I agree the atmosphere at Widnes on Friday was dreadful and very quiet even when we scored those two quick tries at the start of the second half.

There was loads of empty seats where I was in the East Stand too so it wasn't sold out at all despite the club stopping selling tickets there for some reason.

It just felt very flat and not at all the derby I was looking forward to. For atmosphere I think the away fans really do need to be in the West Stand next to that vocal block of Widnes fans in that corner of the North.

I'm against a cull per se as it serves no real purpose, Widnes were well worth their win and well backed. we might have been culled ouselves at one point in SL history?

However, I'm also in favour of a first past the post system to decide the Champions and a real reward for league postions, a genuine 'points make prizes' if you like, whether that's straight cash and or an expanded WCC place, our very own Champions League with another automatic place going to the Play Off winners.

All this talk of Minor Prem this and that is degrading, we are in fact the prophets of our own doom

That's where I was, near the bottle throwing idiot(s) and Kendal Wire's bedsheet (presume it's his?) It was no better in there for atmosphere TBH and as away fans we should have upped our game? You never know the players may have responded apart from polite clapping after the final whistle

This issue keeps coming up time and time again this year- usually when we lose and people start doing their best Catherine Tate 'I ain't bovvered' impression. Few quick questions for the Private Frasers-

-Why does this seem to have only been an issue the past two years?
-What was your opinion on play off football in 2006 when we eliminated Leeds, and how would you have felt if we went on to the final?
-What credible alternative is there? I appreciate top 8 isn't the best method for SL but how would FPTP make SL exciting for anyone other than supporters of the top 2/3 once we get into the final third of the season?

People's gripe seems to be the fact that Leeds have won the past two years and not us. I keep hearing that Leeds don't care about the regular season, however from the games I have watched this year that is not the case at all. Thursday's game felt like a final.

The other argument is that from 5th you have an easier route to the final. That is utter rubbish. Look at last year- Leeds first played Wakey who played their hearts out and ran them very close for most of the game. The week after they flew out to Catalan which is never easy, from what I can remember they had a few lucky calls from the ref and Catalan really should have won. Seven days later they then travelled to the DW and won by one point. Keep in mind that all of those games were eliminators. I know which route I would rather take.

this thread would have got laughed off the bored had it been posted pre 2009.

Its a bit rich that these people start saying the format is crap just because it doesn't suit Wire but suits a team that finishes a bit better than halfway up the league but has plenty of experience of winning finals

I'm sure when Langer was here we were all dreaming of "sneaking into the top 6 and then anything can happen"... we loved the format back then.....loved it....

Similarly with Johns I don't remember anyone saying ooohh it wont be right if we become champions from 4th place.....send him home.... Saints are worthy champions....balls we were giddier than teenage girls at a Justin beiber concert......

I cant remember a similar single thread like this on these boards when we never troubled the top of the league.

In fact can anyone Remind me if the last non play off league was super exciting???
I'm trying to remember what the atmosphere was like at wilderspool in front of four thousand and 94 fans when London came to town, choc full of rank average Aussies and playing a warrington side with 3rd worst attack and worst defence in the league, and spanked us 18 - 38.

Yes I was bored and I was cold, but it happens a lot more at football matches believe me.

Exactly what I was trying to get at. Well said that man!

Did you see some of the crowds in Australia for the NRL this weekend, huge crowds culminating in 50+ 000 at Souths - the attendance at the ANZ may be slightly unprecedented but crowds down there continue to dwarf our own and are rising dramatically.

Yet, the structure of their game is broadly similar - they have the same play-off format, no promotion/relegation, I assume the cost of attending games is relatively comparable, TV have almost blanket coverage ...... so what's the difference?

The difference is the same now as it has always been. They have a competition where every team has a genuine chance to be grand final winners by virtue of their strength over the course of a season, not by luck of hitting form at the end of the year. They know they can't pick and choose their games, dismiss games as "nothing games" because finishing higher really does mean something, and give an advantage albeit a slender one.

Some of the results at the weekend, and the general downtime in quality over the last two years make a mockery of our claim that this is the elite competition and standards are improving.

This is a bit of a misconception. Yes the attendances there are bigger, but rugby league is massive in NSW and Queensland and Easter is definitely an exception to the rule.

Look at the grand final replay the other week- it only managed to pull in 11,923. On Sunday just over 8,000 watched Panthers v Titans. The round 3 average was 13,683.

Before the season Jon Wilkin said that Super League was not what it was etc and everyone on here rounded on him saying why be negative about the game, it was just Wilkin being bitter because his team isn't what they used to be and he can't deal with it.

I wonder if Wilkin was actually right about Super League missing something compared to what it used to have?

Or perhaps our fans are now starting to get bitter about the fact they know we aren't the team we used to be and are trying to blame it on the competition being meaningless.

.

before you shout *rubbish* ? the whole debate started because someone was bored at a wire match and Fellow wire fans agreed, So I commented on a the wire board mentioning previous Wire Seasons. I haven't talked about other clubs because it wasn't aimed at other clubs and the only 'other clubs' fans who have so far joined in (from London and Bradford haven't really backed your point up.

but anyway are people really having a pop at the format.... or are they having a pop at Leeds for being "unworthy" winners...?

I don't even remember a clamor to award a trophy to the League leaders before 2003. It was an idea that Brian Noble came up and mentioned it on Sky, and obviously they do it in Australia, so the hub cap was invented.

And there was no "outrage" when Saints were the first league leaders not to reach a grand final........???

So my question is why now.........why Wires more than anybody else....and the answer is because we dicked everybody out of sight in 2011 and couldn't even make the final and its not fair in some peoples eyes.

you'll get the same thing this year off Wigan fans if They similarly spank everybody by cricket scores but miss out on another final...

Wigan, Saints, Leeds. These are games that I get excited about and enjoy win or lose (even if I'm gutted when we lose), but the rest are just games that I find hard to get excited by.

For me I think it's because our recent success, and thrashing some teams, has taken the edge off winning against 'lesser teams'. The format of the competition, and Leeds recent amazing successes (of winning from 5th place) has taken the edge off losing to those same 'lesser teams'. I suppose it's also my age, wife and kids, my business and paying the mortgage that are far more important to me than whether or not we lost to Widnes or beat London.

I don't know what the answer is, but I'll keep buying a season ticket each year, and I'll still make it to as many away games as I can manage. But to be honest that's more out of habit, blind loyalty and the opportunity for a couple of beers and a chat with mates pre and/or post match than the anticipation or expectation to feel thrilled at a game or that buzz I used to get walking out of the stadium (Wilderspool or the HJ).

Spot on. If we had finished the job properly that year, or indeed won it last year, these whines would not be getting posted here. It's the desperation thing that I mentioned earlier. So many of us are watching the best period of our lifetimes for Wire right now, but two failures when we really believed we had the best team in the competition have resulted in a massive hangover and a lot of sulking.

If people were chanting "That's why we're champions!" as we broke the fifty point barrier on Monday nobody would have been bored. Unfortunately though we're not champions and very few of us have ever seen us be champions, and a lot of us are finding that hard to take.

It isn't that DM, not for me anyway. or at least I don't think it is anyway.

there's just **something** missing at the moment and I don't think its just a Warrington thing either.

It's not a Warrington thing for me, it's actually the rule sanitation and dare i say it 'professionalism'.

Shoulder charge bans really fooked me off, Red cards for biff, get real.

Then you have rent a quote players, Eddie and Stevo groaning on about this and that being "disgraceful".

A tough sport played by tough men is what it should be about.
Teams also being coached by numbers, not much individuality, set plays you can see a mile off and it comes down to who executes it the best. Format does my head im a little, i can live with it though.

There are 8 places available for the play offs, there aren't 8 good teams. All the good teams will make the 8 no problem. So the season lacks intensity for the best teams and therefore becomes boring for those teams. Imo since a team has won it from 5th it has shown that being highly placed is no longer that important. I'm sure supporters from clubs like wakefield and hull kr do enjoy the league season, for them it is a fight to make the play offs and therefore exciting. The reason warrington fans are now complaining as they are one of the better teams that stroll through the league whereas we used to be a team fighting to make the play-offs. For the better teams to have an exciting league campaign and keep the play-offs, you would need to make it a top 4 play-off , make them fight to make play-offs and points valuable.

Intensity isn't there at many fixtures. Topping the table needs to be given back its value and finishing bottom should mean relegation.

You are 100% Wrong.

Do you honestly think that last year we would have been able to win the grand final via the route that Leeds had to take? I really don't think any other club in SL has the strength to have done that two years on the run. That is why they are Champions.

It goes back to what I said in February about the World Club Challenge. I don't think that any other club in SL could have run Melbourne as close as Leeds did that night. Similarly there is no other club that could get to three successive Cup Finals (the monkey on the back there is a strange one) and five of the last six League finals. That takes some doing, and it is not very often a true Champion side like that comes along in any sport. We are nowhere near that level, however that is no reason to throw the proverbial dummy out of the pram.

The players want to win as much silverware as they can in their short careers, and that includes the shield. We all saw their celebrations at the KC and Halliwell Jones in September 2011. For me the only people devaluing it are the fans who insist on saying it is worthless.

Scratched record and all that I know, but how anyone can think that a top eight helps the excitement of the league is beyond me!!!

No matter what sport you are talking about, if you have a league system, at some point in the season, some teams will have very little to play for.
If you don't have relegation, then the amount of teams with nothing to play for increases.

The answer is not to increase the amount of playoff places though.

What has happened to Super League since we went to 8 playoff spots?
The middle of the road teams are now where all the focus and excitement is at come the end of the season.
Everyone scrambling for them last couple of playoff places.

This would work well, if there was also an incentive for the top for 4 or 5 to be battling for top spot, but they are not, because finishing top of the league has been reduced to nothing but a token gesture.

There is no way that any sport can get away with having a league that lasts several months and there be no reward at the end of that time for finishing above everyone else!!!
The RFL obviously think they are the exception, but they are now starting to see the result of this, and that is fans are starting to question what the point is with the regular season.

The format should be very simple.
Top team wins the league and a big deal is made of that, and then the top 4 go to the playoffs to compete for the ultimate trophy.
It is harsh and seemingly unfair on the other teams in the league, but this way it gives them something they need to strive for. They have to improve because they need to be a top four team. If everyone is trying to be a top four team, it can only lead to improvement.

Also, the excitment is then focused on getting into the top four, so now the focus switches from the middle tier teams to the top teams, and the exciting matches are now the big teams which is what the sport needs.

I know it is difficult and harsh at the moment due to the fact that there is not enough money in the sport and not enough talent for clubs to compete with the top four, but this is sport and it is supposed to be survival of the fittest. Teams need to know that they have to be the best to be in contention and if the talent is not there, then there needs to be incentive to go and find it.
The answer is not to say "the talent is not there so lets allow over 50% of the league to make the playoffs", because when you say that, the mid tier teams have nothing to strive for.

It might mean that for a few years, it is the same 4 or 5 teams winning everything, but isn't that the way it is now?
If you don't give the clubs an incentive to improve and grow, then they never will.

I wonder if people said this when Dewsbury won from 8th under the old system in 1972/3? I really don't understand why people seem to think that play off football is something new or unique to Super League.

Try telling Fergie Man U won't be champions in a few weeks time and that Everton could yet become champions...the hairdryer would be in meltdown.

I think this is people's main problem, we are used to soccer. Before the grand final I was talking to some lads from Canberra in the pub about how some people had a problem with Leeds winning the year before. They couldn't get their heads round how anyone could have a problem with it because play off systems are the norm down under.

The NRL gets better crowds because it's the most popular sport in NSW and Qld. The games are closer because they have more quality players per team because they are the most popular sport and don't lose many players to soccer, union, aussie rules.

We compare ourselves to them but the only thing we have in common is the game we play on the field (and even then the rules are different in some cases!)

It's common that people lose interest when they get to a certain age (distractions of family etc) or when the games they see are often a foregone conclusion. It happened at the Bulls. Our gates flat lined at the peak of our success. It's the price of success.

I don't think there are enough quality RL games to gaurantee close matches every week unless you cut the competition to about 6 teams. Alternatively you can spend heaps of money developing and spreading the game which will in the end produce more talent and raise standards but nobody's got any money to do this and it would take decades to bear fruit.

It's slightly different at Bradford this time as we had a brush with oblivion. The team is on the up and the fans are enjoying themselves. Crowds are down slightly but that's due to the price of season tickets doubling rather than disillusionment. Each game is a "possible win" and no game is a foregone conclusion. When you're at the top like Wire you don't have that.

There are some things that bug me like the lack of biff and and the blow out scores. But would we really want to go back to a 5m PTB to keep teams closer on the scoreboard and headhunting like in the 80s?