But there does need to be some reward for finishing higher in the league if they do it in 2 lots of 4. The other option which i was originally in favour of was to revert back to the old top 8 approach of the premiership and make it 1v8, 2v7 etc.

Idont suppose bradford would have minded another round of super league?

what would be the point of another round of super league?

Perfect.

I think there is a tension between wanting to be fair to the team that finishes top and wanting the play-offs to be open and interesting.

The return of the Premiership is an interesting point. A third trophy for teams to qualify and compete for, while making the League leaders a 'real' trophy again makes sporting sense to me. Whether Sky would sacrifice the Grand Final is doubtful though.

1st vs 8th, 2nd vs 7th etc would be fine for the premiership, as the League Champions would already have their reward.

Talk about confusion even hemmings got it wrong after the wakey cats game he said cats played huddersfield, then it appears they play KR ?

The main problem for me is the devaluation of the league leaders trophy!
Why the feck did the RFL give the Championship trophy to Wigan to keep anyway since they bought success?
The whole point of a league is to prove who is best over a whole season, the play-off games are virtually a knock out comp for which we have one of those already. I don't give the GF winners more status than the old premiership simply because in effect the best team over a season doesn't automatically win the accolades (just ask saints for the previous 2 seasons)

I'd stick with top 8 and play old premiership style as some have mentioned already.
The advantage of finishing higher is a guaranteed home game and you get to play the teams finishing lower down.
The reasons it wont happen is simply MONEY, there are more games in this format which means more air time, more gate money etc etc

I have always said the best team of the season is the team that sits in 1st after all weekly rounds are over.
I have never bought this play-offs gimmick.

Lets look at it another way.

Assume Bradford had sneaked in this year, they have been truly awful just ask thier supporters. Now if they somehow managed against the odds to make the GF and win would eveyone say they were the best team this season??

Leeds have been far and away the best team however a slip up in the next game or the final and they will be classed as also rans.

Credit to the RFL for having the balls to try something different but this format does not work for me. The teams in 3rd and 4th have just the same advantage as the teams in 1st and 2nd (Apart from the home tie)

The older system worked much better with 1st and 2nd playing for the final and the loser then plays the winner of the chasing pack for a second bite at the cherry.

yup on saturday

Totally agree! The trophy that now resides permanently in Wigans Trophy Cabinet, should be presented to the team that finishes 1st in the table after the weekly rounds and that team should rightly be deemed 'Champions!' The team that wins at Old Trafford should be officially crowned 'Play-off Winners!'

Always preferred it when it was league championship and Premeirship myself. Think this whole format is rubbish personally

Me also. It gave teams something to play for at the end of the season while still recognising the best side over the course of the season.

That said, RL has actually decided it's champions via playoffs for many more years than not. So I guess you could say that the current system is more traditional.


Up until this season it was OK. Given that the weekly rounds had odd fixtures and not every team had the same fixtures it was difficult to justify awarding the championship to the side that finished top as they may have had an easier fixture list.

Now that we have all teams playing each other once home and away the side that finishes top is unquestionably the best team. Plus the 8 team format seems just daft.

Well I'm glad a lot of people on here aren't running the game, we'd have the most boring and dull seasons going with no money or interest at all.

Nobody cared about the Premiership trophy. So no-one would care about getting into the top 8. Therefore, the season would effectively be over for pretty much the ENTIRE Super League after about round 10. The play-offs create constant interest throughout the year, which is what brings the fans in.

Unlike football, we don't have enough teams at a high level to have qualification for decent competitions (i.e. Champions League and Europa League) as well as promotion and relegation between two full-time leagues to keep interest in the season going (as well as the ability to squeeze in enough fixtures in the season to have 4 or 5 competitions running).

Football have an excellent system, but we are not football. We don't have their coverage. We have to accept that we need to find ways to make the sport interesting, and the play-offs have shown this.

I fully agree and have always really enjoyed the play-offs for their intensity and the quality of rugby on offer as teams "peak". This weekend's games have been tedious, of poor quality and with very disappointing crowds, though.