Anyone else feel that they should have started with everyone on zero pts to make it a lot more interesting,the powers that be said it would be more competitive,there are 5 clubs going for top 4 with the other 3 plodding along with no chance whatsoever of getting top 4 due to points adrift.Mind you,would have been good just to hear the sky mob spluttering a outs Sts being beaten 3 times and bottom if gone on zero points.

It definitely needs something doing. The whole point of the play off system previously was to avoid teams having nothing to play for which is what we have now.

I appreciate that there needs to be some reward for finishing higher up whether that's just home advantage, you halve the points earned in the first part of the season or give one point per place with the top team starting on 8 points all the way down to 0 if you finished eighth.

The problem is all of it feels rather artificial but then I guess whole thing is anyway.

The teams in 7th and 8th being too far behind and having no chance of reaching the top four was always going to be a huge flaw in this new system. We seem to be making more effort than I expected but everyone knew it was 7 "dead rubbers"

The one thing that could possibly improve things would be to keep the current structure as it is but increase the 7 play-off games to 3 points for a win, that could work.

Top gets 4points
2nd 3
2nd 2
And 4th 1 so they have reward

Rest reset. Extra home game for top 4 as well. Enough of an incentive to aim for top four. But not dead for 3 teams by round 2 like this yr

Three of the clubs are effectively out of the running and don't have too much to play for other than some prize money for finishing higher. It's a shame, but we should have done better in the regular rounds. I didn't agree with the previous system whereby a team finishing in the lower half of the table were in the playoffs.

Should they change how they're doing it? Not sure. The only thing I can think of would be to stagger the starting points, so the top team after 23 rounds start on 7, second team 6, down to 8th who start on 0. Points difference reset to 0. This would mean that the 8th place side would only be 4 points from 4th place, which over 7 games is achievable, and an advantage is still retained for finishing as high as possible after 23 rounds. Just thinking out loud really, I doubt they'll change it so soon.

Wasn't this the point of "making every second count"

Fair play for trying something new.

What is everyone whinging about?
The super 8's is a good concept.
Just because our club is not in the running for top 4 doesn't mean the concept is a failure.
This is still the regular season anyway and for the top 6 or so clubs and for the middle 8 every minute does matter.
People whinged over the old concept as there was nothing to play for and now we try something new people still find something to moan about.
How about we as a club try to improve and become more competitive as is the aim of the revised format instead of blaming the concept for failing.

Calm yourself down, nobody is whinging, blaming the concept as a whole or calling it a failure. Just having a discussion on what could be done (if anything) to ensure all the sides (we're looking at 6th to 8th) have something to play for. As it's the first season of the new format, it's worth discussing.

I put in my own post that we should have done better to ensure we were within touching distance of the top4.

I can see where you re coming from as a Hull FC supporter, but would it not benefit the whole of SL if every side improved to a level whereby they actually gained an advantage for winning more games and could carry their league points over?

Don't you think that if sides lost all of the points that they won in the regular rounds at the start of the Super 8's that sides like the Rhinos would simply revert to t055ing it off again in the weekly rounds and miraculously just managing to squeeze into the play offs before going on to give it a proper go?

This is exactly what Hudgell was mentioning on Dumberside a couple of weeks ago. His fears, as i'm sure many other's, were exactly was has played out; those who scraped in to the 8 would have little to play for and those in the top 4-5 would fight it out for 7 weeks and then play each other another couple of times.

As good as it is for the spectator, it must be pretty frustrating for the likes of top 4 playing each other up to 5 times (2 x league, 1 x super 8's, 1 x top 4 fight off and potentially 1 x Challenge Cup). Add in to the mix pre-season friendlies etc and this is now a bit silly.

would have been much better, as some have already mentioned, to almost start everyone again just like the Middle 8's.

This said and had this been the case, then you may not have seen Leeds resting players tonight.....

Could be 6 with magic weekend.

What's it got to do with him???

I think if we were Leeds (god forbid) we wouldn't be having this discussion, but I think it might need a rejig for next year, based on the arguments here. Every minute counts for some, but not others at the moment

Maybe the answer is to have a separate competition before the split and to keep the incentive to win matches the RFL share a payment between the top four sides on the basis of where you finish.The top four would also enter the challenge cup one round later than usual.
That would then enable the super 8 competition to start with all teams on zero points with a lot more interest for the lower finishing teams.

How about halving the points going into the 8? Makes it closer but doesn't erase a team's performance in the regular season.