SmokeyTA V DaveO!
Just what I've been waiting for!

I'm backing DaveO on this

PS

(I'm guessing DaveO's reply will be something along the lines of Injuries over a 2/3 week period can totally decimate a season if it happens in the playoffs whereover a "League" season those issues are minimised as there are 24/25+ weeks left to make it up?).

Much the same as making the rewards for finishing top much more lucrative & attractive hence making teams who are competing at the top end of the table more incentivised to win as many games as possible to finish higher.

Although I dont want to go back to a pure league system I prefer it to the current 8 (Or the crazy splitting the season after 11 rounds into groups of 8 rubbish).

I'd rather have the Top 2 and let them have a 3 game play off than the current 8.

As for the use of playoffs between American football teams, and European football teams , a totally erroneous argument as they are a way of bringing different leagues together, not the same people who play all season. So its a completely different thing.

And everyone here knows thats a snide jibe at Wigan et al over the last couple of years when Leeds have won it from 5th.

I would also argue that "Great" teams will be measured in other ways, Challenge Cups won, Winning Trophies in other teams back yards/hemisphere, doing it week in week out and not cheating their fans by only playing when they want to and the players measured against their counterparts from other Hemispheres and how they matched up to them when it mattered.

Each person will look back at those things and make their own judgements to the respective merits of each team they compare.

That's the whole point; injuries at the start can be overcome over a full season, and tend to average out between teams anyway. We could afford to lose, say, Sam, MM and Lockers for 3 games during the season, and it wouldn't much matter if we lost all three games, but if they were missing for the playoffs we'd struggle.

A boxer can pull out of a fight with an injury. Wigan couldn't pull out of the semi final cos Sam T was injured last year could they??

Can't compare the 2 really.

Last years playoff semi is perfect example - our best players last season, McIlorum and Sam missing, and Tommy L only half recovered from broken ankle.

The Challenge Cup also provides teams with the big game, perform on the day, knockout style platform to prove they are that kind of team. Combine that with winning the Championship by finishing top and you win the Double, the ultimate achievement.

If you are going to start behaving like a 15 year old emo girl ill leave you to your tampons, paramore and poetry about how everyone is mean to you.

Its not a snide jibe at Wigan at all, Leeds have lost twice to teams below them in the play-offs, they were the first side to lose in a GF against a 3rd place team, its not more a dig at Wigan than it is a dig a Saints, Wire,and Leeds.

This seems a point smokey wants to ignore, given that basically the only 2 posts he has ignored in this thread say exactly this.

Comparing playoffs in a sport with an unbalanced season (where everyone does not play everyone else) to a sport with a balanced season is pointless, silly and just wasting time.

As i previously said, it would be interesting to see if any body knows of any other balanced season sports that have play offs to decide the champions?

Yeah they also wear funny gloves and dont have a shirt, thats why its an analogy and not just a list of things that are exactly the same.

Here are some more for you, Colin Montgomerie has 31 european tour wins, the 4th most in history, spent 400 weeks in the top 10, topped the european tour earnings list, won the european order of merit a record 8 times including 7 times in succession, 4 european tour player of year awards, and never lost a singles match in the ryder cup. Colin Montgomeries career is defined by the fact that when the bright lights of the title matches were on him, he couldnt get over that line.

Tiger Woods has 78 PGA tour wins, nobody really cares, he has 14 majors, everyone cares.

Asafa Powell has broken the ten-second barrier 88 times, more than anyone else ever (legally) He holds the 5th fastest time ever, and has been a world record holder, he has won commonwealth and IAAF world championship finals. In a few years no-one will remember him because he choked in every world and olympic final he was in.

Usain Bolt has 4 individual olympic medals and is the most famous track and field athlete in the world.

Champions are made in the heat of battle, when the best faced the best with it all on the line. I dont know why we would want to remove that from our game.

between 2007 and 2009 4 points over three seasons separated Leeds and Saints, 4 points. 1, 1, and 2. There was no better, fairer or more entertaining way of separating those two great sides than pitting them against each other in front of 75 thousand people winner takes all.

Why are you not talking about team sports, do they not suit your argument?

Every major rugby competition of either code in the world

BTW we dont play each other the same number of times and havent since super league 2. HTH