With the play offs as they are now. In theory if a club has the courage and risk to do it, a club could use half its first choice players for all its 27 games and finish in 8th place.
For the play off games they could go to full strength selection for the 4 remaining games as its only the play off games that matter.

Had we won last night and gone on to win next week, nobody on here would have said a thing. They're the rules which we all knew at the start of the season.

Saints and Leeds were the better sides on the day and deserve to be in the final. I've said all season long I didn't want to play Saints come playoff time and think they will win it next week.

Find a new idiom.

We've had numerous threads on this subject before last nights game?
Being the better side on the day is what is needed to win cup competitions. Its shouldn't be deciding league championships unless there is a completely lop sided fixture list. i.e prior to 1973.

We have yes, but had we won the GF there wouldn't be a single Wigan fan saying 'We aren't the Champions the system is wrong blah blah blah'

And since 1998 the GF decides who is the Champion team of that year, End of!
Whether it should be or shouldn't be is not the argument, Whilst it is the 2 x teams who get to the Grand Final played the rules as they Stand the Best and deserve to be there, End of!
As i've said numerus times before, do not use the current situation to decide that the current format isn't the correct one.
The 2 x teams that got to the Grand Final played the season in the way that best suited their club and their circumstances and have got their rewards.
"IF" the league was decided by the 27 league games or a different play-off format those same clubs would have had to amend their way of thinking and play the seaosn to those rules and not the present ones.
Whose to say that "If" the season was dependant on the 27 league games that the "League" would have ended the same way it did?
Whose to say that "If" the Play off format was different the same 2 x teams may have reached the Grand Final anyway as they would have played to those rules throughout the season.
You can't Hypotheically change the rules at the end of a season and then say the results over that season would have been the same or whatever, the rules at the start were the rules.

The Best 2 x teams who played to that system are in the Grand Final!#

Well done Saints and Leeds.

That is my argument?????????

I'm worried for the future of the game. If, Leeds has purposely paced thereselves for 3/4 of the season to come good for the final quarter then fair enough. But, if every top club in the league did that then we are wasting our money buying season tickets watching a sub standard product. The league games are effectively becoming glorified friendlies, until the season really begins in August, and the fans are paying hundreds for the privilege of it.

uh?if you look at the final league table,i think there may be a little hint as to why us and wigan are a wee bit more deserving to be in the g/f,

While it might sound like sour grapes, I think ive needed the situation that's happened this year to realise what a ridiculous system the play offs and grand final are, and to wake up from being brainwashed by sky into believing this farce!

The mantra behind the grand final is the best two teams coming head to head at the end of the season and fighting it out for the championship - This worked under the old system as the old grand final system pretty much guarenteed at least 1 of the top two got there, and the other team would usually be the other top team, or alternatively an extremely good team, from there or thereabouts. who had been good enough to make it through.

The difference with the new top 8 is it is just a glorified cup competition at the end of the year to decide the champions, and has lost its credibility for me when the two teams that will play next week for the right to be called champions are no where near the best teams in the league, and quite simply are just the two teams that are in form at the end of the season.

In the same way, and to reduce it to the absurd, if the Grand Final happened to take place in February rather than October, we would have had Harlequins v Huddersfield, "battling it out for the right to be champions" in front of 25k at old trafford, simply because they were the two teams in form!!!

Atm I don't intend to watch the grand final next week, which will be the first major showpiece rugby league final ive not watched in 20 years, purely because I refuse to dilude myself to accept the sky doctrine any more! Its laughable that two average teams now have the chance to become champions by doing nothing more but playing well for 3 weeks out of a 30 week season, when the rest of the season they've been indifferent to say the least.

Its glorified bull 5h1t to X-Factor proportions, and if I feel like wasting 2 hours of my life next saturday night watching 5h1t on tele, I might just tune into the X-Factor dross for the first time in my life, just to see if this is any more credible!!

IMO the playoffs this year will be reduced to the sham that they are when this years champions are getting pasted by Wigan and Wire all through next season, and end up again finishing the league somewhere in mid table obscurity - Although when that happens, they will be able to simply get into form for the final 3 weeks, and march on to be champions again, much in the same way as they have done this season

If we HAVE to have a play off system, the only one that works in a way that is remotely fair was the top 5 system. At least you could justify this system a little by the fact that for a team from lower down the table to win it, they had to beat every team above them to claim the championship. What we have now is a joke, and I almost pray that one day a really 5h1t team from 7th or 8th, who have lost more than they have won, manage to really show what a joke of a system we have, and force it to be overhauled!

And before anyone calls this sour grapes its not - Even if we'da had the old top 5 system, I don't think we would be there because we've fallen off big style after wembley. We would have been beaten by Wire in the qualifier and then in all likelyhood been beaten by saints in the eliminator. However, at least a Wire v Saints final would have had more credibility than what we currently have!!

that was the last time wire finished as League Leaders and again ended up with nothing....

Imagine the shock the following year when it reverted back to being the league leaders crowned as champions,and the playoffs decided a secondary competition called the Club championship (effectively the premiership) which Wires won...!!! wouldnt that make you blow chunks.....

so I appreciate if you wigan fans would stop taking the mick we've had it tough with this league leaders/ champions thing..

double post

Regardless of how many teams sky wish to include in the gf, 1 should play 2 in the first week the winner going straight to the gf whilst the loser plays whoever comes out on top of the other teams. Much like the top 5 system.