Still think finishing top should mean you are champions as its the hardest thing to do when every team is going for it. Playoffs can easily be decided by a refereeing mistake or who happens to be fit or not on a given day. Not as accurate in determining champions in my opinion.

Wow. Amazing how opinions change. Just 2 years ago a sizeable majority of wire fans were lauding the LLS and completly disreguarding the trophy that actually makes you champions because 5th place leeds won it which made it a joke and not fair.

I agree with everything you say of course, I just wonder whether those same wire fans from 2 years ago will be deriding warringtons achievment of winning the ''poxy sky cup competition'' next week, which would make them champions for the first time in over half a century, afterall hudds are the real champs right? they finished top.

not a chance....IF we win

win the league you are champs end of.....ask red nose fergy he`ll say the same....that equates to spurs who finished 5th one year being crowned champs..utter bollox..but some on here wont have it...end of rant on this subject

It's not so much the fans opinion. It's the fact winning the grand final gives you the tag of champions. Winning the LLS doesn't. The LLS winners aren't even listed on the super league honours page. It's considered to mean nothing because it does.

So i take it you won't be going next week then. Meaningless game. Champs have already been decided, right?

I would agree with you if all clubs were doing their utmost to win the league, but they're not.

I was convinced, and still am, that we were the best team of 2011 and worthy champions. I never gave any thought that other teams didn't give it there all throughout the season and we're saving themselves so they could run into some form come the play offs.

Since then you can clearly see where we've sacrificed some results to prioritise for the play offs and it changes the way you think about the team that ends up finishing in first place.

Same with us in 2012. The best team throughout the season then come the final eliminator we have McIlorum banned, Leuluai in his third game back from a broken leg and Tomkins pulling out the day of the game. After that game I was very disillusioned with the playoffs however my feelings are currently somewhat different.

I think there should be fewer teams make the play-offs, and more emphasis on finishing top with a better trophy more prize money and a better draw in Week 1 of the p-o's for the top side.

But winning the Grand Final is the bigger achievement, of course.

However, I rate the Challenge Cup just as highly as the GF.

Exactly - Tony Smith is so dismissive of the weekly rounds and league table position that, as a supporter, you sometimes question why the hell you should actually bother to go and watch the matches.

He isn't the only one guilty of this, and if we are being honest, at a time when we are pretty desperate for people and companies to pump money into our sport, the whole thing is a bit of a shambles.

A situation where 90% of the games are glorified friendlies/training sessions isn't a good one - The problem with having a play-off system is that it needs ALL the sides in the league to be competitive and, at least at the beginning of the season, to be in the hunt for the ultimate prize of champions.

Realistically, a play off system only works with a draft system, where squads are balanced more fairly, but I'm not sure that such a radical move could ever be brought in over here, though it would certainly be a lot more innovative and it would energise the sport a lot more than the silly and pointless clubcall.

So are you saying that the problem in our game is that it isn't competitive? Which team is running away from the rest so dominant that nobody can compete with them?

The last two years we've had 5th place winning and this year we may get 4th place winning. At the moment the reason the playoffs have come under scrutiny and the reason they appear to be a 'lottery' is because any one of us, Wigan, Hudds, Leeds could win, there isn't a clear answer on who is the best of those four teams. Back ten years ago when Bradford were at their peak you pretty much knew they were going to make the Grand Final however the playoffs were structured, it wasn't as much of a lottery then.

I agree with you on a draft system, US sports are fantastic because of the draft system but there's a key difference between their sport and ours which means we can't replicate it here: over there the professional clubs don't run youth teams, junior development is done by outside bodies, mainly universities/colleges. So new players can enter the draft and be picked, without a professional club having a claim on them. That wouldn't work here because how would we feel if one of our best Academy players, who had been developed at our expense, got picked in a draft by Salford just because Salford finished low in the league. We would probably stop developing young players.

Loose at wembley,gutted. Loose this farce of a competition, bit meh to be honest.

What is needed to accommodate the sky cup & also bring a bit more bite back to the league is to reduce the play offs to four teams which will eliminate teams 5 to 8 who just do enough to get to a play off place. If SKY are short of games then they could have a competition between the remaining clubs for a " best of the rest trophy" ,so giving even the lower clubs something to play for.

I agree the final 2 weeks of the play offs are more competitive, compared to it just being the final, but I was more pointing out that the league fixtures are a waste of time, because 8 or 9 of the clubs are no-hopers from the moment the season begins.

Ideally, to make a play off system work, we need a dozen Simon Moran's or Marwan Koukash's to take over the clubs and then you could fetch in a draft/auction system where players are shared among similar strength sides.