not really surprised by some of the downbeat posts, as some of us seen it coming.

there is a lot of good things going on in the sport, i.e sport england and the money from the tv deals etc.

for ages i and others said that increasing to fourteen teams with a top eight system would not work, especially with no relegation. your playoff race has to be where finishing just one place higher with say two or three games left would benefit your team.

i would...

have 12 teams possible even 10, now that the ink is dry on the aussie tv deal.

top 5 playoff.

reward teams in some way who bring players through the youth system. even more so now with the tv deal down under.

get shut of wood and appoint someone from outside the game. people will start to see how good lewis was the longer we have wood in charge. as they say you don't miss them till they have gone.

get shut of cummins. the standard has nosedived since the aussie (forgot his name) left.

consistency in the handling of discipline in red hall.


i don't mind P&R as long as we don't end up with just another yo-yo effect.

they can pat each other on the back for things such as the increase in crowds (and rightly so) but the test will be to keep those fans and if the clubs keep taking the mick out of the fan by just needing to do enough then they only have themselves to blame when one day they ask where did they all go.

Totally agree re Sky commentary. For example in the NRL grand final the commentary team were quick to drop comments on the James Graham bite, Phil Gould moved the debate on to the action straight away. Compare that to the 30 minute debate Eddie, Phil, Brian and Stevo had over the red cards at the millennium magic game v saints, totally runing the rest of the game. All Eddie has talked about in recent weeks is who should win coach of the year.

What annoys me the most about the play-off's is that more than half of the league is eligible. madness

I was going to start a topic about this last night, but didnt get around to it.

Ive been a Wigan season ticket holder since 1988 and up untill the last 2 years have gone home and away, infact the only two grounds ive never been to that have involved a wigan game is Catalans and Brisbane.

However I really dont see the point in renewing my season ticket next year, its not a new thing either, Im just going out of habit and the fact that I have a ticket now, I have my match day routine down to a tee and arrive about 10mins before the match as opposed to what used to be an hour before.

It isnt even a financial thing as I get my season ticket as a gift. It really comes down to what is the point of going to 27 pre-season friendlies, I mentioned on here before the home game to warrington that I wasnt basing a great deal of importance on the match as it didnt really matter as all we had to do was play well for 1/2 games at the end of the season and we would be in the grand final, unfortunatley we didnt manage that!

I watched an NRL game for the first time in about 5 years this season and then had to go and sit through a Wigan game that same night, cant remember who it was against (may have been hull) but it was the final nail in the coffin, I felt like a blind man who had gotten his sight back and realised he had married an ugly bird! It was painfull to watch.

And then we read that the RFL think everything is great, im not sure what is more terifying, the state of the game and the fans attitude, or the RFL's perception of the game and the fans attitude.

Great post Sir

I've been saying for a long time that the regular SL season means zip. I'm not knocking Leeds or any other team who exploit this, but frankly I am at the point of thinking what IS the point of the regular season. A club with the squad that Wigan have will make the top 8 (and arguably the top 4) without breaking sweat.

It annoys the hell out of me that IL stands up and defends the top 8 system, showing complete disgregard for the fans who pay good money week in, week out.

Some Chairmen are taking the public for mugs and I'm not sure if I want to be one any more.

I don't know why they're patting themselves on the back south about the crowds increase it was inevitable. We lost crusaders and gained widnes always going to have more crowds and the big one we had saints playing in St. Helens again. To think the rise in crowds is an achievement is just ridiculous then you have the fact that our crowds have gone up most years for a while now it's nothing special.
We also had the magic weekend somewhere accessible for more fans.

The rfl are blind and its beginning to feel like the blind leading the deliberately ignorant.

Would people accept Leeds as finalists more if they came from 5th in a top 5 system? Genuine question.

I think that under a top 5 system it would (and quite rightly) be much harder for a team to qualify from 5th and therefore the answer would be "Yes".

I think the honest answer to this question is yes. Logically, I would have thought they would have to perform better per se during the season to obtain that finish in the league, compared to a stat that I saw Bilko quote for the last two seasons.....Wigan/Wire 78% league win ratio, Leeds 58%.

To be fair to Leeds though, although they had an easy (on paper) opening game if they win it this year they will have

played Catalan in France with a fantastic home record
played Wigan at Wigan the league winners
played the league runners up and CC winners.