Awful day given some of the scores, how anyone can say that the current number of clubs can be sustained with scores like today is beyond me.

As a Product RL works just not in its current format.

So which teams should go? Widnes and Hull KR presumably. The teams that a few days ago beat Hull and Warrington.

1/10

1?

Ok so you think the scores today have been accetable?

Come on?

Really?

Actually 0/10, I gave you 1 mark for punctuation but I realised you put the 'p' on product as a capital

Neither have your posts hence the contempt this has been treated with. Leeds lose today and it's 'told you so', win, as they did, and you still try crawl out of it. -1/10

0/10

According to our esteemed CEO of the RFL Mr. Nigel Wood yesterday... [url=http://www1.skysports.com/rugby-league/news/12204/8610534/RFL-chief-Nigel-Wood-says-Super-League-most-competitive-ever-Super League this season is compelling, outstanding, the best and most competitive season to date, and demonstrably the best sport in the world![/url

<cough>

Sadler wrote a piece a week or two back pointing out some cricket scores that occured during a 12 team SL season. Also, the NRL threw up a 50 nil score this weekend.

tinkering with the number of clubs.....again.....will not address the issue.

I think the results (as risky as drawing conclusions from a small number of observations is) suggest that a few of the games today have revealed a gap that is less about quality and more about professionalism and preparation. The big contenders could put a second performance together, some of the others clearly couldn't.

The gap in base-line quality isn't really indicated by the Thursday/Friday scorelines.

Some of the teams that got big wins against more fancied opposition on Friday didn't back it up today.

Wigan fielded 14 or the 17 that played on Friday. Didn't seem to do their performance any harm.

It's less about size of squad, more about attitude and preparation.

Agreed.

I bet if you could acquire the data you'd find a strong correlation between the amount of time the average payer spends in the boozer nad the magnitude of the Easter Monday collapse.

Just speculating, but I'd be surprised if I'm wrong.

Read something from Jason Davidson in the YEP in which he talked about how he and other coaching members had this trip to France and how they were going to do it all planned and sorted 8 weeks ago.

Also read something from McDermott last week after the cancelled Wakefield game that the groundsman (who keeps an eye on the upcoming weather) told him 10 days before the game that they'd be a very good chance that the match might not go ahead due to snow and McDermott said ''we were aware this might happen and we've got contingency plans in place''.

You'd have to wonder and doubt if every club are as well planned and prepared.

SL is so much more competitive and intense these days. If only a handful of whipping boy SL rabble clubs could somehow learn how to be more planned and prepared and back up from playing 3 days earlier.

There were some bad scores today, however as already stated Hull KR hammed Hull, Salford turned over Fartown, Widness beat the Wire and London nearly beat the Dragons. Because of some of the surprising results on Friday teams were going to pay for Fartown and Warrington losing. Yes there is a gap in class, but results like Hull KR being hammered by Wigan are one off results. People should stop knocking the product.

I was at the HKR game (I wouldn't call it a match) and yes Wigan played some very fast open rugby, their speed and accuracy of passing was a delight to watch. However, some of the Rovers one on one tackling was unbelievably poor. I wouldn't have expected a Wigan U16 side to defend like that.
Why has this happened? Well I would argue that it's one of the consequences of removing Reserves, U23, U21, U20 over the years. The majority of U19's players are not ready for this level of competition.

Wild, negative extrapolation from one set of results follows last week's wild, positive extrapolation from the opposite set of results.

Anyway, you might as well lose to Wigan because their ultimate position in the table won't affect their inability to win the competition.

I couldn't agree with this more!!!! Its totally true........

I think we should dock the number of teams to 8, as in my opinion there are only 8, maybe 6 teams which could actually win the Super League. I would have:

Leeds - Good stadium, excelent academy, good crowds, rugby league heartland etc.....
Wigan - Good Stadium, excelent academy, good crowds, rugby league heartland
Bradford Average Stadium, good crowds, excelent academy, rugby league heartland
St Helens - New Stadium, excelent academy, good crowds, rugby league heartland
Catalans - Good stadium, produces French players, in a good geographical area
Hull FC - New Stadium, good academy, good crowds
Huddersfeild - New Stadium, good team, good academy, average crowds
Warrington - New Stadium, good team, average academy, good crowds

I'd scrap all the rest and make them feeder clubs for the other remaining Super League teams:

Leeds - Feeder club Castleford
Bradford - Feeder club Wakefeild
Wigan - Feeder club Leigh?
St Helens - Feeder club Widnes
Warrington - Feeder club Salford
Huddersfield - Feeder club Halifax?/Featherstone?
Catalans - Feeder club Toulouse?/London
Hull FC - Feeder club Hull KR

It seems mad but this is what the Aussies do and it works. I hate coping the Aussies but I think this system would really work and make Super League the most intense League in the world. You'd have a big game every weekend!

Or we could just keep the teams and drop the two games in one weekend nonsense that we only keep hanging around because that's how it's always happened.

I would say it was classic Cas syndrome. Beat your big rivals, and get bragging rights, but it takes so much out of you. With 2 games in a few days there were going to be cracks, and the teams that took a pasting yesterday were the ones with good performances on good friday

Only play one game over Easter, ditch the magic weekend & use that for the second easter game.
I bet the crowds would increase rather than suffer.

Leeds fielded 18 players over the two games. Wigan fielded 20 players over the two games.

For the likes of Betts, Sandercock, Rae and Millward to stand up with a straight face and say it favours those clubs with bigger squads takes some cheek. Perhaps if they put some work into figuring out how you manage a short turnaround to get the best out of your players they might find their Easter Monday performances don't stink the stadium out.

Blaming the fixture list for your team simply not being bothered to put in anything resembling a professional performance is cowardly.

They were probably going to think about it on Saturday, but decided to go to the boozer with a few of the lads instead... Maybe.

What has Leeds Rhinos excuse been for regularly not putting in anything resembling a professional performance during the regular season and finishing 5th two seasons running?