For me i have no issue in the Playoff winners being crowned champions even if it is a team finishing 5th. The problem i have is that teams can just coast through the regular season and into the playoffs. If you take the last 2 years then the best 2 teams were Wire and Wigan, but what if Leeds had played as well all year as they did in Sep/Oct, would they have topped the league, possibly? With the current system there is no incentive for them to play as well in the 1st 27 rounds, naturally you would expect any team to play to 100% every time they take the field but watch the Leeds team who won at DW in Sep and compare them to the Leeds team who were battered in June at Headlingley, and you can see the difference in mentality. We need to change that but im not sure what the answer will be, sadly the system we have seems to be the one that suits all 14 clubs best.

I have a passing interest/intense dislike of other sports, but apart from football they all seem to be regularly re-inventing themselves or introducing new competitions - cricket/yawnion. I haven't a clue who the league winners were in either of those last season but was fully aware of the media frenzy around their respective cup competitions. Interestingly, & I am not sure there is any relevance, but both of those sports appear to have a select bunch of players who never/hardly ever play league games, being reserved for international duty as that is the big money earner.

Hadn't half our team played for Great Britain the day/week before hence the changes? Don't think it was done out of dis-resepect or the like. I'm sure it was forced.

You're right it is irrelevant, let's look at centrally contracting RL players to an international team to play against whom?



No disrespect to the World Cup and the teams in it, but, seriously how many competative teams are there at the moment, would Austrailia and NZ fancy going down the same route?



There isn't a market for it surely? Not even on planet tigertot

You sir, are a right Charlie.



English Clubs haven't done too badly on the European stage over the years. In fact, in the last eight tournaments there have been seven finalists including three winners, one of which are the current holders, not a bad return?



Perhaps the national team is being hampered by the money getting thrown around at foreign imports? Something we need to be aware of?

I said the quality of the teams in the PL has decreased accross the board in the last couple of years, as has the quality of the English teams in the CL. Citeh have spent nearly half a trillion and can't get close to qualifying for the knockout stage, Chelsea have been exposed this season in the CL, and Man U didn't get out of their group last season. Yes English teams have done very well in previous years, but it seems clear to me the quality of the English teams involved is decreasing despite the millions of £££s being thrown around.



I'm not convinced the weakness of the national side is down to the amount of imports playing in the PL, even when English clubs dominated Europe in the 70/80s England were still pretty gash.