In fact i think huddersfield have had a pretty cushty time of things.

Get the opportunity to be one home game away from grand final.

Lose.

Now they get another chance and a home game to get to the semi again.

I think the great thing about the current playoff system is that there are pretty good positives for all teams in the top 5.

Well this systems been in place 2 seasons.

We've has 1st vs 2nd.

and err... 1st vs 2nd

And guess what?

This season will be 1st v 2nd/3rd.

You get 2 bites at the cherry and a home game to begin with.

Unfortunately for once R_R downplayed the significance as he failed to mention that Wigan also supplied every player (for both sides incidentally) in the mid-season England V Exiles match as well as having to fit the re-arranged Castleford game in mid-week also.

Put that one down to Jamie Peacock bizarrely suggesting starting the SL season with a bang rather than a whimper. What the heck was he thinking of other than to disadvantage the reigning Champions even further obviously. Don't recall his suggesting this to open the '08, '09 or 2010 seasons. Strange that.

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By finishing 2nd you should have earned the right to a home semi-final over 27 rounds, otherwise what's the reward or point beyond qualifying where it's harder not to qualify.

You shouldn't then have to put that at risk by playing the 3rd placed team - not when there are cushy formalities given to the teams finishing 5th and 6th.

You can still get that. You just have to win a home game against a team that placed lower than you.



5th and 6th have knockout games right from the start and will have to win away from home to get there, that's a certainty.

Cushy formality is complete opinion and not fact.

I believe to be crowned champions a team needs to be able to win high pressure games against their rivals as well as consistently beating teams week in week out. I think the current format balances those reasonably well.

Try as I might, I'm afraid I just can't get upset about any perceived iniquities in the present play off formulae. Nor I suspect are the players and coaches of the other teams who are in the mix.

You know what the SuperLeague set up is before the season's kickoff, and I prefer to expend my energy on supporting my team, rather than than attempting to rewrite the rule books.

Personally, I'm delighted with our weekend result, and look forward to our clash with Hudds, which could be an outstanding match, although I think we'll get a very harsh reality check the week after.

You could look at all the playoff formats we've had and put in decent arguments for and against aspects within them.

Look at the old format and the massive weight in advanatge from 2nd place to 3rd place when theoreticallythe placing could decided on just points difference yet 3rd would have to win 3 knockout games (one away from home) to make the final and 2nd had 2 bites at the cherry and needed to win just one game.

I think bar the club call the current format is the best we've had and generates the most money as theres more games involved.

Is it true that Wigan have not had a week off since the start of the season?
Maybe tvoc would kindly confirm that for me.
Plus has it ever happened before?

Well according to Eddie Hemmings, correct me If i'm wrong tvoc, but they haven't had a week off all season, what with the CC and WCC.

Les Catalans 56 Hull KR 6

Leeds Rhinos 42 Hull FC 10

Yes I can see your point.

Hindsight.

I can see tvoc's point. The playoff format seems to have been designed with a close competition in mind, there are only small differences in finishing a few places up or down within the eight but the league table often shows massive differences between those clubs as we do not have a close competition

Top 5 from 12 teams would be my preference

So where's the advantage for finishing 4th over 5th?

Getting a 2nd bite at the cherry isn't exactly a positive when it's almost inevitably going to be needed, and 5th get a home game (which you've said is a positive thing for 2nd) whereas 4th don't? 5th also get the privilege of playing the lowest ranked team left in the competition, at home. A team that's lost as many games than they've won, at home.

Huddersfield were always going to have to play 3 games to reach the final. If you'd have asked them which 3 games they'd have preferred...

Hull at home, Leeds away, Warrington away (if they'd finished 5th)
Warrington away, Leeds at home, Warrington away (now they've finished 4th)

I'd much rather have our option.

Look at last year... We were capable of a performance that beat the eventual champions. We just weren't capable of it TWICE. If we do the same this year (i.e. play out of our skin and beat the league leaders on their own patch) we're in the Grand Final. Last year, even though we finished in the "better" league position, doing that very same thing still wasn't enough to get us to the final, because we had to do it twice.

If we'd have finished 5th last year (not 4th), we'd have played Crusaders at HQ, then Huddersfield away, then that winning performance at the DW would've been the only time we played Wigan, we all know what happened there, and we'd have been in the final.

It's probably going to be 1st/2nd/3rd in the final anyway, so it's all irrelevant, but finishing 5th is much better than finishing 4th in my opinion. And it shouldn't be.

And for that reason there was a tangible reward for finishing 1st and 2nd under both previous systems (top 5 and top 6) that ended with reaching the Grand Final at the 1st attempt or having home advantage with the 2nd chance.

Earned over the course of the Regular Rounds keeping them meaningful.



In large measure those extra games this season have arguably been an embarrassment to the sport and called into question the worth of putting 100% commitment into the 27 weekly rounds that preceded them. Hopefully Warrington and Wigan will still prevail and give the sport a fitting finale at Old Trafford.

If they don't then the RFL should reconsider the positioning of the Challenge Cup within the calendar so that it doesn't continue to negatively impact what should be the pinnacle achievement in the domestic game.

Unfortunately, I seem to recall that during the SL licence announcements Richard Lewis said that the Challenge Cup will stay as it is for the foreseeable future.

Win 2 games to get to the final instead of 3. 2 bites at the cherry. The opportunity to get a home semi final. That's alot of advantages right there.



Leeds didn't need it last year. They won to make and put themselves in the best possible position to make the grand final. Wigan showed what worthy champions they were by playing an extra game then de-throning the 3 times champs on their own patch.



5th have a knockout home game. 2nd places game isnt knockout and if they win it they go through to a home semi whereas 5ht place if they win have to go away from home and win 2 more times to make the final

Yes. That's a positive. Should it all be suicidal misery unless you finish in the top 2 at which point you get an armed escort straight to old trafford?



That's opinion not fact. The facts were they could have made the final in 2 games, one being at home. That's a definite advantage over 5th.





Complete and utter speculation. Didn't we lose to crusaders last year? Whos to say we'd have won? and we'd have been playing wigan after 2 tough playoff games.

You might as well just say if my auntie had balls she'd be my uncle.



I respect your opinion but the facts show that it's wrong.

Does any of this even matter anyway?

Every season bar 1 the winner has come from the top 2, no matter what system we've had. If a team ever wins it from lower down, i thin their peformances over the playoffs will warrant it.

1st-3rd = Good Teams
4th-6th = Average Teams
7th-8th = Poor Teams

To make the final Huddersfield (4th) will have had to play two good teams and one average team.
Leeds (5th) will have had to play one poor team, one average team and one good team.

I would 100% rather finish 5th than 4th. Which is just crazyness!! Either way... the fact that we're even debating, and that some people will agree with me, even if others don't proves my point.

There should absolutely no question at all, that under no circumstance it would be BETTER to finished lower down the table. Whether you agree with my theory or not, the point is, at the moment, it's DEBATABLE (because here we are debating it!), and there should be 100% no doubt, no debate, no argument that every position higher you finish is better for you.

IMO it matters that the best two teams as determined over the course of a credible Regular Round season get to contest the Grand Final in the game to decide the Champions.

Under the present system a team from outside the top two (just as occurred last season also) have gained home advantage in a Elimination Semi-Final that their regular season did not warrant.

A situation that couldn't occur during the play-off formats used from 1998 to 2008.

Under this format there is an increased possibility that the best two teams as decided over the course of the season may not meet in the final to decide the Champions and IMO that prospect diminishes the importance and integrity of the Regular Rounds and the season as a whole.

People often refer to the Challenge Cup as Mickey Mouse and this play-off format is in danger of doing the same to the SL.

What about clubcall happening every round. First place gets first pick, 2nd gets 2nd pick unless they were picked etc.

To throw a spanner in too, whoever wins each game takes over the higher seeding, so if 1st chose 8th and lose 8th become top seeds and get first pick next time. You are only as good as your last game and all that!

Top two dont get knocked out after the first round. They get to be the "little snotty kid with the glasses who gets picked last" in the next round.

For everyone else its win or bust.

You could even have a 14 team playoff!

It's all opinion, not fact. Your 1st point is subjective. The quality of the teams in each position will vary year on year.

The fact is, finishing 4th you have to win 2 games to get to old trafford finishing 5th you have to win 3. Therefore finishing 4th is better than 5th.

Then just have 1st vs 2nd grand final and scrap the playoffs.

Top 5 was my favourite format for the quality of teams we had in the competition.

Extending the playoffs only works if you have [iat least [/i6 teams who are realistically capable of (and deserving of) winning the GF. I'd love to see a situation where we had several quality teams jostling for the advantage of home playoff games and second bites etc. This would be more credible if there was little between top teams and [iany[/i advantage in the playoffs could be crucial, even a home game. This is not the case and the top 8 system we have seems to be more about levelling the playing field and keeping crap teams in the frame for longer. An attempt to artificially project our competition as something it isn't.

In a more even competition I don't see why the system should be overly biased towards 1 and 2 getting to the final, but we haven't got a more even competition.

Having said all that I'll laugh my "cock off if (as small a chance as it is) the Goons get eliminated next round. A veritable tsunami of trolls would overwhelm even the uber-moderators of Cherry&White. They'd have to switch the board off completely.

Yeah, they'd have gone from apocolyptic inducing worldwide dominance, to errr, just the 1 title on the trot.

Warrington fans will be the same when they win it this year - 'decade of domination' etc etc.

That was supposed to be the general idea as laid down by the RFL 1998 to 2008, in creating formats that favoured higher League placings and ensured a home semi-final for the clubs finishing 1 and 2 and why not as those placings were earned over the preceeding 23 to 30 rounds depending on the League format at the time.

Sure, pretend it's something more, sell a few tickets and fill a few evenings on Sky Sports but ultimately it was all geared to deliver 1 V 2 at Old Trafford for the final showdown.

Move away from that basic concept and IMO run the risk of invalidating the worth of the bread and butter weekly rounds.