Once home, once away and top five play off. That is ample for Super League.

Bring in a pre-season knockout cup competition to get rid of those meaningless friendlies, and bring in a couple of "international windows" to complement the existing international fixtures, and we once again have an exciting, meaningful series of competitions.

Is it? Or is that because a lot of the sides, like Leeds as an example are just 'clocking off' because they know October is the month and nothing else matters?

The latter stages of the Challenge Cup have provided some of the best entertainment and hardest fought games seen this year.

Exactly. Teams recognise the Cup is a knock out competition and give their all in it, which makes for good viewing as the sense of desperation to win is there.

Except for the fact that having an average league position of at least 8th is an extra point for their franchise bid.

The problem with the challenge cup being at the back end of the season is that in winning it reduces your chances of winning the grand final.

Also I'm waiting for the day when an 8th place team losing 12 league games beats 1st place who loses say 3 league games. Which means consistency in 4 play off games is far superior than consistency in 27 league games.

Top 5 was OK, top 6 was stretching it, top 8 is ludicrous

Get rid of the play-offs? Definite no.

Grand Final brings in huge amounts of money and is probably the biggest date on the RL calendar this side of the world now. It would be ludicrous to want to get rid of that. (Same for those who want to scrap the Challenge Cup).

Also, you argue that the season is stale and boring because everyone is waiting to peak in time for the play-offs, I don't understand this argument. St Helens are 5 points clear at the top. What do the rest play for? Nothing? There's no relegation, and no other competitions to qualify (unlike the Premiership where there are Champions League places to play for, then Europa League places, and also relegation to avoid). There is nothing for most of the league to play for at this point of the year if you remove the play-offs.

Superleague is so boring and diluted, nothing really happens if you finish at the bottom, not much happens if you finish top. Half the league games are meaningless because half the league has more than a 50/50 chance of finishing in the top 8.

If you had a top 3 play off then every superleague game will have a purpose and intensity, the quality of matches would improve, games would be less boring. Superleague is basically for teams who operate between 4th and 10th positions, it gives mediocrity a chance of success.

you played much pro rugby?
can't speak for other teams fans, but my team aleays give 100% and win or lose, I will always appreciate their efforts. Just because it's not a grand final doesn't make it not exciting you know....it's the game that matters most, not the result

Its quality that matters, and we aint getting it in superleague. The only game I,v seen for quality and intensity this season is Leeds v St Helens. For me the game has gone backwards and does not match the 2006 and 2007 seasons.

The officials don,t help by slowing the game down which gives the advantage to the weaker team. If we don,t ecourage fast open skilful rugby then we are in for another pasting in the internationals.

When they made the decision to expand the playoffs to 8 they should have some up with a system that gives a bigger regard to the top 4 than what we will have. On another forum someone came up with what I thought was an excellent system which guaranteed that all of the top 4 got two bites of the cherry. It was a five week system but it is a lot better than the one we have got.

I thought the fiction that 'speed' equalled 'quality' was shown as the farce it is by the world cup last year? More entertaining? Possibly. Better standard? No way. I suspect that Leeds' form is partly due to the fact they are cruising a bit, but it also may have something to do with the fact that they have simply struggled more to adapt to the changing rules.

I possibly agree with reducing the number of teams in the play-offs, but the play-offs themselves will generally be far more intense than average league games.

At the lower end, far better not to have relegation than a couple of 'do or die' games for a few teams at the end of the year and the consequent financial disaster of falling out of SL.

You only have to look at the players of yesteryear compared to the players of now to see that a faster game has not done anything to improve the standard of the game.

The top 4 do get a second bite of the cherry if they are beaten in the first round. They also get the opportunity to win a bye. I think it's a lot fairer than the top 6 system.

The basic premise of the thread - that there's no intesnity to games, which are being played as dead rubbers - is frankly ludicrous.

Look at the Bulls. Do you think they are near the foot of the table because they're not trying? How bloody stupid! And we've had some cracking, close games on Sky. What have you been watching?

I agree that 8 teams in the playoffs is too many, it is a blatant atempt to inject some interest for clubs and fans in the bottom half. Several of which would already have nothing but pride to play for.

But the dottiest thing of all - someone who claims to want to see intensity in games, at the same time wanting to scrap one of the two comps which provides as much intensity as we get!

Weird.

The fact that FC are in the play offs so far despite losing more games then winning just shows that a top 8 was a bad idea.

We should be nowhere near the play offs the way we are playing.

If you'd been playing as you are now throughout you wouldn't be. And if you continue to play this way you probably won't be sooner rather than later.

It's funny how a Saints fan wants to scrap the playoffs, it's similar to Wigan not wanting a salary cap.

I've said several times through the thread that scrapping them probably isn't the best idea, but that they need to be changed.

The games I've watched this season have largely been painful, low intensity trots with no real desperation from the sides involved. I'm not suggesting there hasn't been the odd good game, but on the whole the product, certainly on Sky, has been terrible in comparison with previous seasons.

I think the number of games should be cut in order to make the games more meaningful. This would raise the energy levels of the players and mean each game was 'bigger' in terms of its impact on the final standings.

Perhaps you should change your team then. None of the games I've watched this season match that description

this is because of no relegation of course.

Of the 120+ games so far this season can anyone name say 4 classic games so far, personally I can only recall 2 games up to the mark.

Even the superleague show is poor now, they show the "highlights" with 50% of the trys kicks to the corners.

We don,t see much skill on show, I think our friend "Glorious" is perhaps right after all.

to be fair, Leeds are 2nd and we should be nowhere near the playoffs the way we have been playing!

Though that has nothing to do with the playoff systems, but more to do with the lowest common denominator chasing of the rfl,

If we had 10 teams playing the rugby of big 6 were 4 or 5 years ago then whatever playoff system we used we would have close, intense games all the time, but whilst we are allowing spoiling tactics to keep games close, and allowing weaker teams to win games through slow play and the lottery of penalties at the ptb have such a huge impact we will see "workmanlike" triumph over skill,

Let's look at the reasons the weaker teams aren't producing quality players, not change the game to try and cover for it