No it isn't. It means that 7 places in the 8 are nailed on, so those 7 can coast through the regular season.

It's not a straw man - it is an argument put forward in favour of a play off system as often as the equally ridiculous notion that with a league "large parts of the season being completely pointless".



Of course it is. Teams can get the prize of a play off place for losing more league games than they win. It is a reward for mediocrity if ever there was one.



Now this IS a straw man argument. The problem with this idea is in your head. It's really simple. We have an extended WCC and the route into it is by either winning the league title or winning a play-offs. We then get round your objection of "large parts of the season being completely pointless" because we have retained the play-offs with a valuable prize at the end of them AND we have the league championship deciding the - league champions. Completely different competitions with different purposes with the label of champions being attached to the league champions rather than the winners of the play offs.

It is a straw man because nobody is arguing that there cannot possibly be an exciting finish to a league structure, There can and there will be examples where there was an exciting finish to a league season. There is however, also plenty of examples where the league competition was decided months before the end, where the declaration of champions became a procession, you want to bring up the example of the last premier league season as an exciting finish then yes, I would agree, but that would be countered by the year before where Man Utd won the league by 9 points, went top in November and didn’t go below that. The league was also won with a 1-1 draw against Blackburn which is about as far from exciting as you can get.

Qualification for the play-offs isn’t the prize, winning them is. Qualification for the play-offs isn’t a reward, its survival in the competition.

You really don’t seem to have thought this through. It doesn’t address the ‘large parts of the season being pointless’ at all, because once the play-offs have been qualified for, and the LLS being out of reach, we would be in exactly the same position as now, where (according to you) there is no reason for Leeds to exert themselves finishing higher than 5th. Leeds had a poor start to the year, the vast majority of their losses came in the early part of the season, by time the business end of the season came round the LLS was out of reach. Leeds would have been in exactly the same position as they were no, and would be able to coast in to the play-offs as you accuse them of.

The fact that we are needing to invent a super-special prize for the play-offs shows you have removed the legitimacy of it. You don’t win the Super League for the trophy, or the ring, or the WCC, you win it to be champions. The most important reward for winning SL isn’t entry to the WCC, it isn’t that trophy, the super-special prize is being champions. The competition has value in and of itself. You take that away from the play-offs and all you have is cup comp whose only meaning is to qualify for a different cup comp. You have invented the Intertoto cup.

But I don't expect them to, just as I don't believe they have in the past. I can't remember many or any games where losing teams were coasting. Sure, teams, if they have any brains, tailor their season to the play offs but I still don't believe that professional athletes aren't trying. I remember a game from the end of the season, WIdnes & some other basement dweller, which was an absolute cracker even though their seasons were apparently over weeks before.



The fuss is mainly from bitter fans of those teams who were expected to contend the final & didn't. Personally I thought it was a fantastic achievement by Leeds which I thoroughly enjoyed, despite not being a Rhinos supporter.

I was ok with this (albeit I comprehensively dispute every point you make) until the bit in bold. It is after all just your opinion and you're entitled to it. However, the bit in bold shows unbelievable arrogance! We don't understand what really happened??? Really??? Well thanks for enlightening us. I don't know how I ever managed until you came along. If you could see fit to explain the rest of this baffling world we live in I'd be ever so grateful! Suffice to say I, along with many others, am not happy watching and paying for meaningless games. You quite obviously are. Enjoy.

Mate, this is a lazy argument. It perhaps would be true if I, and many, many others hadn't been saying the same thing for years. I played in Warrington the weekend after they won the LLS and I congratulated them on being 'Champions'. I thought it then. I think it now. If Wigan win it from 5th this year, I'll still think it. Argue your points and beliefs by all means but please don't presume to tell me the reasons [uI[/u believe something.

Well you don't seem to. Wigan werent champions last year, as Wire werent the year before. It is all about opinions, but logically yours doesnt make any sense.

It's not argument, it's a fact. The vast majority of whinging is from fans of clubs, mainly Wigan, who expected to contest the final. And plenty are bitter. It's the way RL has resolved its champions for the vast majority of its existence.

I don't believe that the counter opinion that states that the Champions should be crowned based on the regular league campaign is "bitter" that's too simplistic surely?

Most posters with this view, one that I hold, agree that we all knew the rules before the start of the season etc but mourn the insignificance attached to coming top of the league after 27 games and to say we are bitter is a bit childish IMO. I think that there is a genuine concern about the state of our game and an active debate on improving the game as a whole is to be applauded? We need thriving clubs in a thriving competition with interest from start to finish otherwise we will all eventually suffer.

The proposition that we have, in the majority of years, crowned our Champions may be true, but, this was by and large a product of the age, rather than anything else, a magic formula a grand design? Part time players, teams playing their neghbours rather than everyone home and away, it taking '2 days' to travel from Warrington to Hull etc etc.

We now have the M62, motor transport is widely available, I could knock off most of that two days even travelling to East Hull. Players are full time professionals and what is significant in my view, is that the current system is designed to even up the competition. We have 14 teams not '31', clubs have quotas and salary caps, they even play each other home and away for seven months. How hard can it be?

BTW I congratulated Wigan for winning the league and Leeds for winning the Grand Final so I'm not bitter, just searching for a better way

But you knew the 'insignificance' of this before the season started as well, and so did everyone else. So people werent trying to solely finish top, they were trying to win the competition. Its not about moaning after Wigan finished top but didnt win the comp, its that the comp would have been different had it been won by finishing top, so the fact that Wigan did finish top isnt devalued by the play-offs, its devalued because it wasnt a proper representation of the league, that is why there is 'insignificance' attached to finishing top and a big reason why it comes across as bitter to see Wigan fans complain about it.

I agree wholeheartedly and the point that I and many others are trying to make is knowing the rules before you start doesn't automatically make them right especially going forward.

As an extreme, where is the sense in 'messing about' with 27 warm up games and trying to sell it as a valid and valued oompetition where all games don't really matter? Will it take someone winning it from 8th having lost more games than they had won over the 'long haul' before a few minds are changed? Leeds are by definition a Championship team and it's no fluke that they have done it from a variety of finishing positions, but, if it had been Wakefield.....no disrespect to Trinity but

But it misses the ultimate point, that the league table at the point it becomes the play-offs isnt a true reflection of a teams quality, nor is it supposed to be, nor is it sold as such.

Had Wakefield won the competition this season, would it have meant they took the preceeding 27 rounds easy, or didnt try for them? well no, Wakefield won their last 7 league games, they would have then needed to win a further 4 games to win it. They would have needed to win 11 on the trott to win it. I dont see why, it is taken for granted, that early season form is more reflective of the relative quality of the teams than late season form.

I appreciate that the play-offs do remove some significance from the league campaign, it is supposed to, but the league table after 27 rounds is only a snapshot mid-way through the competition, i struggle to see why a season like Wigans, where they were beaten in every big game towards the end of the season, where they won the LLS based on their early season form, where their late season form would have put them mid-table, where they lost 5 of 12 is a better reflection of a champion side than Leeds season where they lost 4 of their last 17, beat Wigan twice, in a CC semi and a play-off semi, Warrington in a play-off final?

I thought the whole point of leagues was that there was reward for form across the entire season. There's no bias in making the start worth just as much as the end, but there is a bias in making the end much more important than the start.

Are you being serious? You do realise you're on the Wign board don't you?

Of course it does! It only doesn't if you refuse to accept any scenario as sensible but your own. Just because something 'is' doesn't mean you have to believe it's right. The bankers get paid huge bonuses for losing billions of taxpayer's money. That 'is'. I don't think it's right. You can argue all you want that there's nothing I can do about it and of course you'd be right. But that doesn't mean any opinion that goes against it is illogical!

Let me ask you this. If the RFL decided tomorrow that the team finishing top were Champions would you argue "that's no way to decide the champions! The only way to properly decide the champions is to have a post season knockout cup competition!" Of course you wouldn't. Yet that's the argument you're putting forward as the only viable option here. If anything, you're the one being illogical. Particularly so as we are only dealing in hypotheticals. All opinions are equally valid. Mine no more or no less than yours.

You misunderstood. What doesnt have any logic is your assertion that the only way to decide champions is through a league campaign, it clearly isnt. And what also lacks logic is you crowning Warrington and Wigan champions when they didnt win their competition and didnt meet the criteria to be champions. That lacks logic. It doesnt make sense.
If the RFL were to decide to crown the champions via the league campaign then A) we shouldnt have any play-offs, they would be pointless and B) i would be disappointed we had decided to crown our champions through a process which rewards consistency over the ability to win the big games, that we had looked at the quantity of victories and ignored the quality of them.

Vitali Klitschko has 45 wins from 47 fights, Ali had 56 from 61. Klitschko is the more 'consistent' fighter, but he will never be thought of like Ali, because his consistency against his bum of the month club isnt what proves a champion, Its Ali going toe-to-toe with Frazier, Foreman, Spinks, Liston that showed his champion qualities, not his losses against Ken Norton, or Trevor Berbick. I want our champions to be the ones who, like Ali, take on the big names, in the big games, if they lose a couple against some Hasim Rahman's or Buster Douglas, its not so important.

Changes are needed in our game, but we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water. The play offs are exciting, high quality knock out games and the grand final is the second biggest RL spectacle of the year with the two top teams battling it out in front of a capacity crowd at Old Trafford. No way should we get rid of it or not use it to crown our champions.

What we do need to do is make the regular season count for more. The top 5 system we used in 2001 did this. There was a definite advantage to finishing 1st and to be crowned champions you had to beat every team above you. To win it from 5th would have taken a mammoth effort.

There are also too may hammerings, a lack of quality outside the top half of the league and threat of the NRL and Rugby Union taking our top players. To rectify this I would cut the league down to 10. The top 7 from this year and the 3 richest remaining teams, everyone plays each other 3 times with one of each team's derbys still on magic weekend. I'd also raise the cap to whatever the 6 richest teams can afford. I think these changes would really improve the state of affairs for our game

So why did over 38000 attend a typical premiership final?

Sorry to say IMO Phuzzy is on the right lines and you are wrong. Your boxing analogy is silly because you are talking about a career and not a single season, so I can’t see how it applies. As in football the title of champions should go to team who has been the most successful in terms of the league for the season as a whole, not just to a side that by means of games manipulation, i.e. when to win or lose to attain the required table position they think best suits their chances at the end of the season. By which I mean not giving 100% in all league games, thus short changing the people who pay to watch, and demeaning the sport. If the CC winners were crowned champions, just because some bright spark at the RFL said so would you think that right? Keep the play offs, just stop calling the winners champions because apart from the supporters of that side and a few others, they are not!

Whereas nobody, bar Wigan fans think Wigan are the champions and the history books will agree that they arent. If you think that a league campaign forces clubs to go 100% every game, then you are wrong. The premier League winning sides will rotate their squads, playing lesser players against lesser sides, as they do now. I cant see how, a side which cant win the big games should be our champions.

To be the best you have to beat the best. We were not champions this season and quite rightly, because we couldn't come up with the goods when it mattered. Champions should be crowned at Old Trafford in front of 71K after you beat Warrington, not at Craven Park in front of 10k after you beat Hull KR.

Rubbish. There is only one way to determine who is the best team over the course of a season and that is by league position. Not by a short knock out competition that can crown a team champions when they don't even have to play teams above them in the league. By your own yardstick Leeds are not worthy champions as they didn't beat the best.

The challenge cup was always rated second to the league championship as an achievement despite the fact it got even bigger crowds than 71K. I was there in 1985 when there was 94K on at Wembley. No one was daft enough to think anything other than all that great win got us was the Challenge Cup despite the massive crowd. No one thought we should have been crowned champions because a lot of people watched the final

. A cup win requires you to win a handful of games. So does winning the Grand Final. They pale into insignificance compared to the consistency required to finish top of the pile after 27 rounds.

Eh? How did Leeds not beat the best? They beat Les Catalans, then us, then Warrington in knockout games in consecutive weeks. Granted in a top 5 format they would have had to beat Saints too but I wouldn't back against it. I firmly believe there is nothing wrong with crowning the champions after a play off series and a final, everyone knows the rules at the start of the year and it's a spectator sport not a staticians one. We look forward to the grand final, we turn out in big numbers to watch it and we remember the season by it. It is not the problem.

However, I agree with you in that we do need to make the regular season more meaningful, if there were 10 teams in the league and you had to finish in the top 5 to have any chance of winning the trophy, it would be a lot tougher to do what Leeds have done, and we wouldn't be questioning whether to rest players in half of our games. Let's not go back 15 years just because we've got wrong in the last 2

This is what I find frustrating about debating points with you (and, in case you've forgotten, we have crossed swords before over on the Leeds board). Unfortunately you have a tendancy to rewrite history to suit your argument which, I have to say, is usually a sign that your own argument is poor. Nowhere have I said that the ONLY way to crown the champions is through the league campaign. I suggested that, in my opinion, it's the BEST way and would improve the competition; I've also said that, again in my opinion, it's the CORRECT way; but nowhere have I said it's the ONLY way. I fully understand that's it's only my opinion, albeit one I share with many other people. I also have no right to crown anyone anything. I DO, however, have the right to REGARD the team finishing top as champions if I so wish. I have no obligation whatsoever to accept the current system as unassailable just because you want me to! I will never regard a team that finishes 10 points behind the leaders as 'Champions'. Whether you like it or not. Just as I will never regard bankers getting millions in bonuses as right just because contract law says it is. Again, that's my right in a free thinking society. In fact, I'd be interested to hear your view on the banker's bonuses if you wouldn't mind. I think it might be enlightening in the context of this debate.

You use a boxing analogy to explain your standpoint but, once again, you re remarkably selective in your example. Would you say that, for example, Buster Douglas was a better fighter than Mike Tyson because he was 'able to get up for the big game' (sic) when it mattered? As a matter of fact Ali was a remarkably consistent fighter. It's believed by many that some of his losses were, shall we say, a concious decision on his part to enable him to regain the title and also (more cynically but probably none the less true for that) for 'box office'. Isn't another much touted 'best ever career record' the one held by Marciano for his 49 and 0? That was based on the consistency throughout his career, not his ability to 'get up when it mattered'. As I say, for every example you could give I could give a different one. However what ISN'T in doubt, though you try to argue otherwise, is that consistency is massively respected in sport. Indeed in ALL walks of life. Was Tiger Woods feted for his ability to win the occassional big match, or for the fact that, for a period, he was unbeatable? To use an example from your own team. The consistently high performer that is Kevin Sinfield or the 'able to get up for one big game' Leroy Rivett? I think we both know the answer.

Look, the bottom line is that I feel the current system makes a mockery of the majority of the season and, ultimately, will harm the game I love. I have no problems with the playoffs as such. I go to them, and the finals and thoroughly enjoy them. I just think the balance is wrong and is something that needs addressing. I think the 'playoffs at all costs' has a price that it too high to pay. It isn't just my opinion and, unfortunately, we are getting to the point where people are starting to vote with their wallets. That is not a situation I would like to see encouraged by the 'flat earth' brigade who see change as inherently scarey. We need change. Whether that's along the lines I outlined in the opening post or something else, I don't really mind. Just as long as it does the job of redressing the unbalanced way our game has progressed. Let's face it, the number of times the question of how clubs are no longer worried about losing games raised it's head on the Sky broadcasts this season when it's Sky who have the biggest vested interest in maintaining the status quo should have anyone with a genuine interest in the game worried! Those are the very storm clouds, along with the disillusionment among many fans, that we, as a game, should not be ignoring!