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3 hours ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

You've essentially just said what we currently have except you've given an extra team (3rd) a bye to the semis.

Isn't the McIntyre system based on second chances? This one has none. It's just a straight knockout format with a bye for top seeds.

I did like the McIntyre systems, I thought they were very creative, but unfortunately your average punter over here doesn't get it and it's proven quite a turn-off on the terraces. A straight knockout with byes for top seeds is far easier to explain. Drop all the ridiculous round names ("elimination playoff" and "qualifying playoff" are completely unnecessary overcomplications).

Quarter final, semi final and final.

Easy.

If we ever go to 14 teams, do top 7 and only give the league leaders a bye. Exactly the same as top 6 except 2nd plays 7th instead of getting a bye. Easy adjustment.

Straight knockout playoffs have a flaw though and the McIntyre systems remedy that flaw.

If four teams make it and you have two Semi-Finals followed by a Final, the top seed could be eliminated in the Semi-Finals and then the eventual winner gets a break by not having to play them.  An example of that occurred in English RL in 1947-48 when Wigan finished first but lost their Semi-Final, then Warrington won the Final without having to play Wigan.  Variations with more teams make such outcomes even more likely as the top seed has more chances to miss out on playing in the Final as happened in 1967-68 when top seed Leeds lost out in the second week of the playoffs giving second seed Wakefield an easier route to the title.

The original four team McIntyre system introduced by the VFL in 1931 finally solved that in a consistent way after the previous Argus system led to different-length playoff series in different seasons depending on whether a Grand Final was needed or not, obviously not a desirable outcome.  The five team McIntyre system simply extends the series by adding an Elimination Final and a Qualifying Final the week before the Semi-Finals.

In short the McIntyre systems are the best playoff systems in the world.

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3 hours ago, Big Picture said:

Straight knockout playoffs have a flaw though and the McIntyre systems remedy that flaw.

If four teams make it and you have two Semi-Finals followed by a Final, the top seed could be eliminated in the Semi-Finals and then the eventual winner gets a break by not having to play them.  An example of that occurred in English RL in 1947-48 when Wigan finished first but lost their Semi-Final, then Warrington won the Final without having to play Wigan.  Variations with more teams make such outcomes even more likely as the top seed has more chances to miss out on playing in the Final as happened in 1967-68 when top seed Leeds lost out in the second week of the playoffs giving second seed Wakefield an easier route to the title.

The original four team McIntyre system introduced by the VFL in 1931 finally solved that in a consistent way after the previous Argus system led to different-length playoff series in different seasons depending on whether a Grand Final was needed or not, obviously not a desirable outcome.  The five team McIntyre system simply extends the series by adding an Elimination Final and a Qualifying Final the week before the Semi-Finals.

In short the McIntyre systems are the best playoff systems in the world.

I do like the McIntyre system, don't get me wrong. The balance out reward well in terms of league standings. I'm a normal world, they'd work very effectively. However, the issues with it in SL are that they add an extra week to an already long session, they are likely to give even more repeat fixtures (1st often plays 2nd twice), and the general public struggle to follow it and often ridicule the basis of getting a second chance. I think it's best to keep it simple.

 

Isn't the Australian system also the McIntyre system? If Souths had won, they wouldn't have had to beat Melbourne.

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37 minutes ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

Why is 4 your cut-off?

It's been around the 50% mark since playoffs began. Make it too small and teams will have nothing to play for very quickly in the season.

Top 4 plus relegation means every clubs has something to play for. 

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1 minute ago, NW10LDN said:

Top 4 plus relegation means every clubs has something to play for. 

Even in a 12 team league I don't think that is particularly true. The 5 Teams in positions 6 to 10 (11th if the relegation fight is a non contest like last year) means that nearly half the League are out of it mathematically with rounds to spare.

Reducing to 12 was supposed to be about tighter contests. 1st, 2nd, & 3rd shouldn't really be that much better than 5th - 8th. We shouldn't be worried about that too much.

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10 hours ago, Gerrumonside ref said:

Does that mean ditching the successful Grand Final format?

 

 

Yes. Play offs tend to attract far lower crowds than the regular season and give a poor impression of what we claim to be a showpiece time of the season.

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23 minutes ago, Chris22 said:

Yes. Play offs tend to attract far lower crowds than the regular season and give a poor impression of what we claim to be a showpiece time of the season.

Although the playoffs have lower crowds than regular season games, the same cannot be said for the Grand Final itself which is arguably the biggest domestic occasion now and has the largest attendance of any club championship game usually in the U.K.

If you’re going to get rid of it for a straight league format then aren’t you concerned that a lot of revenue would be lost to Super League?

I can understand your argument on sporting merit, but I’m not sure it stacks up financially.

 

 

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I never understand the everyone needs something to play for arguments and it is something I rarely hear in other sports. The play offs are to decide the league champions, why should a team finishing half way down the table have something to play for? They shouldn't, they forfeited the right to be league champions through their form throughout the season.

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1 hour ago, NW10LDN said:

Top 4 plus relegation means every clubs has something to play for. 

Teams in 6th-11th would have had very little to play for for a large chunk of last season as relegation was sewn up and the top 4 only in reach of the odd team not already in it.

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1 minute ago, Damien said:

I never understand the everyone needs something to play for arguments and it is something I rarely hear in other sports. The play offs are to decide the league champions, why should a team finishing half way down the table have something to play for? They shouldn't, they forfeited the right to be league champions through their form throughout the season.

Because you're trying to sell tickets to people and give them a reason to invest in a match. The pure one-off match to determine who is the best between those two sides in that day isn't enough for many people: they want it to go towards a long term goal too 

In football, and even rugby union, there are plenty of places available for clubs to qualify for other competitions (like Europe) but we don't have that in rugby league so we need to offer something else.

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1 minute ago, Wellsy4HullFC said:

Because you're trying to sell tickets to people and give them a reason to invest in a match. The pure one-off match to determine who is the best between those two sides in that day isn't enough for many people: they want it to go towards a long term goal too 

In football, and even rugby union, there are plenty of places available for clubs to qualify for other competitions (like Europe) but we don't have that in rugby league so we need to offer something else.

Well don't be surprised when qualifying for the play offs is devalued and the season turns into a procession towards the latter end of the season. There's lots of team in football that have nothing to play for as the season goes on, certainly more than what is the case in RL. No one complains, that's sport.

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Any comparison with the NFL is invalid because reasons behind their play off system and Super Bowl Final are completely different. In that sport it is a very needed solution because the geographical spread and conference structure dictates it.

In RL it was once done because teams didn't play each other an equal number. An uneven fixture list is not the reason we have it now, as we still had a Grand Final in seasons without loop fixtures. We have the play offs and Grand Final for a big glitzy, night at Old Trafford.

Some of the posts sum up everything that is wrong with the play offs. They are a fudge. Some want more teams qualifying so everyone has something to play for but dont actually want the said teams to stand a chance of winning. Others want the league placing to be fairly rewarded so that the team that finished top has the best chance of winning and to achieve that you need a convoluted structure that skews the play offs. Others want a top 4 straight knockout which means that league placing really dont matter. There are probably more variations too.

I love the Grand Final but the play offs aren't the best method to decide the league champion. They are a glorified cup competition where you need to peak at the right time. A league champion should be the best and most consistent team over the course of the season. I do also think the play offs have an adverse affect on much of the season because much of it doesn't particularly matter for the top teams. We just dont have enough strong teams for them to work as it does in the NRL.

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1 hour ago, Gerrumonside ref said:

Although the playoffs have lower crowds than regular season games, the same cannot be said for the Grand Final itself which is arguably the biggest domestic occasion now and has the largest attendance of any club championship game usually in the U.K.

If you’re going to get rid of it for a straight league format then aren’t you concerned that a lot of revenue would be lost to Super League?

I can understand your argument on sporting merit, but I’m not sure it stacks up financially.

Of course it doesn't stack up financially, why else do you think they continued having playoffs years ago when they switched to awarding the championship to whoever finished first and invented a contrived new trophy for them?

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It does seem that where you have a league format followed by playoffs and a final then you will always get complaints that the team finishing top of the league should be the champion regardless of what follows.

When you break the league into conferences at the outset as the NFL did during its evolution then the justification for playoffs and a final is much more credible.

As it stands in 2021 it will take a brave administration to axe the Super League grand final in favour of a straight league format with no money spinner showpiece.

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2 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

Of course it doesn't stack up financially, why else do you think they continued having playoffs years ago when they switched to awarding the championship to whoever finished first and invented a contrived new trophy for them?

Yes, that is my question to Chris.

How do you recover the lost revenue?

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44 minutes ago, Damien said:

 

I love the Grand Final but the play offs aren't the best method to decide the league champion. They are a glorified cup competition where you need to peak at the right time. A league champion should be the best and most consistent team over the course of the season. I do also think the play offs have an adverse affect on much of the season because much of it doesn't particularly matter for the top teams. We just dont have enough strong teams for them to work as it does in the NRL.

I agree with you that the finals are a glorified cup competition, but I don’t think anyone needs to apologise for that. That is its exact intention anyway. A glorified knockout. 

Being from Aus you and I are culturally opposed and I absolutely think that the finals and GF is the best way of determining the Champions. Whilst understanding the merit of a League Champion similar to the Prem’ League, my argument favouring finals football is that the regular season is simply a means to an end. It’s not a league Champion, just a Champion. The higher you place in the regular season, the more favourable your draw in the finals. This system allows coaches to tweak combinations and strategies over the course of a season, but it’s the finals where a coach and team get the opportunity to deliver their best performance taking on board all the lessons learned over the course of a season. It’s no different to a WC, Euros, Champions League.

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9 hours ago, LlanWests said:

There are too many SL matches. 21 rounds is enough. 

21 is a bit of a weird choice but we definitely play too many games and start too early in the year.

"We'll sell you a seat .... but you'll only need the edge of it!"

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33 minutes ago, Damien said:

I never understand the everyone needs something to play for arguments and it is something I rarely hear in other sports. The play offs are to decide the league champions, why should a team finishing half way down the table have something to play for? They shouldn't, they forfeited the right to be league champions through their form throughout the season.

Take the premier league though, having multiple things to play for means there is more to talk about in any given season.

The title race is effectively over, the bottom 4 now will be the bottom 4 in May. Yet there is still loads to keep people interested.

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I agree with others that the biggest reason for lack of turnstiles in finals is because there are too many regular season fixtures. The exclusivity in meeting your opponent and most importantly, your biggest rival does not exist, because you may meet them four times before meeting in the finals.

Its primarily a supply and demand issue.

Im interested. Do posters think the Hull derby would sellout if the two clubs were only guaranteed to play each other twice a season?

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28 minutes ago, Gerrumonside ref said:

Yes, that is my question to Chris.

How do you recover the lost revenue?

To be fair the Premiership used to average 35-40k when at Old Trafford. There's no reason to think this couldn't be the same and more if it returned.

Then we had higher Challenge Cup final crowds, which seems to have been cannibalised somewhat since the introduction of the Grand Final. We also had higher Challenge Cup semi final attendances. Whilst there may be some other factors at play too the Grand Final seems to have become a case of putting all your eggs in one basket when previously there was a better spread of big matches and a wider spread of income.

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25 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

Take the premier league though, having multiple things to play for means there is more to talk about in any given season.

The title race is effectively over, the bottom 4 now will be the bottom 4 in May. Yet there is still loads to keep people interested.

That wasn't the point to be fair. We were talking about teams having things to play for and play offs. Even now in the Premier League there are probably 6 teams that will have little to play for when it comes to the league and we are barely halfway. No one complains or wants a convoluted competition to give the team in 14th place a chance of being champions. The mere suggestion in Football would be laughed at. You do not need play offs to decide a league champion to give more teams something to play for, the old Premiership did that without the glory of being the champions, or things like the Regal Trophy. There are other ways.

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4 minutes ago, Damien said:

That wasn't the point to be fair. We were talking about teams having things to play for and play offs. Even now in the Premier League there are probably 6 teams that will have little to play for when it comes to the league and we are barely halfway. No one complains or wants a convoluted competition to give the team in 16th place a chance of being champions. The mere suggestion in Football would be laughed at. You do not need play offs to decide a league champion to give more teams something to play for, the old Premiership did that without the glory of being the champions, or things like the Regal Trophy. There are other ways.

I think they don't need it in football because they have created it through other means.

In RL we don't have big occassions beyond the Cup Final, which like all domestic cups has seen a general decline in status over recent years. Our only high profile international tournament is every 4 years. A guaranteed climax to a season

That explains the commercial reasons behind why the Grand Final exists.

From a sporting context too, the League then GF is chosen by competitions all over the world because it provides the best test of a team in both the long duration of a season and intense heat of a final. A team who can't do both isn't a Champion team at that point.

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