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Had a look at this back in 2005 based on bonus points being awarded for four or more tries and the losing team staying within a converted score (6 points) at full-time.

26 - Bradford, Leeds
25 - St Helens
24 - Huddersfield, Warrington
23 - Hull, Wigan
22 - London
20 - Wakefield, Widnes
14 - Salford
11 - Leigh

The upshot of applying those bonus points to the comp points would have resulted in four clubs switching positions Wigan moving from 7 to 6 and into the final play-off place (London 6 to 7) and Wakefield moving from 10 to 9 (Salford 9 to 10) albeit purely a hypothetical example as although based on actual results, without the system being in operation the incentives were not there to have any possible effect on tries or margins.


It was also pretty apparent teams routinely scored the four tries or more required and for the bonus to be meaningful in League it would require a higher threshold than in Union.

The 2012 SL Table if Championship style scoring system used.
3 = win, 2 = draw, 1 = lost by 12pts or less.

1 - Wigan - 68
2 - Wire - 65
3 - Saints - 61
4 - Catalan - 58
5 - Hull - 52
6 - Leeds - 51
7 - Hudds - 47
8 - Hull KR - 45
.........................
9 - Wakey - 44
10 - Bradford - 39*
11 - Salford - 34
12 - London - 28
13 - Widnes - 24
14 - Castleford - 22

*Bradford deducted 6pts, originally on 45pts but behind HKR on points difference so would've finished 9th.

So the differences are Leeds & Hull swap places, as do Cas and Widnes (which if P/R ever returned would be crucial) and HKR jump up to 8th.
Should be noted that HKR only won 10 games last year compared to Wakey's 13 but would've made the playoffs.

As Tvoc stated in his example though, it's hypothetical as teams knew they weren't playing for bonus points therefore some scorelines would've been very different.

Breakdown on losing margins in 2012

lost by 12pts or less / 13-24pts / 25pts +

1 / 7 / 4 - BRADFORD
4 / =#FF00008 / 9 - CASTLEFORD
4 / 5 / 0 - CATALANS
5 / 5 / 3 - HUDDERSFIELD
3 / 3 / 4 - HULL
=#FF000011 / 3 / 2 - HKR
3 / 6 / 2 - LEEDS
7 / 4 / 9 - LONDON
6 / 1 / 1 - ST HELENS
8 / 4 / 6 - SALFORD
5 / 4 / 5 - WAKEFIELD
3 / 1 / 2 - WARRINGTON
6 / 3 / =#FF000012 - WIDNES
5 / 1 / 0 - WIGAN

TOTAL - 71 / 55 / 59

................................................

Also whilst looking at the results I noticed that out of Leeds' 11 losses that the team who beat us lost the previous week 8 times out of 11..............one eye on the champions perhaps???

Compare with others
TEAM (LOSSES) Opposition lost week before - Opposition won week before

LEEDS (L11) 8-3
............................
HULL (L10) 2-8
CATALANS (L9) 4-5
SAINTS (Licon_cool.gif 0-8
WIRE (L6) 1-5
WIGAN (L6) 2-3 (1 result not applicable as it happened in the 1st week)
TOTAL (L39) 9-29

*Wire's sole defeat when they put a weakened team out against Salford.
*One of Wigan's defeats when they rested key players against Widnes.

See people accuse Leeds of not trying during the regular season, I'd say the actual answer is teams try harder against Leeds than others and focus more on putting one over on us at the expense of the previous week's fixture.

Or Leeds' attitude towards the regular rounds affords opportunities for points that shouldn't really be there ?

Or Leeds drop their preparation/intensity when facing opposition coming off a loss ?

Leeds are a tough team to beat when they want to be ..... getting them to want to be more often appears the difficulty and rather than looking outside the camp for excuses I'd concentrate inside the camp more and look for reasons then implement solutions, if they are concerned.

Perhaps, if the likes of HUll didn't meekly surrender 12-56 when Wigan arrived at the KC but pulled off a 34-20 victory over Leeds 2 weeks later. Or Wakefield's half-hearted effort of losing 10-52 to Wigan but 2 Rounds later beating us at Belle Vue 38-18. Did the opposition they played play better? Most likely but it's clear by them scorelines that those teams weren't as 'up' for those games as they were Leeds, otherwise they wouldn't lose by such an amount at home.

Funny how people talk about Leeds being lazy towards the regular season....seems more like some peoples explaination of results "oh they must not give a toss" is the real lazy thing here.

A lot can happen in three weeks as per your Wakefield example above. All results are a combination of two efforts, one team being off can see a score blow-out as possession can be dominated after the restart with teams scoring back to back tries.

If Leeds had arrived at Belle Vue and the KC stadium as well prepared and with the same mentality as Wigan showed then perhaps they'd have pulled off equally emphatic wins. I'm minded to conclude those results had more to do with Wigan's attitude in those fixtures rather than their opponents looking ahead to facing Leeds.

Wigan also left Headingley with another of those emphatic wins in the regular season.

I still view Wigan as a scalp and I'd be surprised if the majority of teams didn't take the same view.