Just a quick one on whether we've got much of a reward for finishing second, to get to Grand Final we are probably going to have to either beat Leeds twice at home or once away. Compare that with Saints who have took Leeds recently familiar position of 5th, they'll have a home tie against Hull KR, then might well play a Wigan team who will have lost 8 out of their last 10 super league games, then have a semi final against a Huddersfield team whose nerve might well fail them on the big occasion.
Lots of ifs buts and maybes there, but doesn't seem quite right to me.
Still think the original super league play0offs of top five got the right amount of reward for a finishing league position.

Leeds get a better reward for finishing 3rd than us or Saints.

They get Wire who may well bottle it as usual against Leeds in the playoffs, then they will have played themselves into form and will get either Hudds whose nerve might well fail them on the big occasion or Wigan who are on a losing streak and then they are at Old Trafford where they will probably have one of the three teams mentioned above, none of whom would realistically beat Leeds at Old Trafford.

How is that fair?

IMO the whole system is rigged to favour teams that win all their knock out games like Leeds.

Having said all that I am still confident, I believe this is the year we end the curse of 1955, no point making excuses. I just think the play-off system definitely needs looking at.

I do find all this "they only have to face the League leaders to get to old trafford" a bit stupid....

its like saying the Champions league isnt fair you only have to beat malmo, olympiakos, and roma then you get to face Arsenal who will be concentrating on finishing in the top four, a Man u concentrating on the title, and then Real Madrid who havent won the thing for 12 years,and have forgot how to win it.

Maybe we should have turned up for both the Widnes matches and finished top!

hopefully we beat leeds. wigan beat hudds then we get clubcall and pick hudds then probably lose to leeds again in final

Advantage? Home game in qualifying play off. Win that & another home game, League leader is not going to pick 2nd placed side under ClubCall.

If Giants did go out, lower ranked team won't picked higher ranked remaining side as opponent to beat to reach GF.

Finishing 2nd is, largely, the same as finishing 1st. In fact it's arguably better beacuse if Huddersfield beat Wigan they are guaranteed the odious club call, we can still win and avoid it. But broadly speaking there is no real difference.

Top 4 have a huge advantage over positions 5 to 8 - guaranteed 2 home games and you can afford to lose. That's what makes Leeds achievement the last 2 years so special and, in my view, worthy Champions.

As Sally says above "the playoffs favour the team that wins all their games". They can call themselves Champions. Now Wire have to stop faffing around get their collective backsides out there and play for position and that position is to be "Number One" at the end of the series. Get out there and win all your games

Edited for accuracy.

Finishing 5th and 6th gives you an "easy" first round of the play-offs. A nice warm-up for the week after when you'll play one of the teams who are smarting from a beating from a top side the week before.

Finishing in the top four gives you a big advantage over finishing in positions 5-8, because although Saints in fifth have a much easier (on paper) week one fixture than Wigan in fourth do, Wigan's overall route to Old Trafford is easier than Saints'.

Finishing in the top two gives you a slight advantage in the top eight format, but nowhere near as much as it used to in the old formats which is unfortunate for us as we've only started finishing that high since it became top eight.

In the top six format we would be off this week then going to Huddersfield next week with the winner going straight to the final and the loser having a second chance at home V the best of the rest. Unsurprisingly under that format the final was contested by teams one and two more often than not. Also under that format, at least one of the top two teams HAD to reach the final via the 1V2 qualifying match. That isn't the case under the current format and was highlighted by the 2011 final being 3V5.

It's not the advantage it used to be then, but it is still an advantage. Essentially we're all nervous though because we still haven't won the thing yet, and our "reward" for finishing second this year is a strong possibility of two games against the play off masters. Essentially, as mentioned above, any format will always favour the team that has a habit of winning most of it's play off fixtures and sadly that team has never yet been us!

If you are good enough to be champions you will beat who you have to beat. How you can possibly argue 5th is easier is beyond me.

If you are good enough to be champions you will have the mental toughness to bounce back from a bad defeat.

Like wigan in 2010.

Well on backchat Rod Studd is the only one that backed us v Leeds