I know I've cut a very long post into a small section but here goes!

The Grand Final doesn't take place in February, if it did it probalably wouldn't have been Harlequins & Hudds.
Main reason
The Grand Final is in October and them's the rules, if it was I'm sure Wigan/Wire/Saints/Leeds and all the other clubs would play the game to those rules!

Your scenario although fooling a few doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

"If" Harlequins & Hudds had made the GF this year in October they would have deserved it no matter how they did it because they would have playes the current rules and won the games that mattered, when it mattered and Won them!
Wheter there would have been 25k at Old Trafford or not is one of the most disrespectful commetns I've heard, "If" they had have been there next week they'd have deserved it just as Leeds & Saints do for next week.

Wigan made a target of the CC this year and maybe (Not saying it did) that had an effect on their end of season but you know what? Them's the rules!
If you want to throw all your eggs into the GF basket then Madge could have put the kids out for the Challenge cup and not bothered with it?
We didn't, we wnated to win it and I for one wouldn't swap that memory this year for anything!

We could start complaining aboput moving the CC to another time of the year etc etc but at the start of the year every club knew how the fixture list panned out and each club had their injury situations, form, squad and Goals/Focus for the year.

In terms of finishing the year as SL Champions, Leeds & Saints have got their shot at it because they deserved it and won the right games at the right times!

Your right in what you say, the grand final doesnt take place in february, but my point about huds and quins was a purposfully absurd one to show up the grand final series for what it is, which is essentially a form competition for 3-4 weeks, which in its current set up, demeans the league far too much IMO.

Your also right in that these are the rules and everyone knows and plays to them, and so fair play to saints and leeds for playing to these rules, and whoever wins next week will be champions. but it doesn't mean that we cant critisise the rules, due to the fact that you end up with absurdities such as next weekend's 'Grand' final, where due to the current emphasis placed on form, it is all too easy for average teams to get a shot at becoming the 'champions', which IMO is wrong!

Just because these are the rules doesn't mean the rules shouldnt be looked at, because in mine, and many other fans opinions, they do not adequately place credit on the teams performance for 6 months in the league, and make the last 6 months of little point.

What IF for example the RFL said that from next year we have a top 12 play off, with the top 4 from NL1, where there would be no seeding but just a straight draw like the challenge cup, to decide the champions at the end of the season. Daft but not beyond the realms of possibility with the prats we currently have running our game!!! You could then end up with Quins coming 12th, playing Leigh, Bradford & Featherstone to make the Grand Final, before beating Huddersfield in the Grand final to become champions. Would they have deserved it = Yes because they had played to the rules and won the required games - However, would this necessarily make this fair, give fair credit to the league, and not undermine our game? No IMO, yet this is only a couple of steps away from where we are currently!

Lets go back to the top 5, cut out the reward for medicoricy, and give the play offs a little more credibility. At least then, if Leeds did win if from 5th, it would surely feel a little more justified and earned to them, by the fact that though they had an indifferent season, they proved their 'champion' worth by beating every team above them away from home, rather than in its present guise, where they have only needed to beat a couple of also rans and one top team to possibly end up as champions!

If's buts and maybe's.

Any kind of Play off series undermines a "True League" and at risk of upsetting Wolf fans this years league and every other since 98 hasn't been a true league and isn't a true representation of what would have happened if a true "League" style competition were in place at the start of they year!

You gave 1 Absurd scenario (In your words) and a couple more above.
Those aren't the rules and although you may say were a couple of steps away from this I think were a million miles away!

This whole thread started about 3rd & 5th seeded teams getting to a play-off final and is that right?
If it isn't right then we may as well scrap the Play-offs altogether (Which is another argument altogether) which as you want to go to a 5 team play off means we could have a 2nd 5th team Grand Final. Would that be right?

I'm not arguing about whethere there should or shouldn't be play offs (I think their should and the Top 6 system worked best IMO).
What I am saying is that you cant have a play off series and then not like the outcome of that series! Who's to say if we'd had a Top 5 those same 2 teams wouldn't have made the final? (And before anyone states you it wouldn't becaus e either 1or2 would have to make the final then who's to say that Saints/Leeds wouldn't have played the season differently as would every club and not finished in different positions?).

That is my argument tbh...scrap the play offs altogether, but if we cant have this then at least have some semi credible play off system, which at least makes some sense, and gives more weight to a team's performance in the league! (ie the old top 5 or 6)

Its laughable that two average teams now have the chance to become champions by doing nothing more but playing well for 3 weeks out of a 30 week season.

That there is where you are made to look a fool.Saints have reached the grand final with a massive injury list that had pryce,perry and eastmond out for nearly all the season .Had these been fit imagine what an average saints side would of been like.

Champions are made when they do the business when it matters most which usually requires beating the best, when the pressure is on and when silverware is on the line. That's when champions are made and not when they're fighting over two points at The Willows.

That was the last time Wire won the league

Well said my Wigan friends. We should ignore the farce of Old Trafford next week and get together and petition the RFL to "recognise Warrington as the true champions". Having the Wiganers support would be a huge boost to our campaign and it's great to know that we stand shoulder to shoulder in times of a crisis.

Totally agree and I'm not saying this to argue really but just to point out that you couldn't decide a true league champion prior to 1973 without play offs because the fixture list was never even. Granted it isn't even now with the extra magic match but in those days the Yorkshire teams would play Yorkshire teams and the Lancashire teams would play Lancashire teams with random inter-county matches throw in to make up the numbers.

I don't exactly think we should petition for you to be champions because we all knew that before a ball was kicked you had to win the GF to be champions! But i would petition for the rules to be changed ready for next season! Imagine Wigan, Wire, Leeds and Saints all knowing the HAD to finish top! Imagine the intensity throughout the season rather than just for the last 6 games! imagine the crowd surges towards the end of the season!

Unless someone walked the league like occasionally happens in football? What do the other 10 teams do who have no chance of winning it as opposed to having the chance to play in the playoffs? What would Salford's aim be in a season for example?

Check the previous thread where I say that wire are champions I stand by that except with the wire fans at work (they're the type of non real fan that acts like a football fan). Wire are champions we are runners up and Leeds or saints will win the playoffs.

The playoffs that crown you champions you mean??

That is exactly what is wrong with our game. Instead of trying to impove the top end by 'forcing' them to increase the intensity for 27 games and have to finish top, we concern ourselves with average sides so they have 'something to play for'
Salford would have to aim to improve season on season, until eventually they can keep their level of performance so high over 8 months that it outstrips every other team and they finish top and are crowned champions.
There would also be the Premiership playoffs to play for and the Challenge Cup. Average teams could always target cup competitions - a bit like Leeds this year.

Spot on. Having to be better to win is better for salford than having the 8th place spot ever will be.

Its called my opinion.

Maybe instead of changing the GF layout as it works well at publicity the sport and giving extra excitement at the end of the season, they should change the top of the table winner’s shield to something that means more. Like a new cup, making it worth more etc, so those who finish top get some credit and honours they deserve, and the GF can still add the extra excitement at the end of the season.

In part, I agree. I think that the team who comes top should be the Champions. It doesn't matter what I think though because the rules are the rules and we all knew them before the Wire Hudds game at Cardiff, so complaining and moaning when teams work the rules to their advantage is just pointless. Maybe we should have done that so we didn't burn out??

If we won the GF next week you're telling me that you wouldn't refer to us as Champions ONCE throughout 2012? You wouldn't attend the WCC as a protest that we shouldn't be in it (slightly OTT perhaps) and you wouldn't sing 'Championees' or buy any merchandise that says 'Champions' on it? Sorry, but I don't believe you.

Every serious Rugby League and NRL fan in the world know the play offs decide who are Champions.

Grow up and stop fecking whining now you've lost.

Us losing makes no odds as my opinion makes Wire champions not us.


And as the other posts on this page say I ain't against playoffs I just want it to be separate to the league. It should be 3 comps CC winners, League Champions and if necessary Playoff Champions (though i prefer winners like the CC Cup)

I don't buy that champions stuff anyway and I would but only to join in. Just because it's not the way I would like it's the way it is so we would be champions and it's good for the team to sing it to them.

A sport can decide a play off system is how champions are decided if it wants but it needs to have a good reason for doing it and it needs to come up with a credible system. I don't think the RFL has either at the moment.

Back in the 70's we had a 30 team league but only played 34 fixtures so a play off was the only way to decide things. We then moved away from that to league winners being champions with a home and away fixture set and that was clearly the fairest way to decide that kind of league format. Two different league formats and two different ways to decide the champions and at both times in our history I think the fans supported and understood both concepts because of the way the league was structured.

Now the only just justification in terms of fairness to opt for a play off to decide things is the one extra fixture for Millenium Magic which is something else I have never agreed with and in any case its only one game and does not have enough baring on matters to warrant a move to play offs alone.

However the fact it is not logical to decide things via play offs does not alter the fact that is how we do things now so you can't claim to be champions by winning the league.

So my biggest gripe is the current format. It is rubbish. The best illustration for this is what I mentioned in the poll thread. Whoever wins the GF will not have beaten either Wigan or Wire, the teams finishing 2nd and 1st. A [uplay off[/u system is supposed to be just that, where teams [iplay off[/i against each other to decide matters. What we have now is a glorified knock out competition which allows teams to reach the final without testing themselves against all the sides who finish above them. It lacks legitimacy for that reason IMO. If we want play offs a top five system is the only credible one for a league the size of ours.

The other justification for a play off system is supposedly marketing. That in itself is disturbing because it puts sport into 2nd place and I don't think fans over time will support a system that does not have its roots in sporting achievement but commercialism instead. I am sure the RFL will say the fact we have two teams outside the top 2 contesting the final shows how strong the game is and that this will make it commercially successful but that is ridiculous. What it shows is the format doesn't favour the team finishing top enough and they would rather have a format that can deliver less predictable results than one that favours the achievements of the top sides particularly the one finishing top of the league. It should be nigh on impossible for them not to get to the final and for a team finishing 5th to do so should be an epic journey (as it would be with a top five system). I think the poor crowds of the previous rounds show the fans do not like the current system or place any value in it.

Still one day Nigel Wood will retire and we may get someone in charge who realises that commercial success in sport comes off the back of a well structured and meaningful sporting competition not systems designed to randomize who gets to finals!

wow, just wow.

i wonder if we'd have had a similar thread to this in 2007 had Wigan reached the GF.

As regular as clock work eh plop joe?

Don't recall many wigan or warrington fans saying the playoff system is wrong as Leeds twice beat St helens when they were no where as good as Saints throughout the season.

I didn't experience the previous playoff system and was brought up on the champions being those who won most league games. Like most things, what you experience first will always be the one that seems the best or most fitting. I prefer the league leaders to be champs (work hard over the season, each match counts, teams have more options to build towards future seasons) but as a Saints fan who has sucked it up in recent years, am looking forward to yet another visit to Old Trafford..... hopefully we will continue to play well and win this time.