I fear quite a few fans (especially it seems Wiganers - no surprise there) are going to be very disappointed come play off time when they find themselves unable to suddenly turn into Champions. The reality is, being average through the season is pretty much a good indication that you are just, in fact, pretty average.

So, like leeds last season then?

Occasionally a team of true champions will encounter some adversity along the way putting them in a false position. That has happened once in fourteen years so it's not exactly a common occurence. If any Wiganers think their team is hiding some genius somewhere they are most likely to end up very disappointed.

Leeds finishing 5th last season was no false position. There was little to no adversity either - they were rubbish for the most part. They reached the CC Final on the back of an easy draw - were extremely fortunate to beat Castleford in the Semi Final with an extra time penalty kick - and as soon as they faced a top 4 SL side, they lost. They couldn't beat any top 4 side in the SL regular rounds all season (and didn't need to as it turned out) until Round 27 when Huddersfield had already ran out of their customary steam. As a consequence of a ridiculous play-off system which rewards mediocrity, they were rewarded with a home game against easy pickings for finishing 5th, followed by another easy game against Huddersfield who had ran out of even more of their customary steam. They became champions on the basis of winning 2 games - a penalty kick win away at Warrington followed by taking advantage of St Helens injuries in the last 20 minutes at Old Trafford.

If ever a team proved conclusively the unimportance of the weekly rounds in SL due to the absurd play-off system in place which rewards mediocrity, then Leeds did so last year.

Don't write off St Helens this time around. They appear to be doing it the mediocre Leeds way

But surely that is a complacent attitude?
200,000 people live in Warrington, about 150,000 in Wigan and surrounding, yet only 21,000 bother. That's not success for me.

Id suggest going back even further, to the days before competitions were sponsored or even televised.

It's a straight league champion and then a completely separate knock-out competition for a number of top-finishing clubs that is relatively new (relatively new as in from 1895). We spent more years with a league competition and then play-offs to decide the champions than any other form of competition)

Leeds regular season finishes for their 5 GF wins and two losing appearances were?

Wins: 1, 2,2,1,5
Losses: 2,2.

In what way does your statement tally with the actual facts?

And a bit more history again, we had playoffs to determine the champions early doors because back then players had full time jobs to work, and travelling across the country was logistically time consuming and expensive, and almost certainly would have involved overnight stop overs thus making the players miss even more work. In short, it wasn't a proper home/away league fixture list and thus the only logical way to fix the imbalance of the fixture list would be for a playoff series at the end.

At a certain point, tradition overtakes original reasoning and circumstances.

It doesn't, apart from last season.

I actually agree with you about the current playoff system. Of the ones we tried the top 5 system would be my choice. There at least there was a significant advantage for finishing top and top 2. I think with this top 8 there will be more teams from outside the top 2/3 getting to the final and winning it over time. And then we could see the regular rounds losing significance.

Having said that saints beat Wigan twice to get to OT and Leeds had to beat the league leaders away from home. May be that last year was one off, a statistical anomaly.

Somewhat hyperbolic of course; but Leeds regularly finishing below Saints but beating them in the grand final and being crowned champions anyway shows the regular season is less important than the play-offs, last year being an extreme example of Leeds offering between dross and average all season on the field until the play-off semi finals.

I think the early rounds have little impact in the big clubs plans, nice to win but no need for the squad to be fully fit or to reach any sort of defensive intensity, hence smaller teams getting good runs early doors and calling "breakthrough" and then sliding back down the table through the summer and beyond. The latter rounds are positioning and warming up for the play-offs and are more important than early rounds but still ramping it all up.

I have a complaint that so many months of mediocrity can be rewarded with success, it should be harder to make the play-offs and harder to win them from further down the table, less teams in the league, less teams in the play-offs and "winning tough" should be the only option if finishing outside the top 2

Top 5 system for me too. I strongly believe in 1st position on the ladder earning their rightful advantage. And it appropriately assigns the fairest advantage to each side based on their finishing position. No other playoff system does that. This current one is pants which completely undermines 27 regular rounds of SL fixtures whilst rewarding mediocrity in the process.

Last year may well have been an anomaly but I do think a few teams at the top were overhyped and overrated. Wigan ran out of steam winning the CC. Warrington's seemingly invincible form and favouritism always appeared somewhat unjustified to me. They were winning way too many games by cricket scores and I did wonder how ideal their preparation would be coming into the playoff games as they had rarely been tested. As it turned out, they didn't cope very well when they were tested in a close game.

In a nutshell, SL doesn't have enough teams who are good enough or competitive enough to warrant a Top 8 playoff system and we all know the teams which are pretty much guaranteed a place near the top of the ladder. For any genuine contenders, tossing it off and finishing 5th or 6th under the current playoff system isn't a disaster, nor is it much of a handicap as Leeds proved last year.

Had it been a Top 5 system last year, I doubt Leeds would have triumphed quite frankly, but if they had it would have been much more of an accomplishment with little room for questioning their entitlement to be champions. Wigan away in week 1. Away to probably St Helens in week 2. And then away at either Wigan, Warrington or St Helens (depending on other results) in week 3 in order to reach the Grand Final.

Thing is though Leeds didn't play 'dross' all season, they reached the Challenge Cup final and only lost 1 game in Superleague after that. They had a very shakey start whilst the new coach and structures bedded in but once eveything had settled down their true colours showed. It could be argued why decide the season within the first few weeks where teams may not be playing their best footy? Had leeds played like they had after the CC final earlier in the season they would have finished in the top 3.

By beating nothing but dross to get there.

All wins against dross apart from Warrington away and the Grand Final itself.

For 2 games only.

Much better to decide it on the basis of 2 games at the end of the season. Meanwhile, forget about all the dross being played in the previous 30+ games, eh?

Leeds only played well in 2 games last season... the last two. The rest was dross against dross. Quit trying to rewrite history.

You can only beat what's infront of you.

Again, not our fault.

You can't play well for only 2 games a season and win the Grand Final, contrary to what you may say. Ask any coach about that.

I never said that, if a team has a poor start to the season, this shouldn't mean they should be exempt from winning it later on. Leeds played better in the second half of the season to the first, only because they started slowly meant they finished fifth. They still had the quality to win the competition, showing that the start of the season wasn't a true reflection of the teams ability.


They didn't though did they.

This would probably never happen, but how about Grand Final play-offs with just the top 3.

The Champions go straight through to the grand final, whilst 2nd and 3rd play off to see who meets them. The benefits would be at least one 'big' team will miss out and thus place more emphasis on winning the league games.

Of course it would bring up the issue of teams lower down having nothing to play for, but perhaps in addition to this you could hold a three round cup for teams from 4th to 7th.

W1: 4th vs 7th, 5th vs 6th
W2: Winners of W1 play each other. 2nd vs 3rd.
W3/GF: Winners of W2 cup play loser of 2nd/3rd.

Then use the cup as a warm up game for a double header at Old Trafford. Would probably help add a few extra thousand to the gate as well.

If you bottle in 5 finals in a row there is little to blame on the playoff sytem. Did you complain in 1999 and 2000?

If anybody isn't bothered when their team loses a league fixture, then I think that says much more about that person than it does the state of the game. Although the season ended up successful for Leeds, I didnt leave Headingley after heavy defeats to Warrington and Huddersfield thinking 'oh it doesn't matter'. I also very much doubt that Wigan players aren't disappointed this morning after losing last night.

I'm guessing the atmosphere last night was pretty flat, given no-one cared about the result?

Agree with a lot of that. Not enough quality in the competition to support a realistic top 8, although a marketing man could make an argument that Leeds vistory last year from 5th against Saints from 3rd justifies the extended system by proving that clubs from lower down the table can win the final. It would be bull$h!t, but there will be people who run SL patting themselves on the back about it.

Being a little more even handed towards Leeds though, we did start the season with a new coaching team and a squad that needed some "attention". I guess what we saw last year was some re-organisation at the start of the season and poor results and poor performances. I think it took the players some time to get to grips with BMD's way of thinking (or maybe for BMD to get to grips with what Leeds are good at and let them do it), but I also think some of the players let themsleves down early on. But, when McGuire and Peacock got some fitness back that helped and the team started to gel 2/3 of the way into the season. Hardaker coming through added some balance to the attack which had been fairly inept ealry on - and I honestly think he made a big difference to the whole shape of the team. Had we had played the likes of Saints, Warrington or Wigan in a league game later in the year it's possible we could have beaten them (we were close to Wigan all year anyway). We'll never know. In the end we had to get past three teams who finished above us in the table - if they run out of gas (or alternatively - crumble under pressure) that's their fault really.
Our early season form so far would suggest that the $h!t we managed to get together after the CC last year has stayed together. Still a long way to go though.

Exactly. Change the play off system to a top five or six if you like but don't get rid. I'm tired now of reading these comments about the regular rounds don't care. Not only it incorrect to the point of being a deliberate distortion of the truth it is also a betrayal of the players and coaches who week in week out certainly appear to be putting the effort in to winning as many games as they can. These are professional sportsmen and whilst (talking about on the pitch) some of them make a few mistakes every now and then, I don't question their professionalism [iand[/i I might even suggest that most of them are more professional than the rest of us in our own jobs as well.

Look at the current top 5 teams. Then imagine if it was a top 5 playoffs. The next few weeks would be great entertainment with Saints, Catalans, Leeds, Hull fighting out for position, instead of just letting the league fixtures peatering out. Then imagine the top 5 playoffs themselves, we would be in for entertainment every game. As it is they only get going in Week 3.

Leeds vs warrington this season before the game, Peacock 'we're not to worried if we win or lose this game' i'm paraphrasing but that was the attitude. Do you think salford vs warrington , a regular round game, did warrington care? care enough to leave fit first choicers in the stands.

Well we'll see how that impacts on Warrington won't we

And that's the point, warrington aren't going all out to top the league (what's the point?) they just want to be handily placed and keep the players fresh for the short cup comp at the end. It means weekly rounds have less importance, players regularly rested, It's been a poor season, even Eddie hasn't used his usual mantra "the super league gets better and better every season"