It lacks legitimacy to you but not to others. I do not think it adds legitimacy to say "Here's a top five system and the league leaders need to win only one game to get to the Grand Final". I understand that there's some attempted logic in there around rewarding regular season performance i.e. 2nd/3rd need to win two games, 5th needs to win three games. However this year, Leeds have won three games from 5th and have beaten the league leaders to make it to the Grand Final which is a similar path as would have happened under a top five format. All the top five format would have done is over-protect Warrington because Leeds would probably have to have gone through the others before they even got a shot at Warrington, which makes it all a bit end-of-level-baddie.

Let's assume Wire had gone through off the first game of top five system and ended up playing Leeds next week. Should a team making a Grand Final really have to have played two more games than another team to make it? Should a team playing in a Grand Final have a week off in the week before whilst the other one doesn't? How does that serve our Grand Final? Doesn't that unbalance the battle? If so, how is that legitimate? Surely if the Grand Final is the pinnacle of our domestic sport (and it is no matter what people say) it needs to be an event where teams are not penalised prior to taking part. If you allow the kind of disparity evident in a top five system you can end up with teams playing in the GF that are at too big a disadvantage physically because they've had to go through the mill compared to another. I seem to recall it happening to yourselves a few years back against the Bulls after you'd surprised Leeds in the semi when despite a magnificent achievement in beating us before running yourselves to a stop over in Leeds whilst the Bulls put their feet up and had a week off before facing you. Surely it undermines the GF to have a structure that creates that unevenness in recuperation?

Why would you want to undermine your showpiece occasion by penalising a team before they've even stepped out onto the turf? Surely a battle should be decided out on the field and not before a ball has been kicked? That a lower-placed team has made its way through to the final indicates they have overcome tougher obstacles in the first instance so they deserve to be there. They have earned the right to compete so they deserve to be able to compete on an equal footing and not one that's undermined by off-the-field issues created by the structure of the competition.

If a team isn't good enough to beat a team that finished below them in a pressure cooker environment in front of their own fans then that's their problem. If anything the only true way to decide it is to go to neutral venues for all the play off action but that's not practical over here. Yes, reward the teams finishing higher in the table in the form of home advantage and easier draws but don't lever it so far in their favour that flat track bullies get a free pass into the final. I want to see my champions tested not molly-coddled. You get trophies for winning the world cup not the qualifying group and long may that be the case.

If we're going to have a top 8 system it should be the Australian one because it makes sense. If not we need to make sure we don't undermine the Grand Final by (1) giving one participation a week off before the final while another one plays in a blood and thunder knockout game and (2) throwing together the best teams in the play offs until it is later in the rounds i.e. no 1v4 and 2v3 in the first week whilst 5v8 goes on.

Yes but that can happen during the course of a season. Didn't you only finish a point behind Warrington?

I agree with that totally. The system should give a massive advantage to the team finishing 1st imo. We get past 5th place in super league and lets face it the teams are poor.

Yes but that was down to both teams being ultra consistent for the 25 games prior to that game at the HJ. Warrington lost the whole chamionship on one game to a team that finished 4 places and a lot of points behind them which is out of order imo.

Would you think it out of order if a team was knocked out of the football world cup by a side ranked below them?

That's not really the point. It appears to me most people are saying the top side are not rewarded enough for finishing top; taking it to the logical conclusion of why bother finishing top, when anything in the top 4 has the same advantages and with the only disadvantage 5 - 8 have is every game being a knock out.

1 and 2 should play for a place in the GF in week 1. The loser of the that game should play the remaining winner of the other however many times; similar (if we stuck with to the top 5 system.

As it is we have a system where you can only perform at the back of the league and become champions; not a slight on saints or leeds for doing that, as under this system it makes complete sense, but therein is the problem.

Thats is a knockout "CUP" competition like the challenge "CUP". A league format is totally different, its not a knockout.

What about the group stages that precede the knockout cup?

Would you say the Champions LEAGUE is a LEAGUE or CUP? It's both, like the Superleague. And it decides the champions of Europe.

That's different you're talking about seedings not an actual league competition over 27 games and them finishing lower.


The champions league is also different as you've not played every other team in the competition before the knockout part.

The group stage where teams play 3 games Hardly the same as a 27 game season is it? Stop being stupid and asking questions you already know the answer to.

Calling it the champions "LEAGUE" is just a token gesture anyway. Hence the reason there are constant discussions about forming a break away european super league.

Quit whining - most american sports adopt the same playoff style to determine 'champions' and they seem to do OK in terms of crowds, sponsorship and teams not complaining when they fall short.

As an example, and surely a more valid case for complaint than you lot losing 2 games in a row against Saints, look at the NE Patriots in 2007 - W16 L0 in the season until the Superbowl when they lost.

See now your being a tit trying to make out that we have only just started saying the structure is when in fact we said it before last season and after we won the league leaders and after we won the whole thing. Theres many posters on here who have said its not right all along.

Maybe the Maguire point is right maybe not but thats not the point we are discussing here.

The point is the team finishing top of the league should be champions or have a huge advantage. As it is now a team could win 28 consecutive games and then lose one and not be champions which is not only wrong but a farce.

We won from top last year so we would have been champions under either system so your argument is void.

It's a real shame. A real shame that this thread has even begun. A shame because we were fortunate enough to see two quite outstanding performances from two clearly champion sides. And that has been lost in translation. Lost because of some clowns masquerading around with a tenuous argument of "a return to common sense of top 2 or the highway".

Watching the game as a neutral allowed me to confirm to the enth degree that our sport is quite simply breathtaking. That Wigan and Wire weren't simply good enough is what sport at the highest level is all about. It's no more complicated than that and this bitter nonsense being espoused about changing what is a fundamentally successful system is toy throwing at best and a total smokescreen.

The caveat being, well done to Saints and Leeds for two outstanding performances. As for Wigan and Wire, deal with it.