Totally agree! The trophy that now resides permanently in Wigans Trophy Cabinet, should be presented to the team that finishes 1st in the table after the weekly rounds and that team should rightly be deemed 'Champions!' The team that wins at Old Trafford should be officially crowned 'Play-off Winners!'

Always preferred it when it was league championship and Premeirship myself. Think this whole format is rubbish personally

Me also. It gave teams something to play for at the end of the season while still recognising the best side over the course of the season.

That said, RL has actually decided it's champions via playoffs for many more years than not. So I guess you could say that the current system is more traditional.


Up until this season it was OK. Given that the weekly rounds had odd fixtures and not every team had the same fixtures it was difficult to justify awarding the championship to the side that finished top as they may have had an easier fixture list.

Now that we have all teams playing each other once home and away the side that finishes top is unquestionably the best team. Plus the 8 team format seems just daft.

Well I'm glad a lot of people on here aren't running the game, we'd have the most boring and dull seasons going with no money or interest at all.

Nobody cared about the Premiership trophy. So no-one would care about getting into the top 8. Therefore, the season would effectively be over for pretty much the ENTIRE Super League after about round 10. The play-offs create constant interest throughout the year, which is what brings the fans in.

Unlike football, we don't have enough teams at a high level to have qualification for decent competitions (i.e. Champions League and Europa League) as well as promotion and relegation between two full-time leagues to keep interest in the season going (as well as the ability to squeeze in enough fixtures in the season to have 4 or 5 competitions running).

Football have an excellent system, but we are not football. We don't have their coverage. We have to accept that we need to find ways to make the sport interesting, and the play-offs have shown this.

I fully agree and have always really enjoyed the play-offs for their intensity and the quality of rugby on offer as teams "peak". This weekend's games have been tedious, of poor quality and with very disappointing crowds, though.

I disagree about the games tbh, I really enjoyed the Wakefield Catalans game
and thought Wigan Cas tonight was a good one, bothe could have gone either way. Don't see how they where tedious though?

Attendances where poor though, wakey only had 4,008 and the DW wasn't exactly full.

I agree with the suggestions of going back to the previous style of 1v2 grand final eliminator, great rugby, full houses and cracking atmosphere, stil don't understand why that was changed, the old playoff format was a winner IMO.

The only decent game was the elimanator last night..the others were boring, not sure about this format, players appear not willing to put their bodies on the line, things should improve now the matches are eliminators.

I preferred the top 6 rather than 8, that said with no relegation the top 8 gives more meaning to some of the end of season games. I hate the fact that one side has to pick their opponents, that's gimmicky and crap.

So in your opinion, we were not Champions in 1956 & 1958, as we won the Championship final but didn't finish top of the regular standings in both of those years.

For those who are unaware, it should be pointed out that play-offs are not an invention of Sky, but have been in existence for the majority of the games history being first played for in 1907.

Of the 99 teams who have been crowned Champions (up to Oct 200icon_cool.gif, 66 achieved the feat via a play off system with 33 doing so in a first past the post set up. A 2 to 1 ratio in favour of a play off.

The old Premiership was only introduced in 1974 to compensate the loss of a play off at the seasons end. If it was reintroduced now it would have half the impact of the SL play offs with little attention being paid to it by the general media and a far far smaller crowd at Old Trafford to climax the season.

Having said all that, I still reckon it should have stayed as a top six play off. The fact that Bradford and ourselves could have still qualified with a couple of weeks remaining, despite having had dreadful seasons, doesn't say much for the standard of the competition.

I enjoyed the result on Friday too, but agree that the best game was last nights.

The first 4 games effectively meant nowt, so there was little intensity in either of them. Only Leeds looked like they wanted the week off.

Think you mean the first 2 games Chris. The second 2 definately meant something as they were eliminators.

Cannot remember which poster said it but they should go with

1v2 for 1st final place

3-8 play till down to one team and they play loser of the 1st match.

This stacks the odds in favour of the top 2 reaching the final.

Yep - Monday lunchtime

How do you end up with one team to play the losers of the first game.If its 3v8 4v7 5v6 you end up with 3 teams through to the next round

Round 1

Match 1 5th vs 8th
Match 2 6th vs 7th

Round 2

Match 3 1st vs 2nd (winner to final)
Match 4 3rd vs lowest placed winner
Match 5 4th Vs highest placed winner

Round 3
Match 6 Match 4 winner v Match 5 winner (or highest placed winner at home)

Round 4
Loser of final eliminator vs Winner match 6 )winner to final)

seems the most sensible format for the playoffs.

Sensible is sometimes a euphemism for boring though. I think you have to embrace the excitement of the play-offs or the fairness of 'table-toppers are champions', or you can end up with the the worst of both worlds.

FWIW, I prefer the more open new system. The old system just felt like a mechanism for ensuring the table toppers contested the grand final, as if we were a bit embarrased to decide our champions via a knockout competition.

You never played in the old system so how can you have a prefrence



Booooooooooooooooooooooo

I've never played under any system SL - Neasden Junior High and Malet Lambert inter-form (champions!) was the peak of my achievement. I did [isee[/i it though, or some of it, at least. tbf, I'd probably be less keen on openess if we were regularly in the top 2.

We should be embarrassed to choose our champions by way of a knockout competition. We may as well just draw names out of the hat and play a big cup at the beginning of the season and get it over with.

How would it look if Catalans became champions when they lost more games than they won throughout the season along with a negative points difference.

A league provides you with the best team throughout a season rather than the best team over a period of 4/5 weeks.

That is a big chunk of RL history to be embarrased by. I think I'm correct in saying that Hull won 5 of their 6 championships in Finals. I am, I just checked. You were table toppers as well as champions in '35-'36 - the other 4 finals you won from 2nd (3 times) and 4th. In '23 you topped the League, but we were champions. The reverse had been the case '21.

Play-offs were generally top 4 (of a ~thirty team league), straight knock-out, so your point about Catalans is valid, I admit.
Things were further complicated by teams playing different numbers of fixtures (Leigh played 32, Leeds 38 in 1922-3 as one example of many) and the use of a win percentage co-efficient thingy.

Good rugby set up there..

True, although I think I'm right in saying that pre 1973 not every team played each other home and away. With that system having a play off series is perhaps fairer than the league leaders being champions.

i think the attendances on the weekend say it all. wakey 4000, saints 6000 and leeds 11000 wigan 8000. i think the've watered it down to much. bring back the top 6 please (even if this means we don't make it next year).

This is a very interesting point ! but does it make it fare ?
they would be seen as super league champions but they cant be classed as the best team of the season.

I heard the pundits on sky mention that the RFL have to come up with something to try and attract new followers to the game but just dont think this is the answer!

It's better that we're not in the play-offs because they are THE most boring and disappointing let down ever !!



Can anyone actually be ar$ed to watch the rest of this Hudds v Cats crap ???

It is the most negative, boring play-off game that I've ever seen. Talk about intensity, there just isn't any.