Anyone else feel that they should have started with everyone on zero pts to make it a lot more interesting,the powers that be said it would be more competitive,there are 5 clubs going for top 4 with the other 3 plodding along with no chance whatsoever of getting top 4 due to points adrift.Mind you,would have been good just to hear the sky mob spluttering a outs Sts being beaten 3 times and bottom if gone on zero points.

It definitely needs something doing. The whole point of the play off system previously was to avoid teams having nothing to play for which is what we have now.

I appreciate that there needs to be some reward for finishing higher up whether that's just home advantage, you halve the points earned in the first part of the season or give one point per place with the top team starting on 8 points all the way down to 0 if you finished eighth.

The problem is all of it feels rather artificial but then I guess whole thing is anyway.

The teams in 7th and 8th being too far behind and having no chance of reaching the top four was always going to be a huge flaw in this new system. We seem to be making more effort than I expected but everyone knew it was 7 "dead rubbers"

The one thing that could possibly improve things would be to keep the current structure as it is but increase the 7 play-off games to 3 points for a win, that could work.

Top gets 4points
2nd 3
2nd 2
And 4th 1 so they have reward

Rest reset. Extra home game for top 4 as well. Enough of an incentive to aim for top four. But not dead for 3 teams by round 2 like this yr

Three of the clubs are effectively out of the running and don't have too much to play for other than some prize money for finishing higher. It's a shame, but we should have done better in the regular rounds. I didn't agree with the previous system whereby a team finishing in the lower half of the table were in the playoffs.

Should they change how they're doing it? Not sure. The only thing I can think of would be to stagger the starting points, so the top team after 23 rounds start on 7, second team 6, down to 8th who start on 0. Points difference reset to 0. This would mean that the 8th place side would only be 4 points from 4th place, which over 7 games is achievable, and an advantage is still retained for finishing as high as possible after 23 rounds. Just thinking out loud really, I doubt they'll change it so soon.

Wasn't this the point of "making every second count"

Fair play for trying something new.

What is everyone whinging about?
The super 8's is a good concept.
Just because our club is not in the running for top 4 doesn't mean the concept is a failure.
This is still the regular season anyway and for the top 6 or so clubs and for the middle 8 every minute does matter.
People whinged over the old concept as there was nothing to play for and now we try something new people still find something to moan about.
How about we as a club try to improve and become more competitive as is the aim of the revised format instead of blaming the concept for failing.

Calm yourself down, nobody is whinging, blaming the concept as a whole or calling it a failure. Just having a discussion on what could be done (if anything) to ensure all the sides (we're looking at 6th to 8th) have something to play for. As it's the first season of the new format, it's worth discussing.

I put in my own post that we should have done better to ensure we were within touching distance of the top4.

I can see where you re coming from as a Hull FC supporter, but would it not benefit the whole of SL if every side improved to a level whereby they actually gained an advantage for winning more games and could carry their league points over?

Don't you think that if sides lost all of the points that they won in the regular rounds at the start of the Super 8's that sides like the Rhinos would simply revert to t055ing it off again in the weekly rounds and miraculously just managing to squeeze into the play offs before going on to give it a proper go?

This is exactly what Hudgell was mentioning on Dumberside a couple of weeks ago. His fears, as i'm sure many other's, were exactly was has played out; those who scraped in to the 8 would have little to play for and those in the top 4-5 would fight it out for 7 weeks and then play each other another couple of times.

As good as it is for the spectator, it must be pretty frustrating for the likes of top 4 playing each other up to 5 times (2 x league, 1 x super 8's, 1 x top 4 fight off and potentially 1 x Challenge Cup). Add in to the mix pre-season friendlies etc and this is now a bit silly.

would have been much better, as some have already mentioned, to almost start everyone again just like the Middle 8's.

This said and had this been the case, then you may not have seen Leeds resting players tonight.....

Could be 6 with magic weekend.

What's it got to do with him???



I think if we were Leeds (god forbid) we wouldn't be having this discussion, but I think it might need a rejig for next year, based on the arguments here. Every minute counts for some, but not others at the moment

Maybe the answer is to have a separate competition before the split and to keep the incentive to win matches the RFL share a payment between the top four sides on the basis of where you finish.The top four would also enter the challenge cup one round later than usual.
That would then enable the super 8 competition to start with all teams on zero points with a lot more interest for the lower finishing teams.

How about halving the points going into the 8? Makes it closer but doesn't erase a team's performance in the regular season.

Don't think it should be revised so quickly. Emphasis should be on 6th, 7th & 8th to do better, surely?

We don't want decimal points do we? Not really ideal.

Going 8th then after today, same points as Catalans and Wire but worse points difference. Good to see Catalans hit some form, they've really underperformed this season.

Would you be saying that if Hull finished 4th and were reset to zero along with a team who finish 8/10 points behind you?

If Hull didn't want these last 3/4 games to be meaningless then they should've won more games in he regular season....not relay on a technicality to level the points up.

Same weakness as the 8-team play off under the previous format IMO. The lower teams are no more likely to make an impact now than they were then, regardless of whether the points are reset to zero or not.

Agree with Mrs B. It was always likely that Cats would win some of their home games and make it difficult for us to hold onto 7th.
We can still do it, but we need to find an 80 minute intensity we've been missing all season.

Catalans have a very strong squad, been hamstrung with multiple injuries for long periods this year coupled with poor away form. It's a shame for the comp IMO, would have liked to have seen them push Huddersfield out of the top 4 and maybe spring an upset.

There was something to play for...pride and also the mathematical chance of still making the top 4.
IF we had won the Cas & Leeds matches we'd be 5th 4 points behind a sliding Saints and a game against Hudds to come and no doubt a certain amount of dander/hope going into the last 4 matches.
All academic now as losing the match against Cas was the nail in the coffin but there was definitely something to play (and still is) in the S8s.
As for the suggestion of removing points and starting at zero, halving points, giving descending one point differential from 1st to 8th...wow, beyond stupidity.

So you think only the last two defeats have cost us potentially finishing third and one game away from the Grand Final?

I think this is beside the point and you have to take away everyone's loyalty to their club in this argument because this point could be applied to every club and we could say everyone should of done better to improve their final league position, but we know that that's not possible because not everyone can win every game they will always be a draw,winner and loser so you finish where you deserve to finish in the league.

I think a lot of people's argument with the new system is that the RFL said that every minute of every super 8s game would count but this simply isn't true as has already been pointed out on here that once we lost to cas then we realistically had no chance of making the 4 thus making our other 6 games meaningless(for us anyway), so only a few games in the all new exciting system has proven to have its flaws already.

But I don't think resetting the points to zero is the answer as well as I do think you should be rewarded for finishing higher but I'm not a huge fan of the new system or the playoff system anyway, I think it goes without saying we need the grand final as it makes for a great spectacle and show piece for RL but I think it should be just the top 2 after the regular rounds that should contest the grand final, having a top 8 or 6 playoff system just promotes mediocrity as teams like us see it as a success to finish in the playoffs when we should all be striving to be the best and finish in the top 2, then the bottom of super league would play off against the top of championship in a grand final style game for a place in the super league.

I think the RFL/SUper league sometimes over complicate things to try and make the game more exciting when sometimes keeping things simple is the best way.

The new system was contrived to allow a reduction in the number of SL teams, so fewer teams had a bigger share of the pot, a Super8/top 4 playoff to increase the number of games back to where they were before, and bringing back relegation, in name only, as the chances of promotion are pretty remote.