Michael Thomas in 1989 and Sergio Aguero in 2012 scored injury time goals that won their teams the league title, did that prove beyond any doubt that those teams were the best? Had those two shots gone wide would Liverpool and Man United respectively have been the undisputed best teams instead? No, it's not as simple as that. Those two goals were incredible moments of sporting drama that have never been and will never be forgotten, but who is "the best" isn't decided by one moment, and league titles sometimes are.

In situations where winning the league actually counts for fairly little - ie Super League - then it becomes even less so. The LLS does not confirm wo is the best team. To say is does it just daft.

Isn't it a far better indicator than how you do in the three/four games at the end of the season?

Well said. It certainly does.

We now find ourselves going in to the 1st round with what, six or seven first choice players injured. The same may be the case for other top teams.

How can this play off system give a true reflection of who the champion team is.

Taking it to the extreme the top seven teams all pick up injuries to several key players in the last round of the season and Widnes have a fully fit squad and win the GF by winning 4 games at the end of the season, (having scraped in to the top eight and winning less than half of their matches). Is that a true measure of Rugby Leagues "Champion Team"?

Unlikely as it may seem it could happen under the current system.