NO it hasnt!

in 1996 and 1997 the Superleague Trophy went to the league laders, ST Helens and Bradford BUlls.

The reason the playoffs came in is because in both years, the league was won before the last round of games meaning sky were left with meaningless games to show!

in 1997 Bradford played 22 games. they won the first 20 on the trot, won the league and lost the last two, then got knocked out of the premiership playoffs by Wigan at home.

however you look at it, players cannot play 25+ games a year at the same intencity. Its about managing the season and a squad. in 97, Bradford won the league and forfeited other comps. Leeds forfeited a few league games to win the GF, Wire forfeited top of the league to win the CC.

these were all calculated risks.

I've moaned about the play off system for years, Leeds fans that come on here are getting the wrong idea, we (well i don't begrudge leeds) it's not the play off's per se that i don't like. It's the weekly rounds that lack intensity because of the play off system.

The weekly rounds lack intensity............. because there are to many teams in the league

Cut the league to 10 teams and play a top 5 playoff

Leeds
Warrington
Wigan
Saints
Catalan
Huddersfield
Hull/HKR merged
Wakefield/Cas merged
Bradford
London

But the lower clubs will not agree this and the speccies will not pay increased gate charges to fund the reduction in games.

No club would ever agree to a merger if they wanted to avoid rioting every home game, and calling for teams to be merged simply because they finished lower in the league recently is insulting for everybody. I remember the fury at the idea of merging Wire and Widnes back in the day - how would the Rhinos fans feel if they were merged with Bradford to 'improve the league'?

I've said it before and still people seem to be ignoring it and talking nonsense about mergers and splitting the leagues instead - we need to bring more money into the sport, through better marketing and better rights deals, so clubs can afford to build up their youth teams [iand[/i to spend to a higher cap to keep our better players.

I remember when warrington went to leeds very early in the season, neither team seemed that bothered about winning it, in fact jamie peacock said that. That is nothing to do with number of teams that was 2 of the best coming together. There is very little to be gained coming top, so why worry. Under the old league system that would have been a blood and thunder game.

I think that the problem is that 7 of the top 8 picks itself.

the salary cap doesnt work because it does not govern every cost that can influence player performance. The feature on your lad Fitzpatrick (Forget his firstname, the ex Salford Full back) on sky last week shows how much time energy and money can be spent by some clubs on player welfare, and recovery.

Last year at Bradford we spent the full cap. To do this, even before we went T**s up, the club had to shed people in other areas of the organisation over a number of years. How many full time staff does Mr Moran support at the Wolves?

the way to improve the competitiveness of the sport is to create the real threat that a club might not make the playoffs! The only way to do that realistically is to reduce the playoffs back to a top 5!

Perhaps moving the CC back to Mayday bank holiday weekend might enable clubs to do a leeds? Getting up for two big matches in 8 weeks proved too much for leeds as they were well underdone in the wembley final.

Both comps need looking at as the CC is very important nationally for our game (perhaps more so than a london club!).