Which examples would you like? The New England Patriots side which won every game but lost the SuperBowl? Saracens this year? 90's Buffalo Bills? Up until 2011 the All-Blacks RU side? Parramatta? The Dutch national team of the 'total football' era? Take your pick.

Any you like, it's fun disagreeing with you...

Ermm, hang on a min! Every Major rugby competition?
So the major comps apart from ours are NRL, Super Rugby and Aviva, top 14, and pro 12?

Super Rugby has 15 teams, and 18 games.

You play everyone in your country twice, you play 4 from another country away, and 4 from another country at home. And you do not play 2 teams at all.

so once again you are WRONG!

so every other major rugby competition?

How about the NRL?
Can you please explain to me how they have a balanced season if there are 16 teams, and you only play 24 matches? To me a balanced season with 16 teams would mean 30 games (15 home, 15 away) so once again, not even remotely balanced.

Again, you are WRONG!

So just the Aviva Prem, pro 12 and top 14 then?

And as i previously said our season is balanced bar the ridiculous idea of magic weekend which makes our season unfair. It would work as a round of the CC but adding in a Wigan Sts game whilst Wire play Salford when wigan and wire are going for the LLS is ridiculous.

I have a question, do you believe that if you spout enough **** people will just believe it?

you want me to take your pick. Fair enough. Parramatta. We good now?

I'm good... You will always believe you are right, so its fun just listening to you ramble on as you compare our money starved sport to those funded by millions. You have not mentioned Formula one yet...

Fair enough, every major rugby competition in this hemisphere, the aviva prem, pro 12, top 14 and french elite.

But not us. And not because of the magic weekend, we havent had a season where everyone played each other home and away for 15 years. The Magic Weekend hasnt even existed for half of that. But then you have decided to ignore that and claim we have a balanced season and it is silly to have play-offs and a gf under a balanced season and no one else would do it. Except the Aviva Prem, Pro12, top 14, who actually do have a balanced season and pay-offs and a GF.

A play-offs and GF should only be used in leagues which play each other an uneven number of times, like Super Rugby, the NRL, the NFL, the NBA, The MLB, The ITM cup, and Super League. But not super league because we are pretending we have a balanced season. Which we dont have and havent for 15 years.

Nor lingerie football. Or squash. Or tennis. Or kabbadi. There is a really good sport to watch called Sepak Takraw. Its like a south-east Asian version of head tennis but they use this weird bamboo ball and you have to be really agile, I havent mentioned that. Its really good, check it out.

The 6 nations and Tri nations are the biggest 2 round robin comps in RU and neither use a playoff.

The reason for that might, and im just speculating here, but the reason the two biggest RU round robin tournaments don’t have a league + play-off structure might be because they are round robin tournaments. The single game Bledisloe cup doesn’t have a play-off either. Because it’s a single game.

The ITM cup does have a league+ playoff structure though, as does the Currie Cup, it even has a balanced league (unlike us) Super Rugby does, The anglo-welsh cup does, the European challenge cup does, the Heineken cup does. In RL the French elite one championship does (again with a balanced league which we don’t have) The NRL does, the NZ national competition does.

It is in fact, quite difficult to find a club rugby competition of either code which doesn’t have a league + play-off structure, and outside European Football, it is fairly difficult to find a whole lot of sports of any kind that don’t have a form of league + Play-off structure

I love Smokey trying to hang onto any form of credibility, give it up man! you have been proved wrong so many times im not even sure you know what is right and wrong any more.


I wonder what he will try and defend next, given that the basis of his current argument is that we need play offs because we have magic weekend (hey smokey, why not just get rid of Magic) and have a FAIR league system to every team!

It is shocking that someone would argue that we need a Play off system because we have an extra fixture that ruins the fairness of the competition.

Even with Magic, our competition is far to balanced to have a legitimate claim to a Play offs system.

Ps, look at all the other comps with a balanced season and play offs, the play offs are VERY SMALL! Aviva (and pro 12) has 2 less teams than us in the comp but has HALF the number of playoff teams. Top 14 has 2 less with the top 2 going right into the semi finals.

Our competition is flawed, but please continue to support it to the hills, whilst attendances and interest in our game drops.

but please, come back and pick up on the points you wish and ignore the ones you cant win an argument on, I will look forward to laughing at you once again.

Because as what happened clearly illustrates timing of injuries is everything in a knockout competition. It would be the same if Bradford and Saints had got to the CC final and one team lost its scrum half, loose forward and hooker for the final. The odds would be against them and it would not be "there fault" and no one would daft enough to suggest it would be.

As to Leeds in 2005 I thought they were not a full strength either but the only team sheet I could find suggested they were. My recollection is they also lost key players which made Bradford even firmer favourites to do what had not been done before - win it from outside the top two. Both teams above them were weaker than expected. I thought this at the time and have mentioned several time on here and elsewhere in the past I regret not having had a bet on Bradford as to me it seemed blindingly obvious they were favourites. Bradford's strength and Leeds and Saints weakness was not down to anything else but luck and the fact they didn't take advantage of the higher league finish they had wasn't their fault.

Why would we? We don’t need to, the fans enjoy it, people attend it, the TV company absolutely loves it, we have a play-off and GF to decide our champions. Why would we want to get rid of those things?
I don’t think we need a play-off structure because of the unfairness of the league structure. I don’t think it matters, like it doesn’t in the French elite or Currie Cup, or Aviva Prem, or Pro 12, or Top14. It’s your argument that we should only have a play-off under an unbalanced league. Im just pointing out to you we don’t have a balanced league. Even if we did, it wouldnt make difference to whether we should have play-offs or not. Leagues which are balanced like the Currie Cup, Aviva Prem, Pro1 top14 and French Elite have League + Play-offs, and unbalanced ones like the NZ national Competition, the NRL, and Super Rugby also have league + play-offs.

im not going to repeat why you are wrong here. You can just look back and read it.

I think apportioning blame for getting injuries in this context would be a strange concept. I wouldn’t blame Saints for those injuries but these things do happen and can happen under a league structure. St Helens finished top by 3 points, that’s only two games. The same issue would arise had that Wigan Saints game been 2 games before the end of the season, Saints get a shed load of injuries at that point, lose their last two games of the season and end up 2nd on the league ladder. Leeds finished 2nd by 3 pts that year, and lost 2 of their last three after the CC final, when they had lost Senior, and had a forward pack which were falling to pieces against, one of those losses came against a Wire side Leeds had put nearly 50 points on only a few weeks earlier. These things happen.

Bradford had injuries at the beginning of that year, including losses in the first two weeks to Wakefield and Widnes sides which spent the rest of the year only being slightly better than the famously awful Leigh side which got 4 points in the whole year. Bradford had won 8 in a row going in those play-offs beating both Leeds and Saints. Injuries effect all teams, its not about fault really, its just a fact of sport. Injuries happen, you do the best you can in spite of them, they happen and always will.

my god reading this thread is painful

DON'T READ IT!!!!!

Just put paraffin on it...

No but the 6 nations and Tri nations have a league without playoffs and they are the 2 biggest comps outside the World Cup itself but for some reason you are dismissing them!

Im not dismissing them. Im saying they are round robin tournaments its quite clear they aren’t going to have a league + play-off structure. There are also international tournaments. Nobody is saying round-robin tournaments don’t exist. They are however in the minority and it doesn’t help your point to highlight that rugby championship (as it is now) and 6 nations are round-robin tournaments and big ergo better than league-playoff tournaments and then point out the only bigger tournament is one which uses a league + play-off structure.

Are you being serious? You do know a round robin tournament is a league? As in the football Premier League?

So you're trying to argue all the biggest RU comps have playoffs but 2 of the 3 biggest RU comps that don't have a playoff don't count because they are round robin tournaments??!

read what you wrote and i responded to again. It should become clear.

Also by what measure are we declaring these two of the three biggest RU Comps?

And also there are obvious practical reasons why mid-season international tournaments look to a more set structure in that the logistics takes more planning and player releases need to be made from clubs.

And lets be clear on your twisting and turning like a twisty turny thing. What i actually said in the post you quoted was [iIt is in fact, quite difficult to find a club rugby competition of either code which doesn’t have a league + play-off structure, and outside European Football, it is fairly difficult to find a whole lot of sports of any kind that don’t have a form of league + Play-off structure[/i It should be obvious but let me point out that neither the 6 nations nor Rugby CHampionship (the tri-nations doesnt exist any more) are [ia club rugby competition of either code [/i

You are obviously differing a robin robin tournament and league structure.

The RU World Cup needs playoffs because not every single team in the competition plays each other. In round robin tournaments all competing teams play each other at least once and each other the same amount of times. Once that is complete the team with most win/points is declared Champion. There is then no point in making them playoff off against each other again!

So, according to you a play-off and GF is needed to declare a champion only when clubs dont play each other the same amount of times. For the past 15 years Super League has not had a league season where clubs play each other the same number of times.

Though of course many competitions do play each other the same amount of times and have play-offs and a grand final to declare the champions.

In fact whether they play each other the same amount of times or not, it is very difficult to find a club rugby competition anywhere which doesnt decide its champions by a grand final.

What we can see from this is quite obviously, that whether you play each other the same amount of times like the Currie Cup, Aviva Premiership, Pro-12, top 14, Elite One, or you dont like the NRL, Super Rugby, NZ National Competition, and Super League, club rugby competitions throughout the world, invariably, decide their champions by a play off/Grand Final.

We'll agree to disagree Smokey!

I believe a league with everything balanced is the fairest way to decide a champion and you don't.

The irony is my OP wasn't to scrap the playoffs but merely reduce the competing teams that qualify to increase the standard of the regular season that I am finding increasingly meaningless.

and as i say, you are fine to believe that. Its a personal preference. Im just saying that what we are doing right now is the most common way of doing things in rugby.
And to re-iterate my response to this. I can understand why it can feel meaningless, but that is down to the disparity between top and bottom, not the number of teams in the play-offs.

If right now there was say 6 points between Wigan in 1st and Widnes in 11th, rather than 14 points, I don’t think this argument would be happening.

I think it should be less than half no matter what. I think less playoff games would mean the playoffs we do have would be better attended

I’ve said before my ideal structure would be 18 split in to two conferences play your own conference twice home and away giving you 16 games and 4 home, 4 away and 3 neutral games against the other 9 teams, giving a 27 round season. top 4 in each conference go to play-offs, straight knock-out 1st in conference A v 4th in conference. B 2nd conference A v 3rd Conference B etc.