How would you feel if Super League returned to this format?

I'm asking this question now incase we cock up another Grand Final and I get accused of sour grapes... I'm also well aware that the chances of Sky agreeing to scrap the playoffs are slim to zero so that's out of way.

I'd personally love to see RL go back to a league title race, I think it could even go to the last weekend of the season..
Remember 1994 ? Wire ,Bradford and Wigan... I think now with the way everyone has progressed it could be even more exciting , and maybe worth another go ?

Or do you prefer the playoffs as they are ?

Play offs for me

+1

Even though we don't have the greatest memories from old Trafford, I have still really enjoyed going there to watch us. I've even enjoyed watching a few live as a neutral, it's a great day out with the fans of all different teams and I like the fact that it ensures there is always a last defining game to close the season. The shield should mean more though.

I prefer if you finish top you are the champions, but I know they do play off for money. It does keep the season a live longer for more teams, however it's not right that a team can be 8 points behind in the regular season and still go on to win the grand final. Same as when Leeds finished fifth and still won it. I would prefer grand final by top two after so many games so you do have a final game for the excitement but attest the two most consistent sides end up contesting the final

GF is the pinnacle of our sport and the play-offs have produced some incredible games. Can't see us ever getting rid of that format.

I would prefer top of the table to be champions as I hate the idea that in theory a team could win all 30 Super League games then lose one and win nothing. But having said that I love the drama of the Grand Final even though it's only provided heartbreak for us so far.

I haven't enjoyed either GF, and that includes when we were winning, i love my live games, both of those were torture and if we get there again it will continue to be torture.

Challenge cup final games I've loved, even the ones we have been beat in the past, don't know what it is, but they're not fun

I'd like to see top of the league recognised but it means losing the magic weekend as a third fixture but the playoffs have been around for sometime and now excepted. A case of you can't have the custard and eat it!
; )

I would prefer that the team who finishes top of the league is recognised as the Champions (as I do). The "Champion " team should the best team over the full season, not the team who can string 3 or 4 wins together at the end of the season.
This wouldn't stop the end of year playoffs, as they have been going for years.
The Super league trophy would still be attended, as it has become the end of year day out for fans of not just the competing teams.
Personally can't stand the competition, but I have no faith in the RFL ever coming up with any sensible alternatives.

The Grand Final simply has to stay. It's one of only three occasions in the domestic calendar where the sport can put on a show and get some press coverage.

Top of the league winning would also mean you couldn't have Magic Weekend without making it unfair on the team losing a home game. So to remove two of the sport's three big occasions seems a little dramatic. Whilst every so often a first past the post format produces a last day of the season Aguerrroooo moment, for all but two or three sides, the season would be over within two months. You'd have eight teams with nothing at all to play for, which would result in huge scorelines.

Didn't say the GF wouldn't stay, it's just the end of year play offs under another name.

With the Magic weekend, why is it any more unfair one team losing a home game, than it is unfair for a top team playing a team at the bottom of the league, when another top of the league team has to play another team on level position in the league at the time? (i.e. our fixture could be v Leeds and Hull could be v Catalan how is that fair?)

With a little more imagination, the magic weekend (stupid name really) could be used instead as perhaps a round of the Challenge cup, last 16 teams - 4 matches per day.

Last year, the first time this play off format was used, the teams in 5th to 8th place had nothing to play for after two or three matches in the play offs.

As this topic states should finishing top of the league be the true reflection of the Champion team, and as I stated, yes it should be.

I have exactly the same feelings. I don't know what it is, maybe something to do with where they're played or when (cold evening) or that it feels like there's more to lose if we've done well in the league. It might be that my memories of the occasion are clouded because I've always come away so disappointed.

Finishing top means you are consistently good. But can you win under greater pressure? Can you raise your game way past the intensity of a regular season game and still show you're the best?

Our sport started in 1895, that's 121 years, and we've had the Grand Final to name you as champions in 70 of those years. It isn't a modern concept, the first Grand Final was in 1908. We've won three in 1948, 1954 and 1955. It's a traditional way to name you as champions in our sport so why would we change that back to a way we've only had for 51 years of our history?

I do think finishing top of the league is a greater achievement than the money and crap trophy would suggest but it doesn't mean you're the best or should be called champions.

Plus our sport needs showpiece events and only the Magic Weekend, Challenge Cup final and Grand Final provide that.

Soccer aside, can you name me any other sports which use the first-past-the-post system to determine their champion? Rugby league throughout history has used a play-off system far more than FPTP.

The grand final is one of the best attended sporting finals in this country. Why on earth would a sport,which struggles for publicity, want to trade this in for the league potentially being determined weeks before the end of the season, on a wet Thursday night in Wakefield in front of 3,000 people?

The only thing I would perhaps change, is the league-leaders 'shield'. I think it is quite a nice piece of silverware but others seem to disagree, so I would suggest that we invoke the old championship trophy for this purpose.

If and when we win a Grand Final, we will chill out about this question and leave it to Huddersfield fans. The play-offs aren't going anywhere and the Old Trafford final is the ultimate test of a team's ability to dig out a result.

I went to the 1960 play off final at Odsal to watch Wakey against Wigan, it was a top 4 play off then 1st v 4th 2nd v 3rd, over the years it's had different formats, we've always had the play off' and your right they won't ever get rid of them rightly or wrongly.

There has always been play-offs in RL ever since I started following then game in the 1950's Top 4/ 8 / 16, decades before Sky Sports owned the game but the winners were never considered to be champions, that honour belonged to whoever finished top of the pile. Sky don't own the Challenge cup 100% so they do their best to ignore it, placing greater emphasis on the play-offs which to my mind is just a means of extending Sky's season and wringing the last drop of blood from the game....I still believe it's the dream of most players to appear in a Challenge Cup final at Wembley on a sunny summer afternoon than be at Old Trafford on a cold and damp Autumn night to be presented with a bling ring probably sourced at Aldi for a tenner.

I agree with you Weav' and would use the play offs as a system to sort teams out for World Club Challenge which ideally should be played as a climax to the season rather than a damp squib curtain raiser IMO

Yeah what do the soccer lads know about running sports competitions and raking in the cash?

There may have been play offs but we also had a period of first past the post.

In' the olden days' the play offs were surely a way of evening out the comp, it was before my time but everyone didn't play each other home and away and there was a split along county lines, the league was huge and parts of Yorkshire were still without electricity?

The salary capped SL of only 12 and 14 teams and the internal combustion engine might make for a fairer FPTP competition

What do the NFL know? Or the rugby union? Or the PDC? Or dare I say it, the ARL?

I did say that the chances of Sky getting rid of the playoffs are pretty much zero.. I was asking what do people prefer?
The best team over a season crowned champions or the team in 4th potentially being crowned champions.. Or even lower under the old playoff format .

Our defeat against Wakefield today is a veiled god send.
Our loss effectively makes our GF playoff hopes two steps closer. After losses this weekend for Leeds and Huddersfield, the win for Wakefield was practically a 4 pointer against both of them and practically makes it extremely unlikely that either of them will qualify for the top 8.
With our position at the top this week consolidated, it made little difference taking the loss.

The problem is, we simply should not be losing matches like that if we have aspirations of winning anything this year. It reveals a soft underbelly that will encourage other teams to believe they can beat us. We need to be ruthless in every game we play.