Does anyone think we will get a change to the super 8's pretty soon? I am looking at Catalans and seeing how it was near on impossible for them to make reach the semi finals. Would have had to win every game!

The every minute matters slogan has gone out of the window come the super 8's as teams end up playing for nothing only after a couple of games.

What happens when we have a team finish 8th who mathematically cannot even make the top 4.

Fans treat the super 8's as just like any another league game. Personally would like to see a change myself. I think if it is gonna be a league format then maybe we do go with a reset of points and have the 8 start from zero.

Or would it be better to go back to playoffs but with only 5 or 6 teams.

play better before the super 8's then

Is it not the case that every minute matters [umore[/u than it used to? Chances are if a tan can't make the top 4 from 8 they wouldn't have last year either. At least this way there are still a few battles going on.

It’s such a shame there aren’t enough decent teams to make up a larger play-off group.

I know there have been some blow-out scores in the playoffs, in the past, but the intensity isn’t going to ramp up until the semis under the new system.

Whereas in another R.L universe, far, far, away, the games have been really intense – so far.

Enter the Sharkies

.

Do you hear people complaining about the premier league every season? Realistically, it's only ever a 3 horse race at best, with 17 teams making up the rest!

People should accept that some teams will have nothing to play for at some point in a season. That's sport in a league format. The rfl have got it right for me. Maybe 3 teams out of the whole league have nothing to play for come the split; the 3 being in the super 8s. The rest including the middles still have it all to play for. Come the next season, the 3 that have had nothing to play for May have something to play for whilst another 3 other clubs take their position.

There's nothing wrong with the on field product and now nothing wrong with the format IMO. How would you realistically have every team playing for something? It's impossible in a league format, because there's only so much you can play for.

Have to say I've enjoyed the middle 8's more than I thought I would and the attendances have held up well so at least that part has been reasonably successful.

With two games to go in the top four qualifiers four teams are all still jockeying for position Wigan and Leeds for one and two and Giants and Saints for 3 and 4.

That is four teams still competing at this stage. That is good for the game.

The only promotion relegation is from the championship to NL! and even that system changes next season



The top 8 will be won by one of Leeds, Wigan or Saints. That isn't going to change for a very long time, despite protestations from others on this forum.

It's just the way it is.

RL used to be quite an egalitarian sport but is now so elitist it makes RU look like a communist revival club

my only problem with this system, well, not necessarily the system as such, is the lack of intensity and i suppose jeopardy.
even though last play off system was a farce, it usually meant that the games at this stage meant something, the winners, go on the losers are done
whereas this system doesn't seem to have that intensity and tension..yet

ding ding ding ding ding

the right answer as it was, and as it has been since professionalism. Our problem wasnt the league structure, nor the amount of teams in the play-offs, our problem is that we dont have enough good sides.

having half our sides locked in a death struggle not to be the 4th worst side out of the 4 worst SL sides so their future comes down to a one off game is not going to change that.

Edit: just to add, 134k for 4 games in the NRL top 8 play off system.

It should be the Super 6s with 7th and 8th going into the qualifiers with the top 2 from the Championship.

I should imagine the 8's concept will be treated with a bit more intensity next year. The problem is the challenge cup comp disrupts the flow, pity they can't have the CC finished by the end of June so that superleague can pick up quicker competively.

I reckon it's worked pretty well. You can't make *every* match matter, but the number of dead rubbers has been reduced, a (very limited) pathway for Championship clubs has been provided, and it would be crazy to change it again so impatiently.

Even though I support a club that finished 8th and had little to no chance of making the top4, and has therefore had weeks of 'dead rubber' games I think its been a success.

We started the season poorly but had to improve quickly to secure a top8 place, under the old format I'm not so sure we'd have picked up our form so quickly, as we'd have had weeks longer to scrape in to the 8. So the middle part of the season became more exciting.

I think its far too soon to change the format again, the Championship clubs will be better for this experience. Leigh for example may start to become less 'gung ho' in their style and aim to complete more sets against the SL sides as that has been their undoing this time round.

the only thing I think could be better is (as often with RL!) the marketing. We need TV ads, press ads and social media campaigns to spread the work that the Super8's is the best 8 teams in SL going head to head all summer. Crowds have either been flat or down for these games at all of the clubs, when really these big ties should be some of the better attendances of the year. I also don't think the clubs have done a great job at selling mini-season tickets for these 3/4 games. We should be aiming to get all of the 'pay on the day' and more casual fans to sign up for these games.

I also agree with another poster above that moving the CC Final to the end of June or July would help with the 'flow' of the Super8's. I also think it would help the final itself get more coverage as there is no football or RU on at that time.

The problem with the Super 8's with regards to crowds is that most games are Thursday & Friday nights.

It's worked pretty well imo.Much better than the 8's play off format.Hopefully the semis and the final will be high quality games and they should be, all 4 teams look pretty evenly matched right now.

Certainly need to give it another season or two to form a definitive opinion.This season Warrington have been off the pace and should catch back up with the top 4 and you could say the same for Catalans overall.Next season could easily see 6 or 7 sides all within a couple of points of each other then we would see a real scrap for the top 4, which is what the top brass have obviously been hoping for.

Can't say for certain but Hull's season ticket brochure for next year states that our home games will be played on Friday's, sometimes Sunday's, and sometimes Saturday for TV, but no mention of Thursday's...so hopefully that's the end of that awful timeslot!

Its a good system, it's made the regular season much more competitive , if you start broadening out the teams that will eventually play off you once again take the edge off the regular season games, It's mainly warrington, hull and catalan fans that are complaining about the meaningless games, well 3 out of the two leagues with meaningless games at the end of the season isn't bad.

Last year I seem to recall Saints, Leeds, Cas, Hudds, Wigan and Warrington all bunched together with something like 2 points separating them with about 5 games to go.

Other years we had two teams well out in front with the other playing catch up.

They'll be years when the 7th and 8th place teams face little to no chance of making it, they'll be years when they'll be bunched up fighting for 4th spot.

Catalans, their problem isn't what the league format is, it's that they've only won 1 away game all season (vs Wakey when they'd decided to throw the towel in on the regular season)......under any format that simply isn't good enough.

Just think, some of these people complaining actually wanted a "first part the post" system, where nearly everyone would be out of the running!

I think some clubs have come into the season, no buying the every minute matters and coasted through the first half of the season. Where as Saints, Wigan and Leeds put their foot to the floor from minute 1.

Huddersfield picked up on this quicker than most and have been picking form up all season.

I think Tony Smith for Warrington truly thought he could turn it on after the split, but basically it was more or less too late for them to turn it around and after Leeds pounded them in that first game I think the players realized it too.

Next year I expect the intensity to be higher from all teams, because they will realise that if they are not close after 10 games, it's going to take an almighty effort to get into position.

Some of the crowds have been disappointing no doubt about it, but it's been far from the disaster that the doubts predicted.
Neither would I call it a run away success.

I'm still in favour, but lets see how it plays out. If the crowds have been boosted in the championship, they may allow a bit more money to be spent to increase the competitiveness of the middle 8's.

I think if Bradford and Leigh could have held their own a bit better it would have made that comp a bit more interesting.

Surprising win for Halifax against Leigh today which makes the battle for 4th and 5th spot interesting! Wakefield, Bradford, Leigh, Sheffield & Halifax are now all in with a shot of taking part in the Million pound game.

Leigh versus Bradford next week looks particularly important, Leigh need to win to keep their hopes alive, while Bradford will pretty much secure a spot with a win.

Only early doors but I'm enjoying this Salford and Sheffield game. Couple of brilliant trys from Sheffield so far and Salford look worse than ordinary.

I'd make a slight change to the system.

I don't think there's enough of a benefit to the top 1 or 2. So instead of the playoff being just a straight semi final id expand it to being either the top 5 or top 6 playoff systems we had in the past. I think they give the top teams more of a benefit.

I don't know what can be done but having talked to someone in the commercial side at headingley and one of the groundsmen, there is an issue with the fixtures for the Super 8's. Having only a week's notice isn't much for the groundsmen to prepare pitches or the commercial and marketing sides to sell games. Which is probably why some of the attendances are down from the regular season.

I'm not sure what the answer is to that? It might help some to have a set system that is known in advance (eg the team finishing 1st plays 3rd in week 1, 6th in week 2 etc) but that would only help those clubs who know their regular season finishing position.

Maybe if the split could start the week after the Cup Final? It would at least give clubs 2 weeks then to sell their first games? Or some kind of international game inserted in between the regular season and 8's split?

Some good suggestions there, a cup final end of June, followed by an international game against France/Wales/Scotland should solve the 'no time to market games' thing.

A Top6 playoff format is harder to sort out without making it all long winded again, I suppose you could give the Top2 a week off, then let 3rd play 6th, and 4th play 5th, so an extra round of games. And then 1st plays the lowest team left, 2nd the 2nd lowest. But the fans didn't turn out much for extended playoff series either.