I do have a similar feeling re Saints. I can see Leigh winning tomorrow night and sending you to Wire, but you showed in the first 15 minutes in your last fixture against them that you can compete. It was a pretty decent start and I was thinking Saints may be back (the less said about the remaining 65 mins, the better ).

They haven't won it under this system
And before you say 2017, they used super 8s to qualify for the semi final so it wasn't this system

Theres been similar chat in our rugby whatsappp group the last few days about play off systems, driven by Salfords decision.
And after getting frustrated reading dozens off messages, I referenced my frustration at reading this thread

There is no system that makes every game count, teams/clubs will.always do what's best for them and quite rightly so
HKR didn't give a monkeys 2023 when they rested 20 players at our place before the CC final? We finished top on points difference last year, if they don't do that then maybe we don't finish top, or 2nd or whatever

And youll be able to find similar things through wvery season, even first past the post when teams rested players before big Challenge cup games

On this thread, on our WhatsApp group, sat listening to people in pubs everyone criticises The RFL, the structure, a club whatever when something like this happens, and then say it was better when we had x, y or z conveniently forgetting the troubles those systems had and everyone whos complaing is in agreement that this system is wrong but they all disagree about what the best system is.

Will always be the same

Firstly, I have not criticised Salford’s decision although I have expressed the reasons why I find it a bit strange. I would have thought that they would have wanted a home tie in the play offs.

Secondly, I accept your point that Leeds became champions from a different system than the one currently in place, if anything that system rewarded mediocrity even more. It still stick by my comment that the top five gave greater reward to the clubs that had performed best over the whole season, and rightly so.

I do feel this is the best system we've had but we have never had one that everyone will agree on and we likely never will. Maybe if we dropped the loop fixtures we could come up with some sort of new phase, where a top 4 or whatever go in to a mini league and the league leaders start with a 2 point advantage. If you had a 4 team mini league, you would have 3 weeks worth of superb fixtures before a top 2 went in to a Grand Final. In that sort of format every try/point in a game would count as it could come down to points difference in terms of who made a Grand Final. There are probably massive holes in an idea like that (I did only think of it off the top of my head in fairness) but it feels like it covers a few bases in terms of only the elite teams in any given season having a chance of winning a GF and it would give the league leaders an advantage.

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Point 1 - I never said you did, I said that this conversation crips up every time a club does something like this (albeit it seems to create a lot more headlines and negative press from fans etc when it's wigan involved).

Second point - my point was that every person will hwve their own personal favourite, but others will criticise it in some way as there is no perfect system. The top 5 system has issues, and whilst giving the top 2 a 2nd chance it also leave the first qualifier to the final having played 1 game in about 4 weeks leading up to the final
For clarity the Top 5 wss always my favourite from an entertainment point of view.

My overall point is that the majority of fans/press etc will want a particular system until said system doesn't produce the outcome they want, then they want something else u till that produces something they don't like
As with a lot of things in life currently it seems that people make judgements based on what they WANT the facts to be and produce arguments based around that viewpoint, (not saying you are by the way)
I'm just saying salford have made a decision that suits them that thousands of clubs in hundreds of sports have done in the past and will do again in the future irrelevant of what system the sport uses
In this instance I'd bet 90% of the frothing at the mouth is because its benefitted Wigan and disadvantaged a team that's currently got a media love in (much like the furore over a non situation 2 weeks ago over the yellow cards).
Let em get on with it, get our heads down, win tonight, win in a fortnight's time and win the GF and let everyone else get on with makimg excuses

I can’t disagree with that.