I was at yesterday's game and left in disgust when Hodgson went over to make it 36 points to 26 with about 15 minutes to go! We had just clawed our way back into the game to get within 4 points and an unlikely victory. I listened to it on Radio Humberside though and although relieved that we won I was still fuming at the inept attacking display and even more inept defence that were both shadows of our early season form. We were saved by the individual brilliance of a few players and the ability of one Tommy Leluai to open up our attacking options. To put a positive spin on it though we now have a bit of momentum and whilst it presents us with an opportunity to rest some players on Friday I think that we should put out a strong team to allow Pat and Tommy to get us back in the groove again and, hopefully, regain some of our early season supremacy in time for the playoffs.

1) the champions should go straight to the final -simple as that - a real reward for winning over the season.

why would you not want the best team of that season in the final?

2) 2nd place gets a semi-final spot already

3) everyone else has to fight straightforward knockout to get the final semi final spot

This way there is real reward for finishing top, some reward for finishing 2nd, and hard work for those in however many places they decide to go down -

if they go down to 8th place then;

8vs7, winner then goes on to play 6th, winner goes on to play 5th etc all the way up to the semi final spot with the 2nd place team. Real reward for where you finish. You can start from 6th or 5th place to speed the process up.

There would also be no rubbish repeat fixtures where we end up playing saints 3 times, etc.

Problem solved!

one massive problem with the above...if you had only top 5 the the league winner would not play until week 4...... probably too long to go without a competitive match

Pie Warrior,using the system below the league leaders would play in Week 3.

League Leaders to go straight into the final.

Wk 1 Preliminary Semi Finals,-- Match 1---2nd play 5th, Match 2---3rd play 4th.
Wk 2 Preliminary Final,-- Winner Match 1 plays Winner Match 2.

Wk 3 Major Final,-- League Leaders to play the Winner of the Preliminary Final at Old Trafford.

This would give the League leaders a three week break and make the other four teams who finished below them in the league play for the right to play at Old Trafford.

This way the League leaders would be rewarded for a consistant season.

No, I am not happy at all about the current play-off format, which is yet another massive error by the people supposed to be running RL.

I would be happy with reverting to the previous top 5 system.

Play off's have ruined the sport altogether. Finishing 5th and being champions wouldn't even make sense to an Irishman.

Scrap the ridiculous play off system and let the champions be the team that finishes top then have the Challenge Cup final the week after the season is over.

My old granddad won't watch rugby after the regular season as he says it is over when they have all played each other and the team who finished top were champions. Watches it all year and then switches off come September.


Also on another note. I would like to see us back in blue and white hoops for next years away strip. I miss it.