It's pretty good in the sense that you can't really call who'll finish where, or who'll end up winning the competition - but it'd be even better if those 7 were chasing 5 play-off spots.

As it is, all 7 can probably coast through much of their 2013 campaign without having to raise their intensity, even when playing against each other, because they all know they'll be there when it comes down to the business end.

Also, given the discontent from some quarters over Leeds winning it from 5th, imagine the fuss if Huddersfield did it from 7th next season - even though they were tipped as 'competitive' from the outset. By neccessity, the teams finishing 7th and 8th will end the regular season with losing records, or something very close to it, so there'll be a perception of them having been crap for six months, much like there has been with Leeds for the past couple of years. Would that make them unworthy Champions?

No it isn't. It means that 7 places in the 8 are nailed on, so those 7 can coast through the regular season.

It's not a straw man - it is an argument put forward in favour of a play off system as often as the equally ridiculous notion that with a league "large parts of the season being completely pointless".



Of course it is. Teams can get the prize of a play off place for losing more league games than they win. It is a reward for mediocrity if ever there was one.



Now this IS a straw man argument. The problem with this idea is in your head. It's really simple. We have an extended WCC and the route into it is by either winning the league title or winning a play-offs. We then get round your objection of "large parts of the season being completely pointless" because we have retained the play-offs with a valuable prize at the end of them AND we have the league championship deciding the - league champions. Completely different competitions with different purposes with the label of champions being attached to the league champions rather than the winners of the play offs.

It is a straw man because nobody is arguing that there cannot possibly be an exciting finish to a league structure, There can and there will be examples where there was an exciting finish to a league season. There is however, also plenty of examples where the league competition was decided months before the end, where the declaration of champions became a procession, you want to bring up the example of the last premier league season as an exciting finish then yes, I would agree, but that would be countered by the year before where Man Utd won the league by 9 points, went top in November and didn’t go below that. The league was also won with a 1-1 draw against Blackburn which is about as far from exciting as you can get.

Qualification for the play-offs isn’t the prize, winning them is. Qualification for the play-offs isn’t a reward, its survival in the competition.

You really don’t seem to have thought this through. It doesn’t address the ‘large parts of the season being pointless’ at all, because once the play-offs have been qualified for, and the LLS being out of reach, we would be in exactly the same position as now, where (according to you) there is no reason for Leeds to exert themselves finishing higher than 5th. Leeds had a poor start to the year, the vast majority of their losses came in the early part of the season, by time the business end of the season came round the LLS was out of reach. Leeds would have been in exactly the same position as they were no, and would be able to coast in to the play-offs as you accuse them of.

The fact that we are needing to invent a super-special prize for the play-offs shows you have removed the legitimacy of it. You don’t win the Super League for the trophy, or the ring, or the WCC, you win it to be champions. The most important reward for winning SL isn’t entry to the WCC, it isn’t that trophy, the super-special prize is being champions. The competition has value in and of itself. You take that away from the play-offs and all you have is cup comp whose only meaning is to qualify for a different cup comp. You have invented the Intertoto cup.

But I don't expect them to, just as I don't believe they have in the past. I can't remember many or any games where losing teams were coasting. Sure, teams, if they have any brains, tailor their season to the play offs but I still don't believe that professional athletes aren't trying. I remember a game from the end of the season, WIdnes & some other basement dweller, which was an absolute cracker even though their seasons were apparently over weeks before.



The fuss is mainly from bitter fans of those teams who were expected to contend the final & didn't. Personally I thought it was a fantastic achievement by Leeds which I thoroughly enjoyed, despite not being a Rhinos supporter.

I was ok with this (albeit I comprehensively dispute every point you make) until the bit in bold. It is after all just your opinion and you're entitled to it. However, the bit in bold shows unbelievable arrogance! We don't understand what really happened??? Really??? Well thanks for enlightening us. I don't know how I ever managed until you came along. If you could see fit to explain the rest of this baffling world we live in I'd be ever so grateful! Suffice to say I, along with many others, am not happy watching and paying for meaningless games. You quite obviously are. Enjoy.

Mate, this is a lazy argument. It perhaps would be true if I, and many, many others hadn't been saying the same thing for years. I played in Warrington the weekend after they won the LLS and I congratulated them on being 'Champions'. I thought it then. I think it now. If Wigan win it from 5th this year, I'll still think it. Argue your points and beliefs by all means but please don't presume to tell me the reasons [uI[/u believe something.

Well you don't seem to. Wigan werent champions last year, as Wire werent the year before. It is all about opinions, but logically yours doesnt make any sense.

It's not argument, it's a fact. The vast majority of whinging is from fans of clubs, mainly Wigan, who expected to contest the final. And plenty are bitter. It's the way RL has resolved its champions for the vast majority of its existence.

I don't believe that the counter opinion that states that the Champions should be crowned based on the regular league campaign is "bitter" that's too simplistic surely?

Most posters with this view, one that I hold, agree that we all knew the rules before the start of the season etc but mourn the insignificance attached to coming top of the league after 27 games and to say we are bitter is a bit childish IMO. I think that there is a genuine concern about the state of our game and an active debate on improving the game as a whole is to be applauded? We need thriving clubs in a thriving competition with interest from start to finish otherwise we will all eventually suffer.

The proposition that we have, in the majority of years, crowned our Champions may be true, but, this was by and large a product of the age, rather than anything else, a magic formula a grand design? Part time players, teams playing their neghbours rather than everyone home and away, it taking '2 days' to travel from Warrington to Hull etc etc.

We now have the M62, motor transport is widely available, I could knock off most of that two days even travelling to East Hull. Players are full time professionals and what is significant in my view, is that the current system is designed to even up the competition. We have 14 teams not '31', clubs have quotas and salary caps, they even play each other home and away for seven months. How hard can it be?

BTW I congratulated Wigan for winning the league and Leeds for winning the Grand Final so I'm not bitter, just searching for a better way

But you knew the 'insignificance' of this before the season started as well, and so did everyone else. So people werent trying to solely finish top, they were trying to win the competition. Its not about moaning after Wigan finished top but didnt win the comp, its that the comp would have been different had it been won by finishing top, so the fact that Wigan did finish top isnt devalued by the play-offs, its devalued because it wasnt a proper representation of the league, that is why there is 'insignificance' attached to finishing top and a big reason why it comes across as bitter to see Wigan fans complain about it.