Teams finishing 5th or 6th SHOULD NOT have a chance to win SL

[Damien]

1 minute ago, paul hicks said:

pity we don't have a league where everyone plays each other twice then. wonder if IMG or whatever there called would bring in a 14-team league and get rid of the playoffs. you know the big game at the end of the season that has the biggest attendance and brings in the money for the RFL.

Obviously not but that is not the reason we introduced play offs and is certainly not the reason we keep them. If you actually read posts it would be quite obvious that people do not advocate FPTP with an uneven fixture list.

[Big Picture]

4 hours ago, Gerrumonside ref said:

I can understand this perspective given the length of our regular season campaign is massive.

I know historically play off systems arose in different places, but let’s face it most sports are trying to ape the success the NFL has had with its playoff and Super Bowl structure.

I think part of the reason it works so well is that 32 teams playing 17 games is not exhaustive and therefore everyone is fully geared up for the playoffs and the chance to play in the ‘big one’.

We (and plenty of other sports) have kinda bolted on a playoff format to our league campaign that historically has nearly always bestowed the the title of champions to the end of season team in first place.

It's absolutely not true that most sports are trying to ape the NFL and the Super Bowl.  FYI the Super Bowl didn't exist before 1970 and those other leagues had playoffs long before then.

"Nearly always" eh?  FYI First Past the Post was used for only 25 of the past 115 seasons, playoffs were used for the other 90 seasons.  Playoffs are RL's traditional way to determine the Champion.

[Big Picture]

3 hours ago, DavidM said:

Yes sometimes playoffs seem designed to be complicated . In a 12 team league what’s wrong with 1v4 and 2v3

The flaw in that system is that if 4 and 3 both to win happen to win, which of them then wins the Final perhaps did so because of the lucky break of not having to play and beat both 1 and 2.

The Argus system used in the VFL (which later became the AFL) was the first attempt to solve that flaw, it gave the Minor Premiers a right of challenge: if they failed to play in the Final and win it, they could challenge the winner of the Final to play them a week later for the title in a Grand Final.  The flaw there was that sometimes the season would finish with a regular Final and sometimes with a Grand Final, it wasn't consistent.

The first McIntrye system with two Semi-Finals (1 vs 2 in the Major Semi-Final and 3 vs 4 in the Minor Semi-Final), a Preliminary Final replacing the Final between the winner of the Minor Semi-Final and the Major Semi-Final and ultimately a Grand Final solved that.  And that explains why the McIntyre Systems are the best playoff systems in existence.

With only 12 teams a four-team McIntyre system works well.

Edited September 17, 2022 by Big Picture

[Gerrumonside ref]

3 hours ago, Gomersall said:

Have we? 

In modern rugby league history, yes.

[Gerrumonside ref]

26 minutes ago, Big Picture said:

It's absolutely not true that most sports are trying to ape the NFL and the Super Bowl.  FYI the Super Bowl didn't exist before 1970 and those other leagues had playoffs long before then.

"Nearly always" eh?  FYI First Past the Post was used for only 25 of the past 115 seasons, playoffs were used for the other 90 seasons.  Playoffs are RL's traditional way to determine the Champion.

I think you need to reread my post properly before going off on one like you have here.

[Wholly Trinity]

1 hour ago, Damien said:

Just to pick up on these two points in bold. I simply don't see how you can complain about damp squib and dead rubbers galore under FPTP when that is what we consistently see under the play offs to a far greater extent. Under the old FPTP system teams still kept going to qualify for the Premiership as per now and tried to qualify in the top 8. We also had 2 or 3 teams relegated so more teams battling to avoid relegation. There was far more to play for than now.

Then you essentially admit the first 10 rounds under the play offs were a complete waste of time, that never happened under FPTP.

There is also nothing contrived about a league where everyone plays each other twice with the team that finishes top being Champions.

The point being dead rubbers were also common if not more so in fptp. The premiership was certainly low key, possibly the 4th competition after the challenge cup, league and regal trophy. Not really greatly celebrated and no real prestige.

The first 10 rounds were not irrelevant as they made Leeds' challenge all the more difficult. In fact their knock-out competition started a week earlier against Cas (double spit).

One of the reasons for the reinstatement of Championship play-offs was to get players more used to high-pressure one-off games and hopefully more competitive with Australia.

The idea that playing everyone home and away is fair and balanced is also overstated. In RL it really depends when you play which team, with injuries, suspensions and form fluctuating throughout the season. Playing Leeds at the start of the season under Agar was not the same as at the end under Smith. One of Toulouse's wins was against Saints. Cas played a Saints academy team.

FPTP is no fairer than any other system. The current system provides a guaranteed last game climax to the season. That's how sport should be.

Edited September 17, 2022 by Wholly Trinity

[Damien]

2 minutes ago, Wholly Trinity said:

The point being dead rubbers were also common if not more so in fptp. The premiership was certainly low key, possibly the 4th competition after the challenge cup, league and regal trophy. Not really greatly celebrated and no real prestige.

The first 10 rounds were not irrelevant as they made Leeds' challenge all the more difficult. In fact their knock-out competition started a week earlier against Cas (double spit).

One of the reasons for the reinstatement of Championship play-offs was to get players more used to high-pressure one-off games and hopefully more competitive with Australia.

The idea that playing everyone home and away is fair and balanced is also overstated. In RL it really depends when you play which team, with injuries, suspensions and form fluctuating throughout the season. Playing Leeds at the start of the season under Agar was not the same as at the end under Smith. One of Toulouse's wins was against Saints. Cas played a Saints academy team.

FPTP is no fairer than any other system. The current system provides a guaranteed last game climax to the season. That's how sport should be.

The Premiership regularly got around 35k at Old Trafford, considerably more than the Regal Trophy normally got, and was shown on Sky. If that was a 3rd or 4th rate cup then the game would kill for it now. Instead people now get excited about 35k for 3 games at Magic.

Of course FPTP is fairer. A league system in which every game counts equally over the course of a season is certainly fairer than one in which an entire season rests on one game at a particular moment in time. I'm happy to agree to disagree as there is little point in going round in circles.

[Gomersall]

43 minutes ago, Gerrumonside ref said:

In modern rugby league history, yes.

You never used the word modern in the post I replied to.

[Big Picture]

One point overlooked in this thread which just occurred to me is that the home field advantage in the playoffs is less in British RL than in other leagues because (Catalans and Toulouse excepted this year) the teams are so close together that travel isn't a factor.  It seems to me that in leagues with a greater geographic spread the home field advantage will probably be greater because visiting teams then have to travel further, a lot further in some cases.

[Gomersall]

33 minutes ago, Damien said:

The Premiership regularly got around 35k at Old Trafford, considerably more than the Regal Trophy normally got, and was shown on Sky. If that was a 3rd or 4th rate cup then the game would kill for it now. Instead people now get excited about 35k for 3 games at Magic.

Of course FPTP is fairer. A league system in which every game counts equally over the course of a season is certainly fairer than one in which an entire season rests on one game at a particular moment in time. I'm happy to agree to disagree as there is little point in going round in circles.

Double header.

[Wellsy4HullFC]

4 hours ago, Just Browny said:

I think we are confecting an argument here, I dream of us supplementing our domestic competitions with more internationals. I also think I am talking of losing perhaps 4-6 fixtures, not cutting the season in half.

I understand the premise, and I agree in principal. But you can't reduce the season without supplementing elsewhere otherwise it's just not going to be financially viable and this is the situation we consistently find ourselves in.

The only way I can see us reducing the league season is by expanding the Challenge Cup to group games.

[Damien]

20 minutes ago, Gomersall said:

Double header.

Only in the way the Challenge Cup now is with a lower league final tagged on to the main event. It wasn't two top flight games.

[Gerrumonside ref]

1 hour ago, Gomersall said:

You never used the word modern in the post I replied to.

I’m using it now

[Gomersall]

4 minutes ago, Gerrumonside ref said:

I’m using it now

[Gomersall]

11 minutes ago, Damien said:

Only in the way the Challenge Cup now is with a lower league final tagged on to the main event. It wasn't two top flight games.

A Challenge Cup with dwindling interest and played at a stadium 200 miles away from the “heartlands” in a trophy not many teams are interested in. It was still a final at an iconic stadium in Manchester. OT was fairly new to a lot of RL supporters. The two supporting acts will still have taken more fans to OT than they now do to Wembley.

Edited September 17, 2022 by Gomersall

[Gerrumonside ref]

3 minutes ago, Gomersall said:

Does it matter?  Did you even read the post itself?

[Gomersall]

4 minutes ago, Gerrumonside ref said:

Does it matter?  Did you even read the post itself?

Does it matter? Nah, nothing wrong with a bit of retrospect. Did I read the post. Of course. 

[The storm]

16 hours ago, The Daddy said:

Up to a few weeks ago Leeds and Salford were near the relegation zone, now Leeds are in the grand final and Salford still have a chance to get there. 

Wigan have played decent for the majority of the season while Leeds have been terrible for most of the season but Leeds are in the final based on a single match. Is that fair? 

Giving the 5th and 6th place teams an opportunity to get to the grand final demeans the integrity of the regular season games....and we wonder why attendances aren't as high as we want them to be. 

Because Leeds have been average for most of the season it detracts from the grand final in terms of excitement, coz in my eyes they've not been the 1st, 2nd or even 3rd best team in SL this season. 

There's also a wider argument to be had about whether the play offs and grand final devalues regular season games. 

 

Everyone knows the rules. 

 

It makes for great viewing

[Wholly Trinity]

Anyway, it's 1st v 5th and if Wigan hadn't lost one of their most potent attacking threats to injury (with 4 forwards on the bench) and then had a player sent off, it may well have been 1st v 2nd. These teacup storms are really overrated. 

IF Leeds win from 5th (again) they will have beaten 7th, 4th, 2nd and 1st in consecutive weeks of knock-out football - some achievement. 

COYS

[paul hicks]

3 hours ago, Damien said:

Absolutely none of that makes any sense at all.

many thanks just thought i would and to the rubbish that's already been posted

[Dave T]

At what point do we think people will just accept the competition and move on.  Because I think this is the last 25 years that we have been using a playoff system,  and still,  every single year,  we have this debate. 

Will that ever end? 

[moorside roughyed]

9 hours ago, Just Browny said:

No you expressed your opinion as fact. I specifically looked for any markers of opinion but there were none.

Get a life mate

[Damien]

27 minutes ago, Dave T said:

At what point do we think people will just accept the competition and move on.  Because I think this is the last 25 years that we have been using a playoff system,  and still,  every single year,  we have this debate. 

Will that ever end? 

Cant we say that about most things on here?

I certainly accept the competition we have and don't go around moaning about it. Whoever wins next week deserves to under the rules we started the season with. I've no complaints about that. I'm just stating my preference and hopefully justifying why I think that on a thread raised about it. I fully accept I seem to be in the minority on this, on this thread anyhow.

I can honestly say though I never recall a clamour for the introduction of the play offs in the first place and a return to the system we had in the early 70s. I fully accept though it was in the days before everyone used the Internet. Maybe we just moaned less then!

[Mr Frisky]

23 hours ago, The Daddy said:

Up to a few weeks ago Leeds and Salford were near the relegation zone, now Leeds are in the grand final and Salford still have a chance to get there. 

Wigan have played decent for the majority of the season while Leeds have been terrible for most of the season but Leeds are in the final based on a single match. Is that fair? 

Giving the 5th and 6th place teams an opportunity to get to the grand final demeans the integrity of the regular season games....and we wonder why attendances aren't as high as we want them to be. 

Because Leeds have been average for most of the season it detracts from the grand final in terms of excitement, coz in my eyes they've not been the 1st, 2nd or even 3rd best team in SL this season. 

There's also a wider argument to be had about whether the play offs and grand final devalues regular season games. 

 

They maybe should have set the rules at the start of the season do everyone knew where they could win the GF from..... hang on a minute....

[JohnM]

The play-off system ensures that the domestic season ends with a firework display, rather than a damp squib.

This weekends semi finals have had BBC Sports News coverage, with live commentary on Radio Five Live, as will the GF itself, extending the exposure of the sport.

I think that come Grand Final day, the negativity of a few fans will be forgotten and the vast majority of us, hundreds of thousands. In fact,  will attend or watch or listen to the game as the fitting finale to the domestic season.