Except they finished higher then the rest. 1/2/3/4 get one more home game than 5/6/7/8 for finishing higher. I don't see anything wrong with that. To suggest 5/6/7/8 should have more rewards and chances then they have got, now that would be rewarding mediocrity.

This format is as good as it can get for the championship teams. Think about it. For a third of the season they get more regular games against super league opposition rather than just the odd potential CC game here and there, and they get a boost in income. Not only that, but one championship team is pretty much guaranteed to be a game away from super league (unless 4th and 5th place happened to be SL teams).

We've never had one format that people agree with. What happens is with every format people think about the downsides, then when a new format is brought in they bemoan the downsides of the new format while retrospectively fondly recalling the good points of the old format they previously bemoaned.

Round and round we go.

They finished higher than the rest ??? That could be said about every club in the rl pyramid barring the bottom of championship one.

Anyone been watching the olympics ??? How many medals have we seen for finishing 4th ???

Sigh.

I don't see anything wrong with the current setup regarding the Super 8s and I don't see why 5/6/7/8 should get more rewards/chances. They weren't good enough to get into the top four in the regular season but they did good enough to finish ahead of the rest.

I understand where your coming from, and it's a fair point regarding extra income from playing SL teams, but if that income is wasted chasing the SL dream, rather than improving the club, is it actually a benefit? And while there in with a chance it is just that, now knowing if your going up, or conversely down must wreak havoc with club finances not to mention individual players, and provides no basis for long term planning.

And for what it's worth, I always liked the franchising system, we saw a lot of young players come through in that period. Even the disaster which was the crusaders yielded some players that are still benefiting SL today.

I do, it's meant to be play off time and at least 50 percent of the games are meaningless. Looking forward to Hull vs Widnes tonight ??? Na me neither

Is that down to the system though and not some of the teams inability to win games in the regular season to bridge the gap? Therefore by making each game in the eight more valuable. For example, if Wakefield had won big matches like Salford away, Hull KR and Leeds home we would've been closer to the top four. That's not down to the system that's down to Wakey being outplayed and at the same time being crap.

I can't say I am looking forward to Hll vs Widnes but at the same time I would not be surprised if it was a good match.

And has been said countless times, there will be plenty of dead rubbers. Not just in rugby league, but in Union and football as well.

Since when did the play offs last more than 2 months? The super 8 isn't the play offs.

Hull have one eye on the LLS and one eye on Wembley. Fair chance some of their players could be rested. Widnes, one their unique pitch, gave Hull a pasting last time their, Hull looking to avenge that loss.

But of course many in the RL fraternity are class just about bone dry..........

Anything for a moan

Least in the old setup there was a glimmer of an outsider in play offs causing a shock.

I remember Catalan nearly doing it. Granted we saw more blow outs then competitive games but there was a chance.

If we had straight play offs people would be calling Castleford the dark horses as they can beat anyone on there day.

Instead we have a cas side who will win games but won't actually get anywhere. I understand the argument that they should have been better in regular season but it just seems like the super 8's is a waste of time outside the top 5.

The problem with the old set up was that when the business time came, the big sides stepped up and blew the others away most of the time. This would be negated by improving the bottom of SL and bringing it up to the level of the top of SL.

But that is hard. So we tried bringing down the top of SL to the bottom, that didnt really work because even as wages equalised, big clubs could offer success, something others couldnt.

So when we decided that was to hard we gave up trying to improve standards and brought this nonsense in with the idea being if we keep pretending that there is something to play for people wouldnt notice that largely they werent playing for anything of any importance and the play-offs are now over before they have even really started.

As far as bringing the top down to the bottom, Leeds did really well this season

We have been utterly, utterly terrible this year. Yet have just beaten the top team in successive weeks. The standard of the entire league this year has been atrocious.

The playoffs don't start for another 7 weeks.

Erm, well done on counting i guess.

While you are at it, can you tell us how long they last?

I don't agree with this point. Either the status quo is maintained (they don't get promoted)...or they get promoted - happy days! Any club that doesn't have contingency to cover the worst case scenario isn't being run properly, but that's not down to any format that's down to the club, if they are poorly run things will go wrong regardless of the format.

The whole 'not knowing whether you're going up or not' thing will happen in any which way if you have a league with promotion and relegation. Does that mean you are advocating the ol' franchising thing?

Leeds have played terribly this season, but that's in part down to the quality of some of the opposition. Widnes and cas both finished in mid table yet played like state of origin teams and put 50 on us.

hhj

Yep I'm advocating franchising.

And what you've said just isn't the case, last year a Wakey player, Scott Moore I think said after the MPG said it was so massive because players didn't know if they'd have jobs the next day if they didn't win. Are you suggesting that clubs can look to develop (something all RL fans suggests needs to happen) and get better with the shortfalls that potential relegation threatens.

Similarly do you think the likes of Leigh or Bradford stretch the wage budget this late in the day (Leigh signed Tickle and a couple of others right before the eights) or teams like Leeds and Saints or Wakey would resort to bringing an overseas player over rather than trying a kid.

Conversely look at the teams who have a chance of coming up, particularly London and Leigh (id have put Bradford in here if they'd have made it). They are made up of players already deemed not good enough for SL, they're not developing their own players, and can't afford to invest the time if they want to get up under the current system.

Imo this system of promotion is the ultimate short termism, we wouldn't get it with franchising, I don't think.

I can see why Rules wants the points resetting now, and there's still 10 mins to go

He'd do better to zero the score. Could be an interesting 10 mins if Hull's lead was cancelled out.

Interesting spin by the BBC on a few casual comments James Rule made when asked what he thought of the Super 8 format in a recent local radio interview.

You lot sucked it up like good 'uns.

Get back in your prams.

Looky what we have here! Someone is claiming franchising is the answer again! We've had that rodeo bud. Everyone said it sterilized the game and gave championship teams no hope and half the super league teams sod all to play for.

It's back to that whole point I made about about criticizing the present format and harping back to one that was previously criticized. Round and round we go.

When we have franchising it's terrible, the poor super league teams have nothing to play for because they aren't fighting for survival. When we have P%R....OH NO! Some super league teams don't know where they'll be next season, the instability is terrible.

2 weeks