Same reason we struggle to attract sponsors, fans don't have the disposable income to spend or even if they do they lack the sense to save up for the knockout games the same way they would for a season ticket.

Sure does.

I've maintained for a long time that we have to endure 27 meaningless regular season rounds of crap followed by 2 rounds of play-off crap until the season kicks off for real.

You can't run a viable 14 team competition and an 8 team play-off format when at least 10 of those teams are hopeless.

It works better in the NRL but it's still not without it's issues.

It works fine in Aussie Rules but it is after all a format they came up with to suit the relative strengths and weaknesses of their competition.

We had it spot on when it was Top 5 and so did the ARL (now NRL).

Agree our top 5 system was spot on.I couldn't believe it when NRL switched from the mcintyre(?) System which i think had a fair rewarding system for a top 8 format.Moving to what we have now is a mistake imo but given the quality of their top 8 it doesn't quite look to have as many flaws as SL.

ARL switched from a Top 5 system to a Top 8 system in 1995 because the comp increased from 16 to 20 teams when Auckland Warriors, Perth Western Reds, South Qld Crushers and North Qld Cowboys were admitted.

I think they even had a Top 10 play-off one season. I'm sure Canterbury reached the Grand Final from 10th! Wonder what repercussions there would have been had they become champions from that position?

The decision to expand to 14 teams in Super League in 2009 was lunatic asylum stuff. The prime movers and shakers in favour of franchising created 2 extra places which provided the necessary majority required to rubber-stamp all the bollox.

The game has suffered ever since as the rewarding of mediocrity and the levelling down of playing standards have gone hand in hand. It could take years to repair the damage. Some clubs need to re-educate themselves on what sport and competition is all about because many have just been collecting their guaranteed licensed Sky money and tossing it off/going through the motions for years.

I would agree with you on the last four. But I reckon it will be Saints v Leeds and Wigan v Warrington.

Reckon Saints will fancy Leeds at home rather than risking meeting them at Old Trafford again



*Edit: In fact, we would be the lowest ranked team left in that scenario, so even more chance Saints would choose us over Warrington!

I got mixed up when typing it out.

I meant Saints V Leeds and Wigan V Warrington.

It's all crap and I'm still angry that we've had to endure one more season of this 14 team, Top 8 garbage.

When future history books are written about the game, there ought to be a mandatory chapter in each entitled "2009-2014" where all the pages in the chapter are purposely left blank. Or, if there must be a few words, then a simple but effective "nothing to see here" would suffice.

Not sure how Wigan do their tickets, so I apologise in advance if they already do this...but I think RL clubs should be looking at more modern options for ticket sales, such as buying tickets via an App or printing your own tickets off.

The KC for example has electronic turnstyles where you scan a barcode to get in, but to actually buy a ticket you are still stuck with going to the ticket office, ringing up or using a clunky online shop and getting them delivered.

yes that doesn't account for the 10k or so fans missing last night, but I think some fans see buying a ticket in advance or on the day a bit of a faff and watch on TV instead.

also the RFL need to get rid of the rule where the clubs can't do promotions for playoff games (as the revenue is pooled) Wigan's marketing team were capable of getting 20k in the ground the other week (with season ticket holders included of course) so why restrict them when it comes to playoff ties?

Wigan have had a print@home ticket system for the last couple of seasons now. They also offerred a £7 discount to ST holders, which brought adult tickets to between £14-18.

The bottom line with poor attendances in the POs is the PO format is too long, and people don't want to buy tickets for 3/4 extra games when they've been getting in with a ST all season. It seems barmy on the face of it, but it's understandable. There's also the fact with the CCSFs and CCF so close to the end of the season, people have to pick and choose games and week 1 of the POs when you know you will get another game is probably the lowest priority.

Wigan have had several 7/8/9k PO attendances since this current format was introduced, when our weekly round average attendance has been 14/15/16k. I've hated this system since it was introduced, and it's shocking it's lasted for 6 seasons when it's so blatantly obvious the fans haven't bought into it. Even if they felt they needed to keep the POs as 8 teams, there were much better ways of structuring it.

People can moan all they like about the incoming structure, but it is a lot better than what we have currently. And at least only one SL game won't count on a ST, and it will be a simple 80 minutes away from the GF knock out semi-final.

On the marketing front, the way the revenue from the play-offs is pooled probably has something to do with it.

Every penny that Wigan took last night (once costs are covered) goes into an RFL pot, not the Wigan coffers. It then gets pooled with the rest of the play-off gate money shared amongst the 14 clubs. That means that for every £1 that Wigan took over the turnstyles (after VAT), they'll see just 7.14p.

For individual clubs to justify that marketing spend, their ROI has to increase by a factor of at least 14, which means that if Wigan spend as much resources in marketing last night as they did the Leeds game, they'd need a crowd of 284,000 to achieve the same return on investment.

It begs another question - where is the commercial reward for earning a home play-off?

Maybe because the top 8 is a farce? It's possible for a team finishing 8th in the league to be crowned champions yet the team finishing top of the league are forgotten about by the time they've taken the LLS into the dressing room.

Because fans don't see it the same way as coaches and administrators. Winning a week's rest and home tie might mean a lot to a coach, and it's probably very significant...however, the average fan doesn't get quite so hyped about "we simply MUST win, that week's rest is just SO important".

So often, we hear comments about what fans ought to like, what they ought to get passionate about, etc. but it's a completely fruitless exercise. No matter what administrators like to *think* is exciting, they have to go with the evidence. I'd write down the top 200 attendances of the last 10 years in order and ask against each "what made that game special?" and start building some real evidence about what attracts fans. Intuition is often wrong, we need to work from evidence.

The current format is an over-the-top attempt to solve one of the riddles of professional sport - how to balance 'best team should win' versus the need to keep people interested through the season. It's typically a long way into the season before you're out of the running for a top 8 slot and thus it's *supposed* to keep things exciting for lower teams. It's been an absolute flop.

The Premier League has found itself in a pretty good place with this problem - it's very late in the season before some clubs start to run out of things to play for - namely because of relegation and European qualification.

The 3 team WCC is a good start in this direction - but it won't have sufficient impact unless and until it rises to be regarded as the ultimate club prize that everyone is desperate to win, like the Champions League (i.e. even bigger than winning your domestic title). It's at the wrong time of year and not taken seriously enough right now to have to impact it needs on domestic competition (i.e. making teams desperate to finish in the top 3 or or hopefully soon, 4).

I'd like to see a WCC played in a similar format to the Champions League, with the group games (two groups of four, two Aus/NZ, two Eng/Fra in each) spread through the season to create those 'big international nights' on a regular basis, not just all crammed into a weekend. Followed by semi-finals and finals after the regular season grand-finals.

I've been told this is impossible because of the travel distances, but it doesn't sound too hard to me. You have 6 group matches in total to play, but you just play both your 'overseas away' fixtures in one 10 day trip abroad. This is great for fans too, because they can make a nice trip of it and get to see two games. Likewise, at this end, 4 times a year, one of the Aus/NZ club sides would be over to play two fixtures. Some really big games.

As for "how are teams supposed to cram in another 6 matches?". Tough, get used to it. We want to make the competition more equal right? Well those clubs who made the top 4 last season are going to have to play (at least) 6 more (very tough) games the next season, a kind of 'handicap'.

Not difficult to work out which games top that SL attendance list.

Wigan V St Helens
Hull V Hull KR
Leeds V Bradford (only when Bradford are competitive/winning silverware)
Wigan V Warrington (only when Warrington are competitive/winning silverware)
Some Wigan V Leeds games at JJB or Headingley.
Some Leeds V Wigan or St Helens or Castleford games at Headingley.
Followed by daylight.

So, lots more local derby games involving top clubs and a Super League consisting of 8 clubs max.

Hmmmm... sound familiar?

Hull KR need to lift their game obviously.

Nah we don't care about Cas. But Leeds v Wakefield 2013 drew 18,387.

Doesn't do anything to shift your local derby theory though.

NO we do not have to lift our game this season we beat hull 2 out of 3 games and finished higher in the league then them only just but we did

Several thousand freebies given away to schoolkids and their parents for that particular Leeds V Wakefield fixture in 2013. It is surrounded by attendances of 13,969 in 2014 and 12,272 in 2012 which are more realistic. Leeds V Cas attracts 2k to 3k more on average.

By "lifting your game", I meant that Hull KR need to ensure they consistently qualify for the middle 8 group. That should guarantee an extra Hull derby game each season

Why should a Wigan home game be used to prop up a failing club like Bradford?

My point exactly.

As it stands, we have play-off games that are marketed very poorly. The clubs don't want to market the games, because they get no return. That leaves the responsibility for marketing four games this week largely with SLE / the RFL.

In my view, play-off revenue should be completely seperate from regular central funding. The clubs should get their cut for the 27 regular season games, with the play-off participants keeping their gate revenue for their play-off fixtures. Heck, even let away clubs keep 100% of ticket sales through their ticket office if it helps enocurage visiting support. That'll put the onus for marketing the games back onto the clubs.

The kids might get in free if it's for an event on the pitch like playing at half time etc but the parents don't get in free.

Unless its changed I,m almost sure its not an equal share and its based on where you finish in the league.

The prices at Saints were less for a playoff game than a league game, so it will take more fans just to cover the costs.

Why do players not turn up to games that mean somthing? If I was a cas or hudds fan and had forked out a hundred quid to get to those games I'd prob never bother again! If the comp was more even, the salary cap was imposed properly, refs were consistent for nboth teams and the lower playoffs teams actually had a chance of going through then I suspect more people may turn out?

So were Huddersfield spanked because of a dodgy ref or a dodgy salary cap?

For the top 4 teams the first round doesn,t mean all that much, because the losers get another chance.
Top 8 is a bit of a joke, is should be a knock out stage top 5.