Just to reiterate this point, look at the FA Community Shield (a minor trophy), the NRL Minor Premiership (an equivalent trophy) and the SL LLS for comparison:

It's a tough one because I think a lot of it comes down to people's perception of it, but maybe that can be changed. Everything about it at the moment seems to be very watered down in terms of the sheild, the celebrations and the reporting of the winners.

For a start, the sheild looks absolutely pants when compared to the Challenge Cup and Grand Final silverware. I think it should be a trophy rather than a shield and should look much better than it currently does.

When Warrington won it, there wasn't all that much fuss made about it despite being the hardest to achieve. When we showed it off at the next home game, the celebrations weren't even close to anything like when we won the Challenge Cup. I felt like more of a show should have been put on.

I'd like to see it highlighted more by RL media too. For example on the Super League website, it has a list of the past Grand Final winners. I'm not sure there's anything that lists who the winners of the LLS were. It should be highlighted and have it's own section.

Out of interest, here are the points margins by the winners of the first past the post system in RL thus far. It's important to contextualise the Wigan wins at the end of the list, and compensate the part-time playing deficiency all the other teams had, that is now, sort of, levelled out by the salary cap.

1973-74 Salford by 1pt
1974-75 St Helens by 11pts
1975-76 Salford by 1pt
1976–77 Featherstone Rovers by 5pts
1977–78 Widnes by 6pts
1978–79 HKR by 2pts
1979–80 Bradford Northern by 1pt
1980–81 Bradord Northern by 2pts
1981–82 Leigh by 2pts
1982–83 Hull FC by 4pts
1983–84 HKR by 1pt
1984–85 HKR by 3pts
1985–86 Halifax by 1pt
1986–87 Wigan by 15pts
1987-88 Widnes by 4pts
1988-89 Widnes by 3pts
1989–90 Wigan by 4pts
1990–91 Wigan by 2pts
1991–92 Wigan by 12pts
1992–93 Wigan by 0pts (points difference with St Helens)
1993-94 Wigan by 0pts (points difference with Bradford Northern and Warrington)
1994-95 Wigan by 7pts
1995-96 Wigan by 8pts
1996 St Helens by 1pt
1997 Bradford by 7pts

And here's the same for the Premier League for comparison:

92/93 - Man Utd by 10pts
93/94 - Man Utd by 8pts
94/95 - Blackburn by 1pt
95/96 - Man Utd by 4pts
96/97 - Man Utd by 7pts
97/98 - Arsenal by by 1pt
98/99 - Man Utd by 1pt
99/00 - Man Utd by 18pts
00/01 - Man Utd by 10pts
01/02 - Arsenal by 7pts
02/03 - Man Utd by 5pts
03/04 - Arsenal by 11pts
04/05 - Chelsea by 12pts
05/06 - Chelsea by 8pts
06/07 - Man Utd by 6pts
07/08 - Man Utd by 2pts
08/09 - Man Utd by 4pts
09/10 - Chelsea by 1pt
10/11 - Man Utd by 9pts
11/12 - Man City by 0pts

6 out of 20 seasons have gone to the last day.

Also worth pointing out that the last 13 Super Leagues have all gone down to the very last game with both teams facing each other in that last clash. A couple of them have gone down to the final five or ten minutes as well before the game was decided, not to mention those playoff clashes which were similarly determined in closing minutes e.g. Wide to West, Carney vs Leeds.

I really don't see why we can't manage that potential disadvantage, tbh. In fact, let's ask ourselves why there needs to be up to a 4 week gap between the last round of SL and the GF.

Here's a proposition:

1st Place = Bye to Final
2nd Place = Bye to SF
3rd & 4th = QF

This year it would look something like this:

Sun 9th Sep: last game of SL
Wed 12th Sep: QF
Sat 15th Sep: SF
Sat 22nd Sep: GF

This would make becoming champions increasingly harder the lower down the table you finish, with 3rd and 4th place having to play a hugely intensive run of games to reach the GF. It would also make the playoffs more intense and exciting, knockouts at every stage, with the last 4 games of the season occurring over the space of a fortnight (last w/e of SL and GF being bookends of the fortnight), a packed festival of RL if marketed correctly, as opposed to the long, drawn out, convoluted and unintensive playoff series we have now.

Of course this may be fodder for the tin-hat pile of RL theories.

But then the 1st placed team isn't going to play for 3 weeks after their final game. The team they play will be battle-hardened. It's not always a benefit to have time off.

Just an idea.

The league leaders are crowned SL champions and the top 4 go into the end of season playoffs with the NRL top 4 for the world club challenge.

You get the extended world club challenge everybody wants, more meaningful league fixtures but keeping a playoff system and possible last day excitment.

Main stumbling block would obviously be the Aussies agreeing to it, which they wouldn't as they'd lose their show-piece event once every other year (a Grand Final).

After that, it'd be the logistics of such large travelling distances over a short period of time. Would they have to travel from one side of the world to the other every week? Or would they sacrifice home advantage?

It's an idea, and one that I've mullered over in the past. But it's not in our power to decide, which means therefore nothing will come of it!

Read my post again; the team who finishes first will have 1 week off.

Didn't see that you had a mid week game. So it'd be two weeks between games, as now. Fair enough.

However, a mid week game for some and not others I disagree with. That decision killed the other two groups in the World Cup. The team that played 3 days before always lost. They just don't have enough recovery time. It's too much to overcome IMO.

That's the penalty for finishing 3rd or 4th. It is harder to become champions the further down the table you finish:

1st goes to GF and has a week off
2nd goes to SF and doesn't have to play a midweek QF
3rd and 4th play a midweek QF with 3rd having the home advantage.

That's fair enough, but I think it'd make it near impossible for 3rd/4th to get to the final. Doubt the tickets for the first two games would sell well as well with only a few days notice.

Like I say, I'm not particularly keen on it, but just my opinion.

Midweek games are a no I'm afraid. We are talking about the end of season playoffs here, the pinnacle of our game. It is essential that these are presented in as best a way as possible and forcing teams to back up a few days after an epic knockout clash does nothing really other than undermine it. Home advantage during the playoffs should be enough for any serious trophy contender. If you're not able to convert a home appearance into a win against a team that you finished above in the table then you probably don't deserve to win the trophy.

I'm in favour of the top one or two getting a week off but let's not overcook it so that the competition is weighted so much in favour of finishing top as to negate the competitiveness of our sporting climax. Champions should be determined on the field not by what the structure of the playoffs is.

That argument works both ways. Someone who values the league will say "If you can't manage to finish higher in the league then you probably don't deserve the trophy." The playoffs shouldn't be a case of "OK, now that league business is over let's start from scratch." It should be a continuation of the competition as a whole. Also, home advantage is a nominal advantage, nothing more.

I can understand the argument about midweek games from a marketing point of view, but certainly not from the point of view that it's "not fair" on teams who finish lower in the table having to work their asses off to become champions.


Really, why shouldn't the playoffs favour the best team after 27 Rounds? Not doing so is rather like redistributing the league points for the top 8 (or however many are in the PO structure). A team's playoff run should represent their league standing, it should be a continuation of that standing, not a "start again" competition. The climb to the top should be very different for teams who have finished 1st and 4th (or below--way below--as we have now).


That's actually my argument. Who becomes champions should be determined by what has been happening on the field all season! And if a team really is deserving of winning from 4th or below, they should have to make up for how far below their contemporaries they have been over the last 27 rounds.

Nominal? Don't teams win a lot more games at home than they do on the road? e.g. I can think now that Hull or Wakefield have won at Saints about four times between them in the last thirty years, Salford and Huddersfield won three times between them in fifty years is it? That's a bit more than a nominal advantage.



Why would you let a team show up for a semi-final knackered because they've just worked their s off to get their? Surely you'd want a team that's battled to be given the same opportunity to perform at their best as other teams do? What purpose does it serve to half them turning up on three days rest? If you were organising a semi-final wouldn't you want it to be as attractive an event as possible? This is a very physical sport and, as can be seen by Easter Monday clashes, backing up without sufficient rest usually reduces the quality of play on show. Can you see how having a midweek game might impact upon the quality of the sporting spectacle and given this is the climax of our season how that would not be a good decision for us?



It does already by giving them a week off and home advantage. Why do you feel there should be more?



They do. If you had asked me last year would I prefer to start from Warrington's position or Leeds I'd have taken Warrington every single time. Surely that suggests that the teams and players themselves believe there is an advantage in finishing higher up in the table.

I think mid-week play-off games are a definite no-no.

I think it's generally more annoying for us Saints fans (understatement!!) that we went four consecutive seasons finishing top of the pile (2005, 2006, 2007, 200icon_cool.gif and were only named 'Champions' once in that period. Surely Saints were dominant in that period of SL history, yet Leeds are known for being that dominant team for beating us in a one-off game.

Having said that though...

I do like the play-offs and it does suit our game, but I have yet to see one person in support of a top 8: it's ridiculous. Go back to top 5/6.

Doesn't bother me one bit that. I wouldn't swap four titles for reverting back to the old system. All too often under the old system the season would peter out with a month left because a team lost one match that left them unable to catch the league leaders. People don't like the sport being referred to as the entertainment business but it is because it's the reason why we are all so passionate about it. We may pretend that it's too do with some sort of heroic northern stance against the ruling classes but that's just our proud history. Really we watch because it is the most consistently entertaining sport around and long may it stay that way.

Entertainment? In the name of entertainment, let's twiddle our thumbs till September when the play-offs begin then. I'd rather one boring month of fixtures (though not always a given, since the stats have proven that 42% of first post the post RL seasons have gone to the final weekend) - than 7 months of pretty much inconsequential fixtures under the top 8 system, as present.

Although, this may not make much economic sense, but for a play-off culmination - the regular season is way too long. 27 rounds [ijust to see who qualifies[/i doesn't justify the end. Even in the NRL, they have 16 teams and 24 fixtures - the regular season with a play off ending should not give the overriding feeling that any team was sufficiently better than anyone else. The play-offs should have that anticipation that there's something [ileft to be decided[/i, something to be concluded, and finished off. The regular season here just drags and drags, and when the play-offs do come around - there is a sense that all intensity has long since peaked.

Its much easier to introduce a playoff system than to get rid of one, especially one as inbedded in our sport.

Exactly, clubs no the rules before the season starts, to win the competition you need to be good enough on a regular basis to qualify, and good enough on the night to win. If you arent, you dont win but either way the fans get a great spectacle where the best team in SL is crowned in a magnificent stadium, with great visibility, in front of a massive, packed house and they have to do it by beating the 2nd best team as well as some combination of the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th best team to even get there.
What a great spectacle it is.

Wigan V Leeds in 2010 and 2008 and 98, Leeds v Wire being separated by a kick in 2006 and in 2011, Wigan V Hull and Wigan V Bradford in 2007, Wigan V Saints in 2009 and 2011, Leeds v Catalans in 2009. Wigan V Cas in 2009, That Bulls V Saints game in 99 and again in 02! That Leeds v Saints semi in 2007 was as good as any game i have seen in SL, and then we got to watch it again, with even more riding on it a couple of weeks later. There have been some unbelievable games in the play offs, at a higher intensity with a higher skill factor.

The 7 months prior clearly arent inconsequential, they are part of the competition. People say this since Leeds won from 5th, almost like it was a plan for Leeds to finish 5th. Leeds struggled with a massive injury list at the beginning of that year, they started from behind the 8 ball and lost touch. it wasnt a plan to finish lower or hold something back. We were simply poor at the beginning of the season, which made it harder for us to come back. Leeds came back and won the play-offs not because they finished 5th in the regular season, but because they were better than their early season form showed.

My preference would be to build towards 16 teams over the next 2/3 years and split into two conferences of 8 and get rid of the whole LLS part season trophy nonsense. (I appreciate the argument over player depth, but i would look to have at least one of those as a french team, which means only taking one more team out of our player pool, something which we should be able to do)

That may well be the case for two teams but for at least half of the league (often more) the contest is pretty much over after two months which then lends itself to far more inconsequential fixtures than we have now. When teams still have something to play for they play harder. When they're out of it, as it was under the FPTP system it means that they don't play hard every week. This begs the question just how true an assessment the FPTP league format is when you end up playing more matches against teams with nothing to play for than you do under the current system where every game is a jostling match on the playoff ladder.



I agree with you on the length of the competition but for me this is a twelve team competition and that's where the problem lies not with the playoffs. A twelve team league would also mean we could go back to a top five or six play off too which was far more effective than the current top eight.

I agree with your sentiment, but not completely. The playoffs do at least one thing, they guarantee a 'last day thriller'. The problem (well it's not a problem really, just a fact) with RL is that the kind of finish you saw in the football season is much rarer. Even if two teams are close at the top, if one of them get Widnes, say, on the last day, it's title over before kick off. Real upsets are rare in RL, when they happen it's usually down to a weak selection, e.g. Wigan Widnes, but a team playing for the title on the last day isn't going to drop half their best players.

Agree. Part of the reason it drags is the cannon fodder, that like it or not shouldn't be in the competition. I hate the fact that we don't have enough good teams for a competitive large league, but the fact is, we don't. And its no good trying to equalize things by dragging the top down, we want our top sides, and the players in them, to beat the Aussies.

The problem with the current play offs is in its ignorance of consistency prior to the event.
If you look at the extreme scenario, Wigan could go through the whole regular season without losing a game and playing a great brand of rugby all the way up to the grand final. Widnes struggle all season and some how by winning a few more games and other teams losing against each other managed to finish in 8th play off spot but are 20 points away from Wigan and 6 points away from bottom place.
Wigan play Widnes in the final, Widnes win and are crowned super league champions, but in season terms are they.
The play offs don,t reward consistency in the right way and the 4 play off games are given much higher value than the 27 games preceding it. Maybe they should go to the ultimate extreme and have a top 14 play off, so they give the team at the bottom of the league th opportunity of being super league champions.