I'd like to see three genuine trophies/prize money to go for; League Champs, GF and CC, all roughly equal in terms of prestige and money.

Make the playoffs back to the equivalent of the old (mid 70's to mid 90's) premiership trophy (8 teams, straight knockout, 1st plays 8th etc.).

Champions are the winners at the Old Trafford. The weekly rounds is just a pre competition to get a chance to win be THE champions and a way to seed the teams. Where in theory the higher a finish the easier it should be.

Personally I like the play offs and the fact that come the first Saturday in October two teams battle it out at Old Trafford to become champions. Admittidly the format could do with changing, such as 1v8, 2v7 and so forth and one chance if on the first week the team that finishes 1st gets beat by the team in 8th then good bye to that team until next year.

A bigger problem is the intensity in the weekly rounds. The only way it will happen is for weaker teams to get better, unfortunately I dont have the answers to that!

A couple of posts mention about trying to explain the play off format to football supporters. Who gets promoted from the second division this weekend is Bradford or Northampton where at least two other teams finished higher than either of them and which team would be getting promoted? It wont be Burton or Cheltenham (who finished 4th and 5th).

I find explaining how to use a crayon difficult with most football fans...

Why don't you read what I said again instead of having a pre conceived idea of what you "Think" Im moaning at. It's got nothing to do with wigan not winning it, it's got everything to do with making teams who want to win things play for 30 weeks of the year and not 10ish.

I'm saying that winning the hub cap would mean more because if the top teams were trying to finish top as opposed to now when most probably couldn't give a t0ss then by definition it would mean more as it would be harder to do!
Hence stacking the deck in favour of the top 1/2/3 etc in such a way that they would try harder throughout the season to reach those positions would be a justifiable reward for their hard work.

If any team fail to take advantage of that advantage that's their problem.
I'll invite you to take a look through any posts of mine were I haven't had this view and to be honest that's still my view on the last 2years.
We didn't win it coz we knew the rules and didn't come on top to those rules.

That's not the argument
The argument is how can we turn the apathy to the 27 weekly rounds around.
My answer is make them mean more, do teams in the PL give up half way rough a season when they can't make top 4/5?

How's about ill meet you half way?

Lets let all 14 teams make the play offs?
However

Teams 11/12/13/14 have to play every day for 2 weeks
Teams teams 7/8/9/10 play every other day

Teams 3/4/5/6 play twice in a week

Teams 1/2 play week 1 against the 2 winners of all the other games when their all knackered at end of week 2 and go straight to a grand final week after against each other!

Now basically unless you missed it there is a slight bit of sarcasm in my suggestion,what i am saying is i couldn't give a monkeys about how many clubs you include,
Just make it SIGNIFICANTLY more difficult to win it the lower you get.
Thus making it massively more important to finish as high up in the competition during the weekly rounds as possible.

As it stands the play off structure does not do that to the level of the old top 5 which is why I said let's look back at those games/crowds and compare to the last 4/5 years.

PS

Unlike William Eve I have a life so I won't be rambling on for 100+ pages so you won't have to defend the RFL etc. much more to me.
I'll just keep checking through the curtains and making my own mind up as to whether its sunny in SL world or not rather than let Nigel Wood et al tell me and keep swallowing it.

This whole divide is due to the situation that has developed that the GF winners are the Chamions, yet may not be the best team in the League.
The GF win no more means a team is the best in the League than the C Cup winners. The GF winners have won a four game play off. C Cup is 5 games.
The most difficult to win is the L Leaders Trophy.
That's over 27 games and the team that does it usually has won more than any other team, lost fewer than any other team. Scored more and conceded fewer than any other club.
The L Leaders in RL/SL are vastly undervalued as is their achievement. This is due to the finance and SKY TV hype.
As mentioned previously and it was a very idea IMO is that the three have the same financial rewards and the L Leaders have a trophy worth calling that, not some fancy dish that looks like a mis shapen plate or indeed a hub cap.

Smokey Joe is missing the point here. He mentions we need 14 equal standard teams. We do and I mentioned that in the original post that we don't have enough money(to have 14 equal standard teams)
Next problem is to many teams in the playoffs. More than half the teams will qualify. Basically you've more chance of getting tails when you toss a coin than you have to miss out on the playoffs. In 2 wins time Wigan have nothing left to play for until September apart from the CC. How anyone can think that is good for the game is beyond me.

make it as hard as you like, make a team which doesnt finish top crawl over broken glass to get to OT, give the LLS winners a 30point head start, give them 20 men on the field, and sets of ten tackles to attack with, but only sets of 3 to defend, give them every single possible advantage you can think of then double it, the champions will still be the team which wins the GF and the hubcap will still be the poor relation and still people will barely care about it. People want to be champions, they dont want to be the team with the most advantages. This is what you seem to be unable to understand teams set out to win the GF, the LLS is just a nice bonus along the way that no-one really cares about, reward the LLS with whatever advantages in the play-offs you want, teams will still be setting out to win the GF and the LLS will still be nothing more than a nice bonus along the way that no-one really cares about

make it top 5 and London, salford, cas already dont have anything to play for, within the next month it would be likely that Widnes, Wakefield and Hull KR would join them. How anyone can think that is good for the game is beyond me.

Hm, i think thats the point people are trying to make... Well done..

Really....In all honesty.

Who cares?

Where do I start!
So with 24 points to play for Salford/London/cas/ don't have anything to play for?
24 + 7 =31 in my book and that'll get them a 5th 6th etc. spot any day of the week.

Same goes for the 3 other teams you mention who will still be in the ball game in 4 games time. (Ps - why not mention saints in along with them

).

As for the stuff about Lls and GF I think this is where you're coming undone.
Barring a few posters I think the general consensus is that the go is the way to go "IF" structured better.

We pretty much all agree that the GF is the one we all set out to win

however

By making it easy to finish top 8 and then easier comparatively once in the top 8 compared to the old top 5 to go on and win it then you are devaluing what goes on between rounds 1-27 and that is what most people's concerns are.

Make it harder to win the GF from outside the top 2 and teams will try harder weeks 1-27.

Lets not manufacture a situation where we all get a go at the play offs and its not structured as advantageously for 1&2 or else we'll all just give up in the weekly rounds and just turn up in September.

Then people wonder why there's an apathy to the weekly rounds etc.

I mean why not let a team that's not good enough to get into a qualifying spot be manufactured a way into a qualifying spot so that they can get battered in week 1 of the play offs!
I mean to me that sounds genius

It's a good job football fans don't think like Smokey. There'd only be four or five clubs in business. The others would all have given up.

Unfortunately, there always have to be losers. I don't understand this impossible desire to make us all equal.

Maybe there should be no trophies for anyone, and instead we give them all a medal for competing.

Alternatively, we could have a quiet word with the bottom clubs and advise them that trying a lot harder may help them avoid such ignominy as their season ending two months early.

Oh my!

Do you know why they have nothing to play for? It because they have not been good enough.

Your attitude is so silly its untrue! It is like a school sports day in which nobody loses. Guess what, some teams dont deserve to be in the play offs. Thats the way of the world. If they have nothing to play for 2/3rds into the season that is their own fault, BE BETTER!

Why not just give everyone a place in the play offs so everyone has something to play for, and those that get knocked out get another go so they have something to play for again.

Generally in football you have 2 maybe 3 (Man Utd, City, Chelsea) teams that can win the league, 2 (Arsenal, Spurs) more fighting for Champions League. (one of which will get the Europa League spot) and 5 teams that fight relegation. that means that 25% of the teams compete at the top, 25% at the bottom, the rest are just playing for pride. But of course this negatively impacts on the Premier League so much doesnt it.

50% of the Prem know they are going to finish somewhere between 6th and 15th. 15% (at a push 20%) can win it.

But of course we should let 57% of the competition into the finals.

Do we want to encourage mediocrity or excellence? because why would someone around 6/7th try to get better, they know they will make the playoffs and could have a run at getting to the GF. if only the top 5 make it then they would be forced to try to improve! Making a better competition.

The point the seem to make is the complete opposite, that they want the season to be more intense and more games matter.

but it would only make teams around 6/7th try to get better, the teams 8 to 14th would give up and go home and try again next year. If you want that as your focus the fine. But you cant then complain when large parts of the season are not competitive and lack intensity, that large parts of it are a procession where one club in the game have 'nothing to play for'

As intense as today's affair? Can we play them again next week?

Maybe if Leeds & London team up at the Eithad we may get a game, that might be slightly more "intense" than usual, we may even be kept down to around thirty points.

you think its realistic that they are going to win the rest of their games? That a team is going to go 3-1-11 in their first 15 games then 12-0 in their next twelve? Lets try and stay in the realms of reality.

BTW 31 points wouldnt have got you a 5th or 6th last year.
Thats just circular nonsense but it does quite succinctly highlight where you are wrong. Top 8 as opposed to top 5 has no difference in principle. It isnt devalued by being top 8 instead of top 5, but by it being too easy to be top 8. If we had 3 clubs far better than the rest then it would be a procession through rounds 1-27 to finish top 5 and those clubs could give up on the weekly rounds and just turn up in september. The fact is this idea that a club can take the regular season easy isnt because of top 5 top6 top 8 whatever system we use, it is solely down to the difference in quality between the big clubs and the rest of the league. This mitigation thrown at Leeds that they only tried in the play-offs and took the regular season easy can only be used because Leeds are so much better than the lower clubs. The problem of intensity can only be addressed by improving the lesser clubs, tinkering with the play-off system only gives us a choice between top clubs trying a bit harder and the smaller clubs trying a bit less, or the top clubs not having to try as hard and the smaller clubs trying a bit more, it doesnt in anyway stop the problem arising just gives us a choice of how it manifests.

Quote ="MattyB"As intense as today's affair? Can we play them again next week? Maybe if Leeds & London team up at the Eithad we may get a game, that might be slightly more "intense" than usual, we may even be kept down to around thirty points.'" below thirty like this www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/21743925 or like this www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/match/rl3559224 though i expect someone to explain why we use the word 'more' to you soon

Quote ="MattyB"As intense as today's affair? Can we play them again next week? Maybe if Leeds & London team up at the Eithad we may get a game, that might be slightly more "intense" than usual, we may even be kept down to around thirty points.'" below thirty like this www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/21743925 or like this www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/match/rl3559224 though i expect someone to explain why we use the word 'more' to you soon

Quote ="SmokeyTA"below thirty like this www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/21743925 or like this www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/match/rl3559224'" Yeah but you've got a few injuries now and the excuses are starting to flow.

Quote ="SmokeyTA"below thirty like this www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/21743925 or like this www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/match/rl3559224'" Yeah but you've got a few injuries now and the excuses are starting to flow.

Maybe there should be a sliding scale of payments from central funds to clubs according to their league position that must be split 50:50 between the players and the clubs thus giving both the club and the players a reason to carry on competing til the end of the season.

at last someone who fully understands how the current play off format works and how to best reap the ultimate rewards

We all understand it, many just happen to think that it diminished the intensity of many of the weekly rounds, which is affecting the overall standard of RL in the UK....

Let me just say this again... WE UNDERSTAND HOW IT WORKS...

the only way to hammer this message home and prove your point is by winning it from first on the weekly ladder then is it not?

But its not about finishing first is it, its about winning the sprint at the end of the season no matter where you finish.