Well said!

When I first started watching RL around 1973:

- the average crowd at a first division game was below 5K (I actually remember Wigan playing Wakefield on a foggy Friday night in a league game @CP with approx 2K on when there was NO play off to decide the league champs).

- there were a grand total of 4 nations playing the game.

- in the UK at amateur level the game was played in Lancs, Yorkshire, Cumbria, and there was a very small league in London. That was it!

- there were no fully professional clubs in the UK.

- only one of the 4 league playing nations had any fully professional clubs.

- the semi professional clubs in the UK were based in a grand total of 3 counties.

- since the inception of Super League in 1996 gates have increased virtually every year.

- we are heading for the biggest, most successful, best attended RL World Cup in the history of the game.

- the game is now played at some level in virtually every county in the UK.


I could go on, but hopefully the point is made.


No one is saying everything in the game is perfect, but to say that the league is now just 27 friendlies is laughable. What do some people not understand? A club needs to finish in the top eight to enter the play offs. To have a further advantage (ie such as hopefully playing at home, playing less play off games) a club needs to finish as high as possible in the top eight.

Maybe if Wigan lose the next 26 friendly matches we will romp into the play offs with ease. Maybe the club finishing ninth will miraculously win the grand final at Old Trafford this year after playing its 27th friendly.


I do think that the current play off system needs tweaking to perhaps a top 5 or 6 play off format, but in my opinion, I'm a fan of the idea of end-of-season play offs.
The game is still, the most exiting, breathtaking game on the planet. Get in there and enjoy it.

Unbelievable.

The only thing enthralling about it was how static it was compared to the match on Friday night. I think I watched it in a pall of disbelief, while sitting inert on our couch.

I mean we all know that RU is essentially a different game, but even by normal RU standards, nothing seemed to be happening. Conditions were poor, I'd agree, but how can those two teams justify a game in which neither side appeared to have any kind of visible attack strategy. In RL, you commence your assault upon your opponents' line the moment you gain possession. You can't always make it from one end of the field to the other in six tackles, but the tactics are overtly offensive. In RU - certainly at international level, and definitely in that game - vast swathes of the match seem to get bound up in tedious midfield rucking and mauling, tit-for-tat kicking for touch and of course a fog of technical penalties, which are the only thing that ever seem to be a deciding factor.

Mind you, 10 out of 10 to their marketing people for managing to brainwash people like your mate into thinking they are watching something exciting.

And you seem to be intent on ignoring the fact they got two bites at the cherry. Yes playing Wigan would be harder than playing Wakefield, but the advantage of winning that game is greater and the negative of losing it is lesser. Les Catalans win the progress to the elimination semi-final, Leeds win they progress to the preliminary semi-final. Les Catalans lose they go through to the preliminary semi-final, Leeds lose they are out. A game they lost. Les Catalans lost and still got the home advantage, leeds won and didn’t. Why you are insisting on pretending that getting an opportunity to progress directly to the elimination semi-final is worse than not getting that opportunity, getting two bites of the cherry is worse than getting only one, and home advantage having lost game is worse than not getting home advantage even after winning a game I don’t know.


No it isnt.

A top 5/6 system puts the team finishing top straight into a home semi with a 2nd home semi if they lose. The top 8 system doesn't even guarentee the team finishing top a semi final never mind 2 home semi finals