Each team has an important game.

Salford, Widnes and HULL K R must win to avoid bottom 4.
If Hull win the above teams will be in the bottom 4.
Catalans must win to ensure top 8 position.
Warrington, Huddersfield and Castleford need to win in battle for fourth spot.
Leeds, Wigan and St Helens must win to continue fight for top three spots.
Wakefield playing for pride.

You were so close!

But fair point should be interesting. I expect Hull KR to beat FC and the bottom 4 not decided until next week much to the delight of the RFL and Sky commentators.

It should be to the delight of everybody really !! Fingers crossed this year's format has achieved what it was intended to achieve and given meaning to [ievery[/i match not just the play offs.

Leeds were premeditated? masters of the old format in apparently 'coasting' in many games as now seemingly borne out by this year's (unexpected by many) levels of performance that could well finish with Leeds top of the table. How many expected that in the close season?

Not really. their eyes are wide open for the middle 8

One little stumbling block of the Middle 8, Wakefield have been god awful most of season but will start the middle 8 in exactly same position as potentially widnes/salford who may have put together 9 wins over 23 games.

wakie over years have impressively ducked the chop. it wouldn't surprise me if the same happened again.

Agree BB.And one of Hull/Hull Kr likely to just miss out on the Super 8's in the last round of fixtures.Seems a little unfair they have no real advantage over SL's whipping boys going into the middle 8.Maybe one thing that could be looked at could be a bigger punishment for finishing bottom at the end of the regular season.Every minute matters? Pftt, Wakey have been in cruise control waiting for their real season to start for the last dozen games now and that can't be right.

Wakefield said weeks ago their season started with the 8s. They will finish bottom and on the same number of points as everyone else. For the last 3 months literally no minute had mattered for them

It mattered to James Webster as he is now out of a job. Similarly those that didn't perform are seeing their places in team (possibly club) taken by new signings. When they can only get a gig at a part time team next year then every minute they under performed mattered.

Yeah cos they were going to catch up to 8th weren't they. Very little difference in going down finishing 9th and going down finishing 12th. No difference between getting 6 points and getting 16 points for them. Once you are in the middle 8s no minute mattered and they were out of the top 8 pretty early.

No they weren't going to catch 8th by the time Webster was sacked.....it's those ELEVEN league games BEFORE when they gave up that saw to that.

When they could still make the 8 (they gave themselves a great start with 2 wins from 2) they decided to role over instead very early when they were still clearly capable for fighting for the Top 8.

Also their is a difference to what position to finish in. Same as the top 4 it's better to finish 9th and 10th because you get 4 home games in the middle 8. 11th and 12th only the 3 home games. 12th will be away to Leigh most likely.

Well definitely mattered then. The fans are flocking.

Just because you've never liked the new system you're scrapping the barrel by trying to highlight Wakefield as proof it's rubbish when their's 11 other teams who have gone about it correctly. In fact so are Wakefield now that they have a better coach in. What Wakefield's year has shown us, isn't that the new system is bad, just that James Webster is and he robbed the club of a chunk of money in attendance figures when he told everyone that they were saving themselves for the Middle 8's after only a few weeks into the season and subsequently proved it with no effort performances.

And if Wakefield stay up nobody will care about it.

I can't believe you want to accuse someone if scraping the bottom of the barrel then use Salford and two clubs who have publicly given up on youth development in hull fc and hull kr as clubs doing it correctly.

And attendances are down at many clubs, are we blaming James Webster for that as well?

I think their fans will.



Have they given up trying to make the Top 8? No they haven't, therefore they're competiting in the system correctly. That was you gripe wasn't it....about every minute mattering?



True they are, but it doesn't matter what system you have, when for example Warrington can go from the exciting team they had in 2011 to the frustrating one they have now in 2015. Wakey as mentioned before might as well have told their fans not to bother showing up until August. Also you don't just click your fingers and fans reappear just like that. Like anything it'll take time to see results.

I would be very confident in saying Wakefield's fans would happily take all the losses and performances this year as long is it meant they stayed up.

Well if Salford haven't given up on the top 8. They need their heads checking.

There are far more parts to a successful system than gaining enough cheerleaders to convince you of some vague concept of 'mattering'. Leeds v Wigan matters whether leeds are top or bottom or mid table. We don't need this fake importance shoehorned in to an unfair and unsporting system put in place because marketing is hard and this is easy.

It's a stupid system whose faults were apparent to start with and have now become real and your just ignore it and blame someone else argument isn't very convincing.

I'm steadfastly against the merger of Hull and Hull KRs academies, but its a bit harsh to say they've given up on it, I think it's just an ill thought out idea.

Hull had the same number of academy products in their team as Wigan did last week (2 less than your guys). The under 19's also destroyed yours despite missing some key players.

Don't make things up just to suit your argument.

It's much better than your lame "the whole system is rubbish based on how Wakefield have performed" nonsense.

If you're producing superstars, you don't share them with your rivals.

I think the system on the whole has been decent so far.Much more intersting than the previous tedium of awarding mediocrity top 8 play off system and the new top four play offs is far better imo.Obviously there are going to be teething problems,Wakeys mid season surrender a case in point, and we will probably come accross a few more in the last 3rd of the season but its nothing that can't be looked at again by the RFL and tinkered with and improved upon.We will see but I've enjoyed this season far more so far than the last few.We will see how the rest of the year pans out.

its not based on how Wakefield have performed. It would still be a rubbish system even if Wakefield were playing like Queensland

Good to see its not led to the game reverting to rubbish over-seas panic signings like Nielson, Chisholm, and Sio too.

We're not really. All the players already in the system are ring fenced.

As I said, I don't like the idea and don't think it will work. But it's not a case of either side giving up.

its obvious we needed to move to 12 teams, we just can't sustain 14 and you can't go top 8 in a 12 team comp.

But for all the complaints about teams coasting, its far easier to win this comp from 4th than the last one was.

You are sharing what would come next.

Look if both Hulls had come out and said, we think we can get more by clubbing together, benefiting from economies of scale, sharing best practice, having a larger pool, and working together instead of against each other, Id actually support it. Id think it was forward thinking and pretty altruistic.

But they haven't, they have explained their reasons behind it. Its too hard to increase the player pool and it costs money. So they have given up doing the difficult thing and done the easy thing.

Yet your first few posts on this thread were all about how Wakefield performed to try prove the system is poor.



Why? Because finishing spots are more important?



Yes because HKR was always about the youth before the new system weren't they. They never signed Willie Mason or Justin Poore or Neville Costigan or a load more overseas players did they? Your big example of a side going for overseas signings instead of youth is a side that was doing that anyways under the old format.

But its now far harder to get top and you can't coast anymore.At the end of the day if its a play off system we have then what more can you ask for as top 2 team than win 1 game at home to get to the final?

it shouldn't need explaining to you that thinking it is a stupid system and showing Wakefield as an example of those flaws is a different thing to saying it is a stupid system because of how Wakefield have performed.

Its a stupid system for many more reasons than that

There were actually 2 sides there. To add to worldwide superstar Dane Chisholm signing for Hull KR (a massively inferior player to the others you mentioned) Michael Sio has left the bright lights and huge crowd of McKay Cutters to join Wakefield. Since returning to P+R we have not only seen an increase in the number of overseas players in SL, we have in fact needed the quota to be increased, added to the fact we are cutting the number of academies by a third and half the clubs in SL wont even bother having one.