Quote: tigertot "If you are suggesting teams are deliberately losing games to finish lower then you are off your rocker. Any coach with any sense is going to spell players & if they do that against better teams where there is a good chance they are going to get beat then so be it. I remember a Wigan coach doing it & getting a 44-0 stuffing at Cas, ask Kris Radlinski if, on his debut, they went out to get beat.
Back to football, if there was such a competition, if a mid-table club such as Fulham came from 12th to win it the whole football world would be in raptures. I would expect bitter, paranoid whinging from the fans of Chelsea & Man Utd though.'"
Without doubt coaches rest players and tinker with team selection based on the opposition and up and coming/following fixtures. Apart from spreading the load I accept that it gives a coach the opportunity to test some of the younger lads/fringe players and doesn't have to be seen as some part of a conspiracy theory of throwing games. However, that doesn't mean that the current system isn't open to that "paraniod" thinking in fact it almost promotes it, particularly as the business end including the Challenge Cup is taking place in a final 6 week period more than likely involving the same teams.
Why don't you think football runs the same competition having seen the light and what a spectacle GF day was? Why are they not thinking ooohhh we can have some of that? Apart from they don't need to from a revenue stream/TV money point of view they might just think we'd have to be off our collective "rocker"?
Supposition aside, if it was a football thing then I could see a situation where the Champions are the Champions and the final Champions League place goes to the winner of a play off series to open up the reward beyond 4th place. If one of the top 3 win the play off then the highest league position 4th gets the spot.
We could do something similar with an expanded WCC series if we could get interest from NRL and some £££/AUS$