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.

I have a passing interest/intense dislike of other sports, but apart from football they all seem to be regularly re-inventing themselves or introducing new competitions - cricket/yawnion. I haven't a clue who the league winners were in either of those last season but was fully aware of the media frenzy around their respective cup competitions. Interestingly, & I am not sure there is any relevance, but both of those sports appear to have a select bunch of players who never/hardly ever play league games, being reserved for international duty as that is the big money earner.

Hadn't half our team played for Great Britain the day/week before hence the changes? Don't think it was done out of dis-resepect or the like. I'm sure it was forced.

You're right it is irrelevant, let's look at centrally contracting RL players to an international team to play against whom?

No disrespect to the World Cup and the teams in it, but, seriously how many competative teams are there at the moment, would Austrailia and NZ fancy going down the same route?

There isn't a market for it surely? Not even on planet tigertot

You sir, are a right Charlie.

English Clubs haven't done too badly on the European stage over the years. In fact, in the last eight tournaments there have been seven finalists including three winners, one of which are the current holders, not a bad return?

Perhaps the national team is being hampered by the money getting thrown around at foreign imports? Something we need to be aware of?

I said the quality of the teams in the PL has decreased accross the board in the last couple of years, as has the quality of the English teams in the CL. Citeh have spent nearly half a trillion and can't get close to qualifying for the knockout stage, Chelsea have been exposed this season in the CL, and Man U didn't get out of their group last season. Yes English teams have done very well in previous years, but it seems clear to me the quality of the English teams involved is decreasing despite the millions of £££s being thrown around.

I'm not convinced the weakness of the national side is down to the amount of imports playing in the PL, even when English clubs dominated Europe in the 70/80s England were still pretty gash.