I really don't get how anyone could be complaining about playoffs to decide the champions after watching both semi finals and the game last night. Three high intensity games with the added drama of all of the teams playing for their seasons. It's a fantastic way of ending the year. Being champions is as much about being able to hold your nerve against the best teams in season on the line rugby as it is being able to consistently beat the weaker teams.



I personally would rather go back to the old top 5 playoff system as teams would have to go all out every game, whether to make the 5 or to hold their place within the 5 in order to maximise their chances of getting to Old Trafford, but if we really have to have an 8 team playoff than it should look like this.



Week 1



qualifying playoffs

1st v 4th

2nd v 3rd

elimination playoffs

5th v 8th

6th v 7th



Week 2



elimination semifinals

highest qual po loser v lowest elim po winner

lowest qual po loser v highest elim po winner



Week 3



qualifying final

highest qual po winner v lowest qual po winner

elimination final

highest elim sf winner v lowest elim sf winner



Week 4

preliminary final

loser qualifying final v winner elimination final



Grand Final

winner qualifying final v winner preliminary final

Quote ="RL13"You're not comparing like with like though. For starters, a play off series in both the NRL and NFL is a practical necessity. This is down to ambiguous nature of their regular seasons. There is no clear-cut clarity to who was the most consistent team since none of the teams barely even reach playing each other twice. In the NFL (from what I gather anyway, since I'm not a huge fan) there are 32 teams playing in 8 conferences, and each team plays 16 fixtures. How can anyone be certain to who was the best team that year when dealing with such vagueness? In the NRL - 16 teams each play 22 fixtures. There's 8 lacking fixtures of ambiguity right there. Most Sydney teams play each other twice, which tend to be more intense (due to the rivalry), so the non-Sydney teams may have a slight advantage. Plus, during State of Origin games, most of the players from the top teams go missing, and they have to contend with that disability. There is no logic in having regular season champions in these prestigious organisations. Super League - we have one extra game, which hardly creates any uncertainty or what ifs. Certainly not to the scale when Rugby League previously had a play off system (pre-74). This again was necessity - 30 teams couldn't play each other twice, as it would have taken ">FOREVER.'" Well said. More people should read that. You might as well say the team that wins the FA Cup in football should be the Champions. Thats a better comparison to the structure of the NFL and the NRL than the SL is!

Quote ="RL13"You're not comparing like with like though. For starters, a play off series in both the NRL and NFL is a practical necessity. This is down to ambiguous nature of their regular seasons. There is no clear-cut clarity to who was the most consistent team since none of the teams barely even reach playing each other twice. In the NFL (from what I gather anyway, since I'm not a huge fan) there are 32 teams playing in 8 conferences, and each team plays 16 fixtures. How can anyone be certain to who was the best team that year when dealing with such vagueness? In the NRL - 16 teams each play 22 fixtures. There's 8 lacking fixtures of ambiguity right there. Most Sydney teams play each other twice, which tend to be more intense (due to the rivalry), so the non-Sydney teams may have a slight advantage. Plus, during State of Origin games, most of the players from the top teams go missing, and they have to contend with that disability. There is no logic in having regular season champions in these prestigious organisations. Super League - we have one extra game, which hardly creates any uncertainty or what ifs. Certainly not to the scale when Rugby League previously had a play off system (pre-74). This again was necessity - 30 teams couldn't play each other twice, as it would have taken ">FOREVER.'" Well said. More people should read that. You might as well say the team that wins the FA Cup in football should be the Champions. Thats a better comparison to the structure of the NFL and the NRL than the SL is!

Quote ="Peter Kingsley"The reality is it means nothing for the weekly rounds. We've had 15 years of the grand final and on only 3 occasions has someone outside the top 2 won the competition. Teams will still try to finish as high as they can because if you finisng in the top 2 you have - 2 home games to get to the grand final with a week off. If you finish lower it is more tricky. Finishing in the top 2 will be still be the main priority for title challengers and that will give them the best chance of winning the competition. Leeds have an exceptional record in the grand final, it's the same spine that won 3 grand finals on the trot, an unprecedented achievment and they've managed to overcome the handicap of a lower position to win the trophy again. They are worthy of the tag champions. Top 8 is too much, but we have what we have and that's the way it's going to. It's nowhere near as detrimental as people are making ">out.'" I imagine they will, and whilst not suggesting teams would aim for 5th I do think Leeds twice winning it from 5th has exposed an anomaly within the playoff system, vis, that whilst the top 2 teams are potentially only 2 games from the final, 5th place can get there in 3 games including a Week 1 home fixture against 8th. When you add to this the fact that their Week 2 opponents will have come back from an away fixture against 1st (unless they beat them) it suggests, to me, that coming 5th isn't as disadvantageous as it should be in order to encourage a real race for the top. The league element accounts for 90% of the competition, after all, so I think league position should affect your playoff structure in a way that it currently fails to; none of this 5v8 or 2v3 nonsense.

Quote ="Peter Kingsley"The reality is it means nothing for the weekly rounds. We've had 15 years of the grand final and on only 3 occasions has someone outside the top 2 won the competition. Teams will still try to finish as high as they can because if you finisng in the top 2 you have - 2 home games to get to the grand final with a week off. If you finish lower it is more tricky. Finishing in the top 2 will be still be the main priority for title challengers and that will give them the best chance of winning the competition. Leeds have an exceptional record in the grand final, it's the same spine that won 3 grand finals on the trot, an unprecedented achievment and they've managed to overcome the handicap of a lower position to win the trophy again. They are worthy of the tag champions. Top 8 is too much, but we have what we have and that's the way it's going to. It's nowhere near as detrimental as people are making ">out.'" I imagine they will, and whilst not suggesting teams would aim for 5th I do think Leeds twice winning it from 5th has exposed an anomaly within the playoff system, vis, that whilst the top 2 teams are potentially only 2 games from the final, 5th place can get there in 3 games including a Week 1 home fixture against 8th. When you add to this the fact that their Week 2 opponents will have come back from an away fixture against 1st (unless they beat them) it suggests, to me, that coming 5th isn't as disadvantageous as it should be in order to encourage a real race for the top. The league element accounts for 90% of the competition, after all, so I think league position should affect your playoff structure in a way that it currently fails to; none of this 5v8 or 2v3 nonsense.

Quote ="Dougy"For those employed: If you were paid based on your performance in just one month of the year, would you struggle to work your hardest for the other 11 months?'" eusa_doh.gif" alt="icon_biggrin.gifOH:" title="DOH" /> Once again you show you have no idea about how elite athletes are conditioned or the nature of sporting form and confidence. Given that Hetherington said the Leeds team would have been dismantled and many players released had they not at least got to the Grand Final during the poor mid-season run it is implausible to claim that they were not "working their hardest". Unfortunately they were not, at that time, able to win as many games as they wanted.

Quote ="Dougy"For those employed: If you were paid based on your performance in just one month of the year, would you struggle to work your hardest for the other 11 months?'" eusa_doh.gif" alt="icon_biggrin.gifOH:" title="DOH" /> Once again you show you have no idea about how elite athletes are conditioned or the nature of sporting form and confidence. Given that Hetherington said the Leeds team would have been dismantled and many players released had they not at least got to the Grand Final during the poor mid-season run it is implausible to claim that they were not "working their hardest". Unfortunately they were not, at that time, able to win as many games as they wanted.

Quote ="Offside Monkey"I can't be bothered to go through all 24 pages, but surely there's no point in having a playoff to decide the champions and then complaining when a team placed 5th win it? I don't like the current playoff schedule, but Leeds beat 3 of the 4 teams that placed above them in the league (away from home). The only team higher up that they didn't beat were Saints and, let's face it, they've never worried about knocking them out before. In the majority of years, the GF winners have been from one of the top couple of places, we've had two years (out of what, 13?) where a team has won it from 5th, but this happens to be a group of players that, even before their 2011 victory, had achieved a pretty special record. As long as they've got Sinfield leading them and can manage to get Peacock taped back together for the final, they'll continue to impress on the big day. Don't deny the achievement, or indeed the romance of what they've done over the last 6 years. To do so would make you look like a bitter, whinging, sore losing misery guts. Its other teams jobs to take the trophy from them. Saints, Wire and Wigan have all beaten Leeds plenty of times in the weekly rounds, but fall short on the big day. You can't tell me that Leeds "just aren't trying" during the weekly ">rounds.'" eusa_clap.gif" alt="eusa_clap.gif" title="CLAP" /> eusa_clap.gif" alt="eusa_clap.gif" title="CLAP" /> eusa_clap.gif" alt="eusa_clap.gif" title="CLAP" /> eusa_clap.gif" alt="eusa_clap.gif" title="CLAP" />

Quote ="Offside Monkey"I can't be bothered to go through all 24 pages, but surely there's no point in having a playoff to decide the champions and then complaining when a team placed 5th win it? I don't like the current playoff schedule, but Leeds beat 3 of the 4 teams that placed above them in the league (away from home). The only team higher up that they didn't beat were Saints and, let's face it, they've never worried about knocking them out before. In the majority of years, the GF winners have been from one of the top couple of places, we've had two years (out of what, 13?) where a team has won it from 5th, but this happens to be a group of players that, even before their 2011 victory, had achieved a pretty special record. As long as they've got Sinfield leading them and can manage to get Peacock taped back together for the final, they'll continue to impress on the big day. Don't deny the achievement, or indeed the romance of what they've done over the last 6 years. To do so would make you look like a bitter, whinging, sore losing misery guts. Its other teams jobs to take the trophy from them. Saints, Wire and Wigan have all beaten Leeds plenty of times in the weekly rounds, but fall short on the big day. You can't tell me that Leeds "just aren't trying" during the weekly ">rounds.'" eusa_clap.gif" alt="eusa_clap.gif" title="CLAP" /> eusa_clap.gif" alt="eusa_clap.gif" title="CLAP" /> eusa_clap.gif" alt="eusa_clap.gif" title="CLAP" /> eusa_clap.gif" alt="eusa_clap.gif" title="CLAP" />

Quote ="MjM"icon_biggrin.gifOH: Once again you show you have no idea about how elite athletes are conditioned or the nature of sporting form and confidence. Given that Hetherington said the Leeds team would have been dismantled and many players released had they not at least got to the Grand Final during the poor mid-season run it is implausible to claim that they were not "working their hardest". Unfortunately they were not, at that time, able to win as many games as they ">wanted.'" perhaps its you who has no idea. Elite athletes cannot force there bodies through the pain barrier when the end result has no consequence on whether you win the title or not. Could you bash your body to its absolute limit for 27 weeks when you know its only the last 4 games that matter? Its psychological more that physical. You could certainly push your body further if you knew that every single game counted at the season's end. Every single victory mattered, every single try scored mattered - but they don't, not until week 1 of the playoffs anyway. That's why this season has been the worst as a spectacle since SL began. It could get progressively worse unless the playoff format is changed.

Quote ="MjM"icon_biggrin.gifOH: Once again you show you have no idea about how elite athletes are conditioned or the nature of sporting form and confidence. Given that Hetherington said the Leeds team would have been dismantled and many players released had they not at least got to the Grand Final during the poor mid-season run it is implausible to claim that they were not "working their hardest". Unfortunately they were not, at that time, able to win as many games as they ">wanted.'" perhaps its you who has no idea. Elite athletes cannot force there bodies through the pain barrier when the end result has no consequence on whether you win the title or not. Could you bash your body to its absolute limit for 27 weeks when you know its only the last 4 games that matter? Its psychological more that physical. You could certainly push your body further if you knew that every single game counted at the season's end. Every single victory mattered, every single try scored mattered - but they don't, not until week 1 of the playoffs anyway. That's why this season has been the worst as a spectacle since SL began. It could get progressively worse unless the playoff format is changed.