Mate, this is a lazy argument. It perhaps would be true if I, and many, many others hadn't been saying the same thing for years. I played in Warrington the weekend after they won the LLS and I congratulated them on being 'Champions'. I thought it then. I think it now. If Wigan win it from 5th this year, I'll still think it. Argue your points and beliefs by all means but please don't presume to tell me the reasons I believe something.

Well you don't seem to. Wigan werent champions last year, as Wire werent the year before. It is all about opinions, but logically yours doesnt make any sense.

It's not argument, it's a fact. The vast majority of whinging is from fans of clubs, mainly Wigan, who expected to contest the final. And plenty are bitter. It's the way RL has resolved its champions for the vast majority of its existence.

I don't believe that the counter opinion that states that the Champions should be crowned based on the regular league campaign is "bitter" that's too simplistic surely?

Most posters with this view, one that I hold, agree that we all knew the rules before the start of the season etc but mourn the insignificance attached to coming top of the league after 27 games and to say we are bitter is a bit childish IMO. I think that there is a genuine concern about the state of our game and an active debate on improving the game as a whole is to be applauded? We need thriving clubs in a thriving competition with interest from start to finish otherwise we will all eventually suffer.

The proposition that we have, in the majority of years, crowned our Champions may be true, but, this was by and large a product of the age, rather than anything else, a magic formula a grand design? Part time players, teams playing their neghbours rather than everyone home and away, it taking '2 days' to travel from Warrington to Hull etc etc.

We now have the M62, motor transport is widely available, I could knock off most of that two days even travelling to East Hull. Players are full time professionals and what is significant in my view, is that the current system is designed to even up the competition. We have 14 teams not '31', clubs have quotas and salary caps, they even play each other home and away for seven months. How hard can it be?

BTW I congratulated Wigan for winning the league and Leeds for winning the Grand Final so I'm not bitter, just searching for a better way

But you knew the 'insignificance' of this before the season started as well, and so did everyone else. So people werent trying to solely finish top, they were trying to win the competition. Its not about moaning after Wigan finished top but didnt win the comp, its that the comp would have been different had it been won by finishing top, so the fact that Wigan did finish top isnt devalued by the play-offs, its devalued because it wasnt a proper representation of the league, that is why there is 'insignificance' attached to finishing top and a big reason why it comes across as bitter to see Wigan fans complain about it.

I agree wholeheartedly and the point that I and many others are trying to make is knowing the rules before you start doesn't automatically make them right especially going forward.

As an extreme, where is the sense in 'messing about' with 27 warm up games and trying to sell it as a valid and valued oompetition where all games don't really matter? Will it take someone winning it from 8th having lost more games than they had won over the 'long haul' before a few minds are changed? Leeds are by definition a Championship team and it's no fluke that they have done it from a variety of finishing positions, but, if it had been Wakefield.....no disrespect to Trinity but

But it misses the ultimate point, that the league table at the point it becomes the play-offs isnt a true reflection of a teams quality, nor is it supposed to be, nor is it sold as such.

Had Wakefield won the competition this season, would it have meant they took the preceeding 27 rounds easy, or didnt try for them? well no, Wakefield won their last 7 league games, they would have then needed to win a further 4 games to win it. They would have needed to win 11 on the trott to win it. I dont see why, it is taken for granted, that early season form is more reflective of the relative quality of the teams than late season form.

I appreciate that the play-offs do remove some significance from the league campaign, it is supposed to, but the league table after 27 rounds is only a snapshot mid-way through the competition, i struggle to see why a season like Wigans, where they were beaten in every big game towards the end of the season, where they won the LLS based on their early season form, where their late season form would have put them mid-table, where they lost 5 of 12 is a better reflection of a champion side than Leeds season where they lost 4 of their last 17, beat Wigan twice, in a CC semi and a play-off semi, Warrington in a play-off final?

I thought the whole point of leagues was that there was reward for form across the entire season. There's no bias in making the start worth just as much as the end, but there is a bias in making the end much more important than the start.

Are you being serious? You do realise you're on the Wign board don't you?

Of course it does! It only doesn't if you refuse to accept any scenario as sensible but your own. Just because something 'is' doesn't mean you have to believe it's right. The bankers get paid huge bonuses for losing billions of taxpayer's money. That 'is'. I don't think it's right. You can argue all you want that there's nothing I can do about it and of course you'd be right. But that doesn't mean any opinion that goes against it is illogical!

Let me ask you this. If the RFL decided tomorrow that the team finishing top were Champions would you argue "that's no way to decide the champions! The only way to properly decide the champions is to have a post season knockout cup competition!" Of course you wouldn't. Yet that's the argument you're putting forward as the only viable option here. If anything, you're the one being illogical. Particularly so as we are only dealing in hypotheticals. All opinions are equally valid. Mine no more or no less than yours.

You misunderstood. What doesnt have any logic is your assertion that the only way to decide champions is through a league campaign, it clearly isnt. And what also lacks logic is you crowning Warrington and Wigan champions when they didnt win their competition and didnt meet the criteria to be champions. That lacks logic. It doesnt make sense.
If the RFL were to decide to crown the champions via the league campaign then A) we shouldnt have any play-offs, they would be pointless and B) i would be disappointed we had decided to crown our champions through a process which rewards consistency over the ability to win the big games, that we had looked at the quantity of victories and ignored the quality of them.

Vitali Klitschko has 45 wins from 47 fights, Ali had 56 from 61. Klitschko is the more 'consistent' fighter, but he will never be thought of like Ali, because his consistency against his bum of the month club isnt what proves a champion, Its Ali going toe-to-toe with Frazier, Foreman, Spinks, Liston that showed his champion qualities, not his losses against Ken Norton, or Trevor Berbick. I want our champions to be the ones who, like Ali, take on the big names, in the big games, if they lose a couple against some Hasim Rahman's or Buster Douglas, its not so important.

Changes are needed in our game, but we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water. The play offs are exciting, high quality knock out games and the grand final is the second biggest RL spectacle of the year with the two top teams battling it out in front of a capacity crowd at Old Trafford. No way should we get rid of it or not use it to crown our champions.

What we do need to do is make the regular season count for more. The top 5 system we used in 2001 did this. There was a definite advantage to finishing 1st and to be crowned champions you had to beat every team above you. To win it from 5th would have taken a mammoth effort.

There are also too may hammerings, a lack of quality outside the top half of the league and threat of the NRL and Rugby Union taking our top players. To rectify this I would cut the league down to 10. The top 7 from this year and the 3 richest remaining teams, everyone plays each other 3 times with one of each team's derbys still on magic weekend. I'd also raise the cap to whatever the 6 richest teams can afford. I think these changes would really improve the state of affairs for our game

So why did over 38000 attend a typical premiership final?

Sorry to say IMO Phuzzy is on the right lines and you are wrong. Your boxing analogy is silly because you are talking about a career and not a single season, so I can’t see how it applies. As in football the title of champions should go to team who has been the most successful in terms of the league for the season as a whole, not just to a side that by means of games manipulation, i.e. when to win or lose to attain the required table position they think best suits their chances at the end of the season. By which I mean not giving 100% in all league games, thus short changing the people who pay to watch, and demeaning the sport. If the CC winners were crowned champions, just because some bright spark at the RFL said so would you think that right? Keep the play offs, just stop calling the winners champions because apart from the supporters of that side and a few others, they are not!