Quote: goobervision "I dispute the meaningless statement and given the evidence we have where the top 8 system has been in place then the placement of the team is significant and you agree, that even without teams capability a top 6 placement is significant.'"
Given there are 10 games to be lost to get you from 1st down to 6th I think that casts doubt on how meaningful the league is. There is a difference between 6th being a good position and what you have to do to get it as to how meaningful the league games therefore are.
Quote: goobervision " This has been more significant in past structures (although as you point our in a previous comment, there are not enough data point for any statistics for this, or by extension any of the play off regimes which the SL have had, just an assumptive mathematical model).
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Different playoff systems like the top 5 have been used for years in other competitions such as in RL in Australia. The only one with little data is our top 8 system as it is unique. So what you say above does not follow.
Quote: goobervision "So at the weekend, we just either gained or lost 1 point, which is 10% of the points to help stay in the top 6 based on your views.
And so the game is not meaningless, which is the entire point of the thread.'"
Based on 2012 it's 1/32 of what we need to get 6th not 10%. We'd only need another 9 points to qualify in 6th if what you said were true!
Given we could afford to lose it and nine other games then yes it could be classed as meaningless. In fact you could argue we could lose all the games to our main rivals (Wire, Leeds, Saints and Les Cats based on 2012) and still get a top 6 finish. The fact teams don't play the percentages is something to be thankful for as a paying fan but that game just wasn't statistically important in terms of increasing our chances of winning the GF. We didn't need to win it to get the required position on the ladder. There is plenty of leeway in the system we have where you can still qualify in a good spot for the finals.