Tony Smith video interview previewing Saints game, his ongoing thoughts on the play off system and the latest on "super" Benny Westwood "man of Steel" candidate. www.warrington-worldwide.co.uk/a ... Page1.html

Tony Smith video interview previewing Saints game, his ongoing thoughts on the play off system and the latest on "super" Benny Westwood "man of Steel" candidate. www.warrington-worldwide.co.uk/a ... Page1.html

My personal view point, I would rather simplify the whole process. 4 Teams play for the right.

1st plays 3rd

2nd plays 4th

Grand Final.

With just 14 teams involved in the league, it makes for a more logical end to the season for me. The top four in a play off. No home advantages, all played at neutral grounds.

I may be wrong but this would excite the fans, ensure full gates, and maybe make the other code and Joe Public tune into the concept of the RFL play off's.

Just an idea.

3 games on Sky instead of 9? That's about a million fewer viewers across the playoffs that they won't get ad revenue for - they'd never agree to it. Plus, as I've said before, I believe the problem is marketing for getting more viewers from other sports. If I didn't keep track of it all via this forum and the SL website, I'd barely know it was happening, as I've seen no adverts in the area or on the little TV I've watched. Not even the radio station we listen to at work mentions it, and it's a West Yorkshire station!

4 would be better than 8, but like Jaywire said Sky would never allow it. The problem with your idea though it that teams would try to avoid coming top, and be aiming for second instead. Did you mean 1st v 4th and 2nd v 3rd?

I reckon a six team playoffs is about right, because there are likely to be six decent sides in Super League over the next few years, i.e. the same top 6 as this season. Then if any other sides like Bradford or Hull KR manage to break into this it will be a decent achievement.

As Smith says - they key issue is actually ensuring people understand the competition.
I am forever having to explain the rules to people - and often have to think twice myself.
The old Premiership top eight system (when we beat Halifax at Elland Road with Sir Les Boyd) was a pretty good end of season fair from memory?
Think that included a great away day win at the old Central Park on route to the final.

It might be accepted in many of those foreign places, but the concept of deciding champions by a playoff system simply doesn't sit comfortabley with the majority of british sports fans. IMO this is why the early stages of the playoffs, which should be the biggest and most important games of the season with each one getting bigger than the last have never been popular with fans.

Dump the playoffs, dump the magic weekend and dump two teams from SL. A 12 team league playing eachother home and away for 22 rounds can then be split into a top and bottom six where each team plays all the others in their half home and away, another 10 games. Every team starts the season with 16 guaranteed home games. The season ends with a climax as every week, for the last 10 rounds, there would be 3 crucial games (more if you include the battle for the 'spoon'). The champions would be universally acclaimed as the best team in the Northern Hemisphere and not the luckiest.

Team that finishes top, straight into GF

Winners of 2nd v 5th play winners of 3rd v 4th to go into GF

That way finishing top means something, and gives you a proper reward, Sky get 4 hopefully DECENT games and you have four teams with a fairly equal chance of reaching the final as opposed to now where we know anyone below 5th has knack-all chance.

and you've got a team that doesn't play for 2/3 weeks going into a GF cold.

... can't have it all ends up. We didn't exactly look sparkling in last years play-offs having finished top did we? For all our squad rotation this year we're still carrying players less than 100% and patched up going into the most important game of the season. Bet TS would have killed for two weeks off to regroup and get troops fit.

nah, last thing you want to be sat around not playing, its been shown in the past when 1/2 had weeks off, they then struggled, you dont want a week off before a big game, you need something to harden you.

With a 10 team league i suppose you could make it work but only just.
27 games
9 home
9 away
9 neutral to help grow the game, we could have 9 magic weekends across the country?

I can't see clubs agreeing to drop from 13 homes games to 9 per season, plus if every third week fans have to travel to Cardiff, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leicester, etc it wouldn't take long for the novelty to wear off and those crowds plummet.

That's were the marketing bods (new decent ones on a better salary) try to get locals in to the games.

The NRL is unbalanced. 24 rounds between 16 teams.

How about 13 home and away games each with one neutral (magic). The extra fixtures, play each team once. Magic weekend to have 1v2, 3v4, etc from previous season. Location for the rest of the extra fixtures are decided by a random draw before the fixtures are announced, each team has 4 extra home and away games.

Teams may end up with more easier games at home, but that's the luck of the draw. League positions mean nothing anyway in the grand scheme of things when it comes to a playoff system that decides the title.

Old top 5 playoff system.


As Tony has said before, you can have as many rounds as you want, we make them up anyway (aka magic weekend).

Although I agree, the introduction of "battle" before "harden" might have helped? OOOERR Missus

I happen to get quite excited by the play offs, QUITE excited.

To be fair I was only trying to make Yed's idea a little more realistic as 9 neutral games would hit teams too much in the pocket.

Something has to be done. IMO it's reducing the teams. How the league format would change would take a fair bit of thinking though. I know others want 2 divisions of 10. Some just want P&R back.

Back on topic, the playoffs should not be rewarding mediocrity. Anyone who loses more than they win should not be competing for the title. This isn't a dig at Wakey in anyway, they knew the rules, played by them and earned their spot.

I would say top 6 based on a 14 team league. Problem is, probably only teams in 1-8 only have a realistic chance of making the playoffs with a 1/3 of the season to go leaving the other 6 with nothing to play for. Maybe 2-3 of these still trying to avoid the wooden spoon but 3 teams season would be over by round 18 unless a miracle occurs. And no, I don't want P&R back to keep the games alive in the basement battles.

It'd never happen, but I do think the 12 team, split after 22 rounds, league would work very well, especially for Sky. Not only do they get the huge last 10 rounds (imagine a mini league of Wire, Wigan, Saints, Leeds, Catalan and Hull with 3 televised games every weekend for example), but they also get the battle to get into the top six which would start around round 18 or so.

Admittedly, after 22 rounds the bottom six would have little to play for, but that's not really that much different to how things are anyway. Perhaps something could be introduced as an incentive for the bottom six whether it be prize money or even first pick of any OOC players at the end of the season.

True that. I'm sure we've all had the same "Surely the champions are the team that finishes top of the league? How can it be someone else?" conversations countless times down the years.

That's probably one reason why they don't generate interest from more casual sports fans, because most simply don't like the concept, then when they hear the complexities of how the fixtures are worked out it just sounds over complicated and daft.

I think the play offs need to stay, but I would favour a system where every game is a knock out with no second chances, which would in turn also guarantee no repeat fixtures.

Exactly. You explain the fact that we don't plat first past the post and then have to try to explain and/or justify why a team that loses in the first round can still win the final. (and why we have two sets of semi finals as I had to explain last week)