I take your point,, but I'm not certain I do agree ; time will tell. We need to guard against assuming that the home matches are "in the bag". Everyone will be pumped for the Super 8 fixtures. Teams may have come to the DW earlier in the season half-defeated before kick-off. They won't have that attitude from now on.

BTW, did we establish when the fixtures will be announced? I want to go to some of the games, and need to book leave.

Wednesday morning

Thanks.

That's the beauty for SKY TV why show meaningless super 8 games when you have teams fighting for their survival or promotion that can be shown to supplement the fight for top 4

That is true if you are a top four candidate but I thought the whole point of this new format was to lift the moribund status of the playoffs where crowds are low and some games are seen as pointless. I don't see it fixing that if things are decided early with teams out of the running having several meaningless games.

It's not just SL though. The format is supposed to benefit all levels and I think Fev, London and Dewsbury are going to have a semi final placed locked down well befores it is finished. Their remaining fixtures in the 8's will also be pretty meaningless for them if so.

But there's a very fine balance between making sure all games are meaningful and rewarding mediocrity. The structure of the comp will never be perfect and can never ensure that absolutely every game has something riding on it for both teams. It's up to the clubs who are in the 8-5 position to make sure they are in touching distance of the top 4 by the time the top 8 arrives. I'd much rather have this system than the top 8 that we had for far too long.

the new structure is still very much in its infancy let us not forget, its not even the end of the first full season with it in place!

I think over the next few years it will get better and teams will improve strategies etc in order to make the competitions all around to be closer and more deserving of the "every minute matters" phrase the RFL have coined.

I mean do you honestly think that under this new structure that the likes of Salford, wakey or widnes (with all due respect to all) would challenge for the top spot in SL in the very first year of the new structure? it wasn't designed to shake things up, it was designed to create greater competition and its too early to be writing it off in my opinion. in a few years you will see the likes of widnes, Salford and wakey challenging in a much better position if you ask me and no one team will run away with it.

I for one think that the near future is looking pretty good. lets face it if nothing had been changed you'd all have been calling the rfl for not changing anything, so give them some credit and allow the current structure a chance too. its not going to make us the greatest grossing sport overnight nor will it ultimately end up that way either but still... patience and enjoy!

Absolutely agree. No system is going to achieve all of some quite contradictory objectives, but the current set-up seems to have at least minimised dead rubbers. And it's not even completed its first season yet.

I remember some years back when Sam Tomkins was punditting (is that a word? it is now) on TV, BBC I think, and he was asked about the play-offs, and said, quite rightly, that it was ridiculous that a team who'd lost more matches than they'd won (I think it might have been Hull KR that year) should reach the play-offs.

There is a bit of chat on the Leeds board regarding Leeds Carnegie having matches booked at Headingly in August and September, it was also mentioned that Huddersfield and Wigan could have similar clashes.

I hope Wigan don't have another Leigh Sports Village scenario.

I would be pretty peeved if we had to play at Leyth whilst a 3rd division football game was being acted out at the JJB.

You travel to headingley in the second week.

Source? What day?

Friday.