I think apportioning blame for getting injuries in this context would be a strange concept. I wouldn’t blame Saints for those injuries but these things do happen and can happen under a league structure. St Helens finished top by 3 points, that’s only two games. The same issue would arise had that Wigan Saints game been 2 games before the end of the season, Saints get a shed load of injuries at that point, lose their last two games of the season and end up 2nd on the league ladder. Leeds finished 2nd by 3 pts that year, and lost 2 of their last three after the CC final, when they had lost Senior, and had a forward pack which were falling to pieces against, one of those losses came against a Wire side Leeds had put nearly 50 points on only a few weeks earlier. These things happen.

Bradford had injuries at the beginning of that year, including losses in the first two weeks to Wakefield and Widnes sides which spent the rest of the year only being slightly better than the famously awful Leigh side which got 4 points in the whole year. Bradford had won 8 in a row going in those play-offs beating both Leeds and Saints. Injuries effect all teams, its not about fault really, its just a fact of sport. Injuries happen, you do the best you can in spite of them, they happen and always will.

my god reading this thread is painful

DON'T READ IT!!!!!

Just put paraffin on it...

No but the 6 nations and Tri nations have a league without playoffs and they are the 2 biggest comps outside the World Cup itself but for some reason you are dismissing them!

Im not dismissing them. Im saying they are round robin tournaments its quite clear they aren’t going to have a league + play-off structure. There are also international tournaments. Nobody is saying round-robin tournaments don’t exist. They are however in the minority and it doesn’t help your point to highlight that rugby championship (as it is now) and 6 nations are round-robin tournaments and big ergo better than league-playoff tournaments and then point out the only bigger tournament is one which uses a league + play-off structure.

Are you being serious? You do know a round robin tournament is a league? As in the football Premier League?

So you're trying to argue all the biggest RU comps have playoffs but 2 of the 3 biggest RU comps that don't have a playoff don't count because they are round robin tournaments??!

read what you wrote and i responded to again. It should become clear.

Also by what measure are we declaring these two of the three biggest RU Comps?

And also there are obvious practical reasons why mid-season international tournaments look to a more set structure in that the logistics takes more planning and player releases need to be made from clubs.

And lets be clear on your twisting and turning like a twisty turny thing. What i actually said in the post you quoted was [iIt 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 It should be obvious but let me point out that neither the 6 nations nor Rugby CHampionship (the tri-nations doesnt exist any more) are [ia club rugby competition of either code [/i

You are obviously differing a robin robin tournament and league structure.

The RU World Cup needs playoffs because not every single team in the competition plays each other. In round robin tournaments all competing teams play each other at least once and each other the same amount of times. Once that is complete the team with most win/points is declared Champion. There is then no point in making them playoff off against each other again!

So, according to you a play-off and GF is needed to declare a champion only when clubs dont play each other the same amount of times. For the past 15 years Super League has not had a league season where clubs play each other the same number of times.

Though of course many competitions do play each other the same amount of times and have play-offs and a grand final to declare the champions.

In fact whether they play each other the same amount of times or not, it is very difficult to find a club rugby competition anywhere which doesnt decide its champions by a grand final.

What we can see from this is quite obviously, that whether you play each other the same amount of times like the Currie Cup, Aviva Premiership, Pro-12, top 14, Elite One, or you dont like the NRL, Super Rugby, NZ National Competition, and Super League, club rugby competitions throughout the world, invariably, decide their champions by a play off/Grand Final.

We'll agree to disagree Smokey!

I believe a league with everything balanced is the fairest way to decide a champion and you don't.

The irony is my OP wasn't to scrap the playoffs but merely reduce the competing teams that qualify to increase the standard of the regular season that I am finding increasingly meaningless.

and as i say, you are fine to believe that. Its a personal preference. Im just saying that what we are doing right now is the most common way of doing things in rugby.
And to re-iterate my response to this. I can understand why it can feel meaningless, but that is down to the disparity between top and bottom, not the number of teams in the play-offs.

If right now there was say 6 points between Wigan in 1st and Widnes in 11th, rather than 14 points, I don’t think this argument would be happening.

I think it should be less than half no matter what. I think less playoff games would mean the playoffs we do have would be better attended