Imagine if you finished top by ten points after 23 rounds, got all your points taken away, got a few injuries and poor ref decisions in the 8s and ended up finishing outside the top 4...

Widnes chairman just creamed himself too early this season when they won their first 6, probably got giddy with Leicester fever and put his house on at the bookies that they'd finish top 4 and now he's looking for someone to blame

That's Weirdness for you

Everyone whinged when it was a top 8 playoff. Resetting the points to 0 effectively brings that back.

Top 4 playoff is fine.

Imagine if you finish 9th in SL, get all your points taken away, have an injury crisis at the end of the year and end up being replaced in SL by 4th in the championship......

Hey good point, never bought of that!

Yeah, reckon he'll get a ban for such a disgraceful interview.

yes man to hettherington


which one we dont know lol

Who said anything about getting banned for that interview? It was more aimed at your statement that Rule made a "casual " throwaway comment to the media.

Everyone else could recognise that from my original post. But I realise from your posts that you are clearly not very bright and you need it pointing out.

Not amount of emojis is going to compete with that.

To be honest the Super 8s are boring as only the Top 4 a competition. Should be top of the league Champions then a Superleague Trophy for the Top 8? Why put Widnes v Hull on TV when obviously Widnes season is over?

If we are honest widnes probably thought they had nothing to play for at the start of the season, bleating about it now won't help. After 6 games if you'd asked him I bet his view would be completely different!

It's fine. When the RFL succeed in completely levelling out the competition every team will finish on the same points anyway.

That is James Rule for you. Always something to play for at the beginning of the season, and that is to avoid the bottom 4.So I disagree with you on that point.

Bloody drama queens.

Posted at twenty to three, am, and doesn't it show.

Meaning???

Go sit down and have a think about it.

Over and out.

100% agree

Er, yeah

Laters, twerp.

I dunno if this has already been said but there's 12 pages to go through and I don't have the time.

A change I'd like to see is for all 3 groups to have their season points carried over. At the moment you have SL clubs in the bottom 4 of the division realising that maybe top 8 is beyond them so shutting up shop, waiting for the qualifiers to regroup. Be a different story if there was a more realistic chance of those teams getting relegated.
This will also help improve the championship in a number of ways.
1) Championship clubs are more likely to get into SL and so would benefit from increased funding as well as getting tv exposure and larger crowds.
2) the increase in monies for championship clubs would better allow them to hold on to their best juniors and improve their own training facilities. It could even see more championship clubs being able to afford to go full time.
3) more full time clubs means we can increase the player pool in this country and that more than the nonsense about quotas will help reduce our reliance on overseas players and help British teams be more competitive on the international stage.

The only real downside I can see is that some clubs might be forced to make knee jerk reactions to sign players or sack coaches

Given that the gap between the SL clubs and the Championship clubs after the regular season was almost more than the points available in the 7 games , what would be the point , Leigh had 43 points so would have been already promoted

But if there was a chance of automatic promotion and relegation would Leigh have taken as many points? Wouldn't other teams in the league have pushed harder for the win rather than look at the first 23 rounds as a glorified pre-season? And would Leeds and Huddersfield have fought harder if there was a greater chance of them going down?

And why should teams who've played consistently well over the season not be rewarded while teams who've spent the year acting like they've never been in a game before be rewarded?

It wouldn't increase the funding for Championship clubs and that points system doesn't work for the Middle 8's.

Featherstone would be the lowest ranked Championship side on 30 points, while Leeds would be the top SL side on 16.

Leeds would have to win all 7 games and Fev lose all theirs to maybe catch them on points difference, the other three SL sides would be straight down..

I am aware of this, but that doesn't make it right.

We already have a salary cap to even out the competition. Why therefore do we need to also have a competition that tries to be all inclusive as well.

In theory the salary cap should in itself be enough, and therefore a first past the post system should be acceptable.

If you want to have the argument that the salary cap alone is not enough, then you are making an argument for the end of the salary cap as it fails it's biggest (only?) objective.

How would it not increase funding? Bigger crowds, more sponsorship and then final payments for their finish position the following year

I don't think the current system is that bad. Yes some teams are out of contention but being realistic most teams chances of winning something are dead and buried once they are out of the CC. Instead of looking at Widnes, lets look at Cas who started the super 8's 9 points behind 4th spot, effectively ruling them out of the top 4. Yet they have gone out and beaten 1st & 3rd already in their first 2 games even though there is no real chance of them catching Saints in 4th.
Those teams out of the running for top 4 can plan for 2017, they have the benefit of trying out youngsters who may well be good enough to make the grade but don't get the chance during the first 23 games through fear of being in the bottom 4. They also have to be a more appealing club to potential recruits than those who are in the middle 8's thus giving them an upper hand over those in the middle 8.
The only other option that could be plausible would be to have a secondary plate competition for those who finish 5th-8th but then you are just going back to rewarding mediocrity.