Which examples would you like? The New England Patriots side which won every game but lost the SuperBowl? Saracens this year? 90's Buffalo Bills? Up until 2011 the All-Blacks RU side? Parramatta? The Dutch national team of the 'total football' era? Take your pick.

Any you like, it's fun disagreeing with you...

Ermm, hang on a min! Every Major rugby competition?
So the major comps apart from ours are NRL, Super Rugby and Aviva, top 14, and pro 12?

Super Rugby has 15 teams, and 18 games.

You play everyone in your country twice, you play 4 from another country away, and 4 from another country at home. And you do not play 2 teams at all.

so once again you are WRONG!

so every other major rugby competition?

How about the NRL?
Can you please explain to me how they have a balanced season if there are 16 teams, and you only play 24 matches? To me a balanced season with 16 teams would mean 30 games (15 home, 15 away) so once again, not even remotely balanced.

Again, you are WRONG!

So just the Aviva Prem, pro 12 and top 14 then?

And as i previously said our season is balanced bar the ridiculous idea of magic weekend which makes our season unfair. It would work as a round of the CC but adding in a Wigan Sts game whilst Wire play Salford when wigan and wire are going for the LLS is ridiculous.

I have a question, do you believe that if you spout enough **** people will just believe it?

you want me to take your pick. Fair enough. Parramatta. We good now?

I'm good... You will always believe you are right, so its fun just listening to you ramble on as you compare our money starved sport to those funded by millions. You have not mentioned Formula one yet...

Fair enough, every major rugby competition in this hemisphere, the aviva prem, pro 12, top 14 and french elite.

But not us. And not because of the magic weekend, we havent had a season where everyone played each other home and away for 15 years. The Magic Weekend hasnt even existed for half of that. But then you have decided to ignore that and claim we have a balanced season and it is silly to have play-offs and a gf under a balanced season and no one else would do it. Except the Aviva Prem, Pro12, top 14, who actually do have a balanced season and pay-offs and a GF.

A play-offs and GF should only be used in leagues which play each other an uneven number of times, like Super Rugby, the NRL, the NFL, the NBA, The MLB, The ITM cup, and Super League. But not super league because we are pretending we have a balanced season. Which we dont have and havent for 15 years.

Nor lingerie football. Or squash. Or tennis. Or kabbadi. There is a really good sport to watch called Sepak Takraw. Its like a south-east Asian version of head tennis but they use this weird bamboo ball and you have to be really agile, I havent mentioned that. Its really good, check it out.

The 6 nations and Tri nations are the biggest 2 round robin comps in RU and neither use a playoff.

The reason for that might, and im just speculating here, but the reason the two biggest RU round robin tournaments don’t have a league + play-off structure might be because they are round robin tournaments. The single game Bledisloe cup doesn’t have a play-off either. Because it’s a single game.

The ITM cup does have a league+ playoff structure though, as does the Currie Cup, it even has a balanced league (unlike us) Super Rugby does, The anglo-welsh cup does, the European challenge cup does, the Heineken cup does. In RL the French elite one championship does (again with a balanced league which we don’t have) The NRL does, the NZ national competition does.

It is in fact, quite difficult to find a club rugby competition of either code which doesn’t have a league + play-off structure, and outside European Football, it is fairly difficult to find a whole lot of sports of any kind that don’t have a form of league + Play-off structure

I love Smokey trying to hang onto any form of credibility, give it up man! you have been proved wrong so many times im not even sure you know what is right and wrong any more.


I wonder what he will try and defend next, given that the basis of his current argument is that we need play offs because we have magic weekend (hey smokey, why not just get rid of Magic) and have a FAIR league system to every team!

It is shocking that someone would argue that we need a Play off system because we have an extra fixture that ruins the fairness of the competition.

Even with Magic, our competition is far to balanced to have a legitimate claim to a Play offs system.

Ps, look at all the other comps with a balanced season and play offs, the play offs are VERY SMALL! Aviva (and pro 12) has 2 less teams than us in the comp but has HALF the number of playoff teams. Top 14 has 2 less with the top 2 going right into the semi finals.

Our competition is flawed, but please continue to support it to the hills, whilst attendances and interest in our game drops.

but please, come back and pick up on the points you wish and ignore the ones you cant win an argument on, I will look forward to laughing at you once again.

Because as what happened clearly illustrates timing of injuries is everything in a knockout competition. It would be the same if Bradford and Saints had got to the CC final and one team lost its scrum half, loose forward and hooker for the final. The odds would be against them and it would not be "there fault" and no one would daft enough to suggest it would be.

As to Leeds in 2005 I thought they were not a full strength either but the only team sheet I could find suggested they were. My recollection is they also lost key players which made Bradford even firmer favourites to do what had not been done before - win it from outside the top two. Both teams above them were weaker than expected. I thought this at the time and have mentioned several time on here and elsewhere in the past I regret not having had a bet on Bradford as to me it seemed blindingly obvious they were favourites. Bradford's strength and Leeds and Saints weakness was not down to anything else but luck and the fact they didn't take advantage of the higher league finish they had wasn't their fault.

Why would we? We don’t need to, the fans enjoy it, people attend it, the TV company absolutely loves it, we have a play-off and GF to decide our champions. Why would we want to get rid of those things?
I don’t think we need a play-off structure because of the unfairness of the league structure. I don’t think it matters, like it doesn’t in the French elite or Currie Cup, or Aviva Prem, or Pro 12, or Top14. It’s your argument that we should only have a play-off under an unbalanced league. Im just pointing out to you we don’t have a balanced league. Even if we did, it wouldnt make difference to whether we should have play-offs or not. Leagues which are balanced like the Currie Cup, Aviva Prem, Pro1 top14 and French Elite have League + Play-offs, and unbalanced ones like the NZ national Competition, the NRL, and Super Rugby also have league + play-offs.

im not going to repeat why you are wrong here. You can just look back and read it.