Top 7 (i.e. Top half of the league)



1st gets week 1 off (Bonus for winning the league)



2v7

3v6

4v5



Week 2:



1st vs Lowest Place Winner

Highest Ranked Winner vs Remaining side



Every game is a knockout, no second chance. No club call. And a definitive benefit to finishing first.





Most of all though, I'd have the challenge cup final a month earlier in July, to give more distance between the final and the playoffs.

Quite a few different suggestions on here, I'd go back to the Top 6. Are we all agreed that Clubcall should go?

Spot on with that mate.

Same here. It's a matter of changing the emphasis onto the importance of the league season. Sky changed the emphasis, it's time to change it back.

I agree with odem regarding league champions (yes CHAMPIONS) not league leaders. if it is a continuation of the league then team finishing 1st should go straight into the final as reward for finishing top. at the moment there is very little recognition for CHAMPIONS apart from home draws(wow!!!),and a hubcap*.If it is a different comp from league then leave it the same as it is and call winners GF winners GF champions not overall champions. See simples!!!!!

Id have it just the top 4



1st place - Straight to Old Trafford

2nd place - Straight to final eliminator



3rd would then play 4th (3rd gets home advantage)



2nd place team v winner of 3rd/4th match (2nd place team gets home advantage)

Or.....maybe your team could learn how a Super League title is won, no matter what position you finish. Leeds have won from 1st, 2nd and 5th. That's bona fide Champion quality, no two ways about it.



Do you honestly think if Spain had a 100% qualifying record for Euro 2012 and then won every match but lost the final, we would be suggesting they are the real winners? No chance.

I'm not going to be a pedant (as you appear to be brain dead)



But a wire fan can claim they are league chapions, league winners, league detroyers or whatever they want.



Wire on the league. Leeds won the playoffs. (Notice how the playoffs wren't in a leagu format; they were in a playoff format)



Your euro anolgy doesn't work because it isn't in a single league format. The playoffs are ultimately unnecassary and purely for money.

So the team finishing 1st gets the 'advantage' of going 21 days without a match, and going into the final without any match practice?

Well they could, but it would be slightly stupid considering the history books will declare Leeds as League Champions.



I would hazard this conversation wouldn't even be taking place if Warrington hadn't got so close and felt like they needed an extra helping hand to get them over the finishing line. Any team that thinks finishing top is enough, knowing perfectly well that is just the first part of the season, maybe needs to look closer to home rather than at the format.

Tony, a serious question.....As a paying spectator ( I presume?) ,does a good final 6 weeks of rugby make up for watching months of the dross you were served up earlier in the season?



I know you take the rough with the smooth as a spectator, but you'd surely have prefered to watch Wire this year, as a rugby fan, than the rubbish you lot were jeering most of the year?

Good job we finished in the top 6 then





Strange this debate doesnt happen at the beginning of the season but at the end after the top 2 teams have been knocked out and a team from 5th has won the Grand Final