Posted this on the Salford board so thought i would bring it onto here too. What do we all think of the current system? i think it needs a restructure. Here is what i suggested to a fellow poster :-

Yes. It needs a complete restructure. Fair play for them for introducing the 8s system but it is in its infancy and requires tweaking. Here is what i suggest :-

Bottom of Super League is automatic relegation and top of the Championship automatic Promotion then the remaining 3 bottom sides in Sl and top 3 sides in the championship then battle for a 6's rather than 8's.

The Super 8's i believe should have a point cull at the end of the regular season and would suggest this

1st - 10 points
2nd - 8 points
3rd - 6 points
4th - 4 points
then 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th all start on zero

The promotion/relegation issue is the biggest though. Leigh have been deprived of getting a better salary cap and signing better players for 3 years due to the unfair system. They have been expected to gain promotion with championship players. It is only this year where they have pushed the financial boundaries to sign SL standard players that they have achieved this. Say a team like Halifax finished top next year. We all know they won't make it through the 8s but if they were automatically promoted it would give them more revenue, more tv money, better salary cap restrictions and if they went down the following season they would have a better squad to challenge again and would be better for the experience. It is the only way forward.

Some good points there, but the salary cap is now the same for all divisions, it's income that is the restricting factor.

I've lost count of how many times the structure has changed in the 20 years of SL. We need to stick with something rather than keep changing, 2 years is not long enough to properly assess whether it works or not. For those reason ps I'd stick with what we've got. Whatever system we have some will agree, others won't, it's not possible to please everyone.

The biggest issue with what CW suggested is the bottom team in SL and the top team in the Championship would play 5 games less than everyone else meaning less revenue and their seasons finish in mid August.

As a sport I think we should be concentrating on raising the revenue streams to make the championship a fully professional division. I think this would rejuvenate the sport, the Championship clubs would be better equipped to compete in the middle 8's, more players would likely be noticed and picked up by SL clubs and probably most importantly players of any club relegated are not at risk of losing their jobs.

It is too early to tinker again. The new system is starting to work. Leigh getting promoted will shake things up in itself. It will increase belief in the Championship and League 1 that promotion to SL is possible. It will also increase competition in SL next year because teams will desperately want to avoid the Qualifiers knowing that there is a real possibility of relegation. That in itself will close the gap between top and bottom of SL. The top of SL has been the most competitive over the last two seasons as it has been for years and so that is starting to work. Last year's finish went to the wire and this year's finish might go the Wire.

Don't know if you meant it but well done

In a nutshell....

For me, the Super 8s are too much hassle and nobody really knows where every team is up to.

In fact it reminds me of the 'League of Gentlemen' card game 'Go Johnny, go, go, go, go'.

It's no wonder crowds are down and people are losing interest.

Need to go back to 1 team promotion and
relegation, top 5 play offs and Challenge Cup back to May.

Another things I have a theory on is the following : due to football RL moved games from a Saturday 3pm kick off to Sunday 3pm kick off, with the arrival of SL we went to Friday's and Saturday nights and did well, however with Friday night football this season and football games not being on TV at the Sarurday 3pm slot why don't we move the majority of games back to Sat 3pm and televise them?

Yes, pun intended. Well spotted!

We need to stay away from rewarding mediocrity, we've done it too much over the years! If a team is good enough to win sufficient league points walk away with 1st place after the weekly rounds then why should they be brought back to a 2 point advantage over their closest rivals? Why should a team who finish 8th be given a leg up into the Super 8's? They shouldn't!!
The simple truth is we are a rare breed sport that doesn't call the team who finishes first the champions. We won't move away from that unfortunately but it's what we're stuck with.
I may be old fashioned but I would go back to 1st is champs, last is relegated. The team coming up would be given 3 season exempt from relegation to give them time to establish themselves.

This is only the second year of the 8's for gawd's sake! leave it alone for a while to see how it works in the medium term.

One thing I would consider though, is changing the name "Minor Premiers" (or whatever they're called) to "Champions" because, imo, if you've finished top of the league after 27 rounds then that is what you are, regardless of how dire the games have been over the season.

I really don't think artificially making the 8's more competitive is the way forward, as it then devalues the preceding 23 games. It's the job of the teams that finish 5-8 to make sure they are still in touching distance of the top 4 by the time the split comes round. I don't understand why people think that we need every team to be competing for the league until the end of the season. Every league in every sport has mid table teams that are out of contention well before the end of the season. We had years of rewarding mediocrity with the old top 8 system, at least this gets rid of that.

Hopefully if we can add a more competitive Leeds and possibly Huddersfield to the mix next season, and teams like Cas and Hull continue to improve, then there might be less of a gap at the top next season.

Whatever tweeks are made , I think that Bradford have learned a huge lesson from this year and will go all out for promotion. Leigh have plans to strengthen our squad the question is now, have the botton super league clubs learned anything from it all

I think its too early to change the format, there were arguments last year some from Leigh fans that the system was unfair. Well Leigh to their credit have shown that the system does offer clubs the chance to get to SL. And when you consider that the SL clubs involved this year are a lot stronger than 2015 who would have picked the Rhinos and Giants for the bottom 4. It will be interesting to see if Leigh can stay up. If they avoid the bottom 4 it will be a good season.

I agree about Bradford, but they do need to send out a message that they have the funds to develop a team to challenge and get the fans back. If the Giants, Salford or HKR go down will they still have their backers to fund their return?

I'd like them to make super 8s games worth three points rather than two. That way the even the eighth place team can just about make the semis if they win all of their games, and 5th, 6th and 7th will be in the hunt for longer. I like the present system but I think we need to do a little more to keeps things interesting for everyone during the eights phase. Also as mentioned, move the cup back to May so it doesn't detract from the business end of the league and gets its own limelight.

They need scrapping all together, 1 team up and 1 team down. Whoever finishes top of the league in the Championship goes up, no Grand Final.

I'd go as far as to say the same for SL and replace play offs with Premiership instead like it once was, still have it at Old Trafford etc.

But 1 team up 1 team down doesn't necessarily mean you are gaining a better team than you are losing, and increases the likelihood of teams going up every time like a yo-yo, which can't be good for their financial stability. The middle 8s also gives Championship sides a chance to have a crack at SL sides, which I suspect will make them more competitive in the long term, whilst also offering good entertainment for their fans and more money for their clubs. During the eights phase I actually find the middle 8s more interesting than the Super 8s

But 1 team up 1 team down doesn't necessarily mean you are gaining a better team than you are losing, and increases the likelihood of teams going up then back down every time like a yo-yo, which can't be good for their financial stability. The middle 8s also gives Championship sides a chance to have a crack at SL sides, which I suspect will make them more competitive in the long term, whilst also offering good entertainment for their fans and more money for their clubs. During the eights phase I actually find the middle 8s more interesting than the Super 8s. I'm not too bothered whether Hull FC or Wire win the minor Premiership but I definitely want to see whether Huddersfield or Hull KR are consigned to the MPG.

As to the league structure for over 75% of our games existence we have had a play off system to decide "the champions" IMO it started to get diluted when we went from 5 to 6 and then to 8 to try and make the competition inclusive rather than merit based exclusive.

The old top 5 system worked in that it meant if you finished top you had two chances (both at home) to get to the final, whereas if you finished fifth you had to play every game away. If we could keep that system PLUS a stepped financial incentive for the top 5 that IMO would work well.

They could implement a similar system from a top four to be fair, it would only add a week on. The problem is that we re-introduce the element of teams having a week off, which some argue is actually a hindrance:

Week 1
A - Qualifying Final - 1st v 2nd
B - Elimination Final - 3rd v 4th

Week 2
C - Final Eliminator - Loser A v Winner B

Week 3
Final - Winner A v Winner C

The eighth placed team should not have a cat in hells chance of making the semis and why does finishing 5th, 6th or 7th mean we should contrive a points system that keeps them in it longer?

Your suggestion epitomises what is wrong with the whole stupid playoff concept. Poor teams get another chance and how well you do in the preceding twenty odd league games means naff all.



No we don't. Sport is about losing as well as winning and contriving a system where everyone is still in it is a a bit like a politically correct school sports day where no one loses. If you make it as easy as this what incentive is there to improve? You can just carry on and hope with a bit of luck you might face a bunch of injury depleted sides and win the thing when in fact you are a poor side.

If you want a system to guarantee total antipathy towards the league games your suggestion is it. The fact the current super 8' format reduces the season to that competition is bad enough as it is.

If we must have a playoff system go back to the old top five system. Yes if you are on for finishing, 6th, 7th or 8th your season is over but that is because you lost! And yes if you finish 5th it's a very hard path to the final but that is your own fault for finishing fifth.

I'm not a fan of the current structure, but it's only just been introduced, and it has achieved what it was meant to do to some degree as a championship team has won promotion, and the LLS has been decided in the final game of the season both years. All this talk about overkill is rubbish, teams used to regularly play each other 3 or 4 times a year in winter.
The fact is, any structure would work if we had enough quality players to play in the teams.

One simple reason points shouldn't be culled: they have been earned! Every 2 points you deduct makes an earlier match completely redundant. Just lost a game to your closest rivals? Don't worry, they'll have those points deducted soon to make it a bit easier for you to catch up. Madness.