The argument people give is that the playoffs keep the seasons alive, but Premiership playoffs kept the season alive. I don't why we look at mid table clubs and care about keeping their 'season alive' when they are mid table. Teams should be striving to be the best they can and that is winning as many games as possibles. I hate this 'peaking for the playoffs' phrase. You should want to be the best from start to finish. Not for the last 1/8 of the season.

One problem with that is that only 5 clubs could win the treble (league, premiership, challenge cup). It's all well and good having an extra competition but it loses it's appeal when it's only open to a few clubs.

How about top 5 and the CC winner if they are not in the top 5 (otherwise 6th place).

For example Warrington last year won the cup and finished 10th - but were in form. It would also make the Challenge Cup more important.

That would devalue completing a double if you can perform badly in the league but win the Challenge cup to then go on to win the SL play offs; as you'd only have to win what? 10 games in an entire season?


As for the mid-table sides having nothing to play for with a top 5 comp, why not have a separate play offs between 6 - 10 for another trophy (obviously being no where near as prestigious as the top 5 trophy) but it would give lower sides something to play for.

I came up with one a while ago but the only downside is that one team would have a 2 week gap.

Week 1:
G1: 1st v 2nd
G2: 3rd v 8th
G3: 4th v 7th
G4: 5th v 6th

Week 2:
G5: Losers of G1 v Lowest Rank Winners from G2/G3/G4
G6: Highest Rank Winners of G2/G3/G4 v 2nd Highest Rank Winners from G2/G3/G4

Week 3:
G7: Winners of G5 v Winners of G6

Week 4: Winners of G1 v Winners of G7.

Week 1:
G1 - 4th v 5th (Losers eliminated)
G2 - 3rd v 6th (Losers eliminated)

Week 2:
G3 - 1st v 2nd (Winner goes to Grand Final)
G4 - Winner of G1 v Winner of G2 (highest placed team in regular season gets home advantage)

Week 3:
G5 - Loser of G3 v Winner of G4

Week 4:
Grand Final - Winner of G3 v winner of G5


This way there's a maximum one week gap for any team and the teams finishing top and second are rewarded by being able to make it to the Grand Final by winning just one game. The losing side in game 3 gets another bite of the cherry at home the following week.

Ok, I've changed the number of teams in the playoff from 6 to 8 but I really don't like the idea of finishing in the bottom half of the table and having the possibility of being crowned champions.

Another vote for the top 5 here. for a start it pretty much ensures that only teams with a >50% win/loss and + points difference can get anywhere near the playoffs. Also, that system was based around the fact that in order to win the comp you had to beat every team above you on the way. I also feel it gave the fairest number of 'lives' to higher finishing teams whilst giving qualifying teams in 4th and 5th a reasonable chance to win as well.

We'll never go back to that though, the main reason being that there just aren't enough playoff games to satisfy the sky planners.

What I suggest above isn't too dissimilar from the top 5 system.

Going off the table as it stands and let's say the top placed team wins,

Week 1:
G1 - Hull v Leeds (Losers eliminated)
G2 - St Helens v Huddersfield (Losers eliminated)

Week 2:
G3 - Wigan v Warrington (Winner goes to Grand Final)
G4 - St Helens v Hull (highest placed team in regular season gets home advantage)

Week 3:
G5 - Warrington v St Helens

Week 4:
Grand Final - Wigan v Warrington

Wigan come 1st in the league and.... they get the SUPER LEAGUE TROPHY

Another option I would be to have two tiers of Superleague with 10 teams in each and P&R

Top 6 in Tier 1 play off and bottom 4 and top 2 in tier 2 play off for remaining 4 places in tier 1 for following season.

Wouldn't that leave two very short seasons?

I'd like to see a top 6 like so:

Week 1:
3rd v 6th
4th v 5th

Week 2:
1st v Chosen winner from week 1
2nd v Other winner from week 1

Week 3:
Winner from week 2 v Other winner from week 2

I'd like to see the playoff winner (in whatever guise it is) and the CC winner play against there aussie counterparts in a WCC comp> i ven like the idea of a "Community Shield" type game at the beginning of the season with our Playoff and CC winners playing each other.

Why not have the team finishing top going straight through to the final. They deserve it after a season proving they are the better side. let the other teams fight it out to see who'll meet them. Simples.

A team can finish top but go off the boil towards the back end of the season. I think making the top team win a play off kind of safeguards a good final.

One problem with that is you could have the team finishing top sat on their backsides for 3 maybe 4 weeks. I'm sure most coaches would prefer their players to be match ready come the Grand Final.

Good points.

I don't think there is a system which pleases everyone. I still think more emphasis and recognition needs to be given to the side that finishes top of the league. John Monie always liked winning the league as in his mind, it proved who the best team was over the season, not just over 3 or 4 games.
It's like playing for the Premiership Trophy years ago. Wigan very rarely won it after finishing top. It's just rebranded now, and more emphasis is placed on the winner of a cup competition of 3 or 4 rounds than a team that has played consistently over a season.

I just can't belive the winners of a 4 weeks competition are champions the the winners of a 27 games comp have, in theory, nowt!

I'd go for something similar to that posted above, it's quite radical and would involve a massive change in the mentality of everyone with an interest in RL and would send shockwaves throughout the sporting world. Here goes - whoever amasses the most points after playing every other team in SL once at home and once away will be crowned champions. In the event of more than one team finishing on the same number of points then the difference between points scored and points conceded will be taken into account.

Once we've let those shock waves reverberate there should be two end of season tournaments between the top 6 and the top 8 culminating in a double header finals day at Old Trafford (imagine that, 2 matches at OT in one day) one could be called the premiership and one the minor premiership.













Just a crazy thought.

It'll never catch on. Imagine a massive world wide sport like football trying that??? It would be a laughing stock and nobody would turn up.

Next you'll be saying the team who scores the most points in a game wins

That's what it used to be?

Was it so bad?

No not at all I just got the impression that you were trying to come up with a new idea, the top 6 system was a lot more fair and there was a lot more advantage in finishing 1st and 2nd.