Primarily I'm talking about football fans who are also interested in other sports. The kind of people the game should be attracting if it really wants to expand.

And no wonder. With more than half the teams qualifying, with little tangible benefit for finishing first rather than second, under a system no-one understands, which produces a load of unbelievably predictable and dull matches, played in front of half empty stadiums, all leading up to the final we all expect. And with a stupid gimmicky choose your own opponent stunt to top it all off.

The playoffs should generate excitement at the business end of a season, but at the moment we can't even get season ticket holders to attend, never mind curious newcomers.

The playoffs need drastically reforming. I suggest the league leaders should qualify for the final automatically, with 4th playing 3rd for the right to contest a semi-final against second.

Yes there would be less games for Sky, but it would at least restore some badly needed credibility.

I like the way you claim it's a laughing stock and produce exactly no data to support it.

Here's the thing; RL fans will whine about anything.

The only thing stopping the game is, unfortunately, the fans.

The current system is all about generating as many TV games as possible, regardless of the quality or integrity of the games.

It makes me laugh how many people will blindly support any Murdoch/RFL scheme in the name of 'supporting' the sport.

Well, so is the SL in general.

Should we jettison all but 6 of the SL clubs, and improve the quality of the matches that way?



It makes me laugh how many depressive inbreds support the game purely to whine about [ievery. little. thing.[/i

why do most rugby league fans hate any kind of change. Yes it is a bit weird that over half the teams make it but other than that i have no issue's with the new system.

Give it some time (a few seasons) yer the attendances haven't been great but bare in mind, catalan v wakey- crap ground, no away fans
saints-crap ground funny kick off time saturday night,
wigan- stupid kick off time on manchester derby day ( a lot of wiganers supporting one team or the other will either have been at the game or spent their pennies in the pub watching the game).

i was disapointed with the attendance figures, but this new system does make it fairer for teams outside the top 2 to get to the final, meaning better odds against yet another leeds saints final (while execpting they both teams are good and still favourites to get there).

As far as most football fans are concerned if it doesn't happen in football it must be wrong. They have their way of doing things and we have ours and we shouldn't just copy whatever football does in order to attract more new people.

I'm sure that if it was the Premier League who always had playoffs and Super League who had a straight league everyone would still be complaining about how wrong a straight league is and how much of a laughing stock we are because we don't do what football do.

I couldn't give a monkeys what a football fan thinks about rugby league.

That's just the thing - they wouldn't.

I'll take a leaf from the original poster and just make up some information to support my own position:

I just asked 100 football fans what they thought of the new SL playoff format.

80 of them asked what the SL was.
10 of them asked how Jonny Wilkinson was playing.
5 of them asked if Wigan still won everything.

The last 5 said they were expecting the later rounds to improve, as there was little sense of urgency this time around.

None of them mentioned the words "laughing stock" - FACT!!11!

I think you are way off the mark here and you are not giving RL fans any respect. Sounds to me "declarations" message is one of concern for the demisation of what was a great game.
The RFL despite some hard working individuals there do not have a clue how to run the game and are quite happy to fall backwards against other sporting bodies.
They are now de-skilling, dumbing down, manipulating etc the game to lower the standard, so that they call it a "competitive superleague".
The RFL won,t be happy until they have the Catalans, Harlequins, Celtic, Toulouse, Gateshead in superleague then they will announce they have expanded the game........the trouble is then we have a superleague with little support but watched by plenty on Sky.....Then we can call it VIRTUAL RUGBY LEAGUE.

I've come to the conclusion that a very significant proportion deserve none.

They exist purely to whinge that every game is not played in their back garden, for free, while the RFL/SL/Richard Lewis bring them peeled grapes.



So it's not a great game any more? Thanks for clearing that up, I suppose we can all go home now and not bother any more.

I always have alarm bells ringing whenever I read or hear a RL fan talk about "out great game" as it invariably precedes a limp rant about something trivial which will undoubtably bring down the game and society as we know it, like having a French team in the SL.

Oh - and [idemisation[/i?





Richard Lewis is the best thing to happen to this game in my living memory. He doesn't have a clue? But [iyou[/i, of couree, [ido[/i?

Bwahahahahahaha ...

And that coming from an expansionist. Unbelievable.

Expansionist?

And anyway, what has that got to do with expansion?

Football fans think that having a timekeeper is a bad idea. I think I'll stick with enjoying my rugby league, as Harry tells me to!

You sure?

Its a laughing stock in RL circles too

Its a joke a team finishing 2nd can win the league, never mind 8th.

As happens in many major team sports these days.

I don't really have a problem with the idea that someone finishing anywhere other than first can win the competition (we're all used to that via various world cup qualifiers, qualifying stages for the Champions League, and getting into the Champs League without winning the domestic competition).

An 8 team playoff does seem a little premature at this stage though, while we still have the balance of power in relatively few teams.

and tht's where you're wrong. Football fans are not our target market, why would we want to draw in a bunch of drunken violent thugs?
People who don't understand/like our sport don't understand/like the playoff system, sucks to be them.

Anyhoo, whatever anyone thinks of Rugby League, we've a long way to go before we reach the depths that Formula 1 has just reached.

Don't know what's worse. The actual act or the lies and deception that followed.

You didnt witness the Championship relegation fight then

It might not take too long though, we have got Leeds choosing who they want to play in a fortnight.

Or the fact that no meaningful punishment has been (or ever seems to be) handed down for the various offences we've seen over the last couple of years. So, are we really bothered about how our competition is perceived by comparison? I'm not.

The way it seems to work in Formula One is very similar to the way rugby union got through it's 'scandal'. Pick out one of the parties involved and craap on him from a great height e.g. Flavio Briatore and Dean Richards.
Everyone else of note walks away relatively unscathed.

How anyone can compare that with a new playoff system is beyond me.