Wire must win at Cas to give this concept any hope of saving this format from being a complete joke. Lose and it's effectively a 5 team competition.



Wire arn't in reality winning v Cas for our sake, because our chance to qualify is almost zero, but winning to save face of the RFL and for the sake of not embarrassing our sport with a useless formality play off system.

So the Play Off system is a farce if and only if Warrington don't qualify for it?



You are where you are in the table because of the squad you put together and the performances they put in. If you don't get in the top 4 (Which I still think you will) you've only got yourselves to blame, not the system.



I like the system personally. It stops teams coasting for most of the season, which was always the criticism when Leeds would languish in 6th or 7th all season then win a couple of games and the GF. It is easily the best system we've had yet, there is something to play for for almost all sides. The bottom teams have to continue fighting to get more home games in the middle tier, the top sides can't let up or someone will nick their top 4 space. The only teams without anything to play for might be those who are comfortably clear of 4th bottom, but unable to reach 4th.



A lot of Wire fans are writing it off for this season, but there is no need for that. If you beat Cas, you'll be level with them if you beat them in the 8s. If you beat Huddersfield in the 8s you've then only got to make up 2 points. The likes of Cas and Huddersfield may well collapse in the 8s as they tend to towards the end of most seasons. They don't often beat the big sides.



The big criticism of the Grand Final format (And Wire fans have been amongst the most critical of this) is that you don't have to play well across the season. You do now to a far greater extent.



The only counterweight to this positivity is youth development. No time for that now unless they are up to it immediately.

We are where we are coz we've been poor most of season



Exactly my point earlier. Once 6-8 are out of contention which could be 2 games into Super 8's mathematically, and in reality a loss at Cas makes it that already, can see some cricket scores looming, especially if we make Wembley, everybody will be rested.



Most games involving 6-8 v Top 5 will be a carbon copy of last night



'Every minute matters'







My theory to reward Top 4 is as follows



All points reset as per middle 8's but



Top gets 4pts

2nd 3pts

3rd 2pts

4th 1pt

5th-8th 0pts



You get some reward for a Top 4 finish, but 5th - 8th still has a chance

Why should 5th to 8th be give a chance?



You seem to mock a 'every minute matters' tag line then propose a system where every minute doesn't matter?



Every minute matters because we've not been good enough in the 22 games so far to be in a favourable position to make the top four, we've lost games that mattered. That's out fault not the system. It's done it's job.

Its nowt to do with Wire's position, It's just circumstance. The top and bottom of it is every game doesn't count because effectively the are dead rubbers for another 7 rounds for Hull Cats and Wire. Only Cas have a fair hope if they win v us tomorrow to make a 5 team comp.



If we Wire win, it becomes a 6 team comp but realistically both Wire and Cas have an almost impossible task. They could both be mathematically out of it after 3 game with four remaining.

Saddened is right and the other comments are typical of UK rugby league fans. Moan about anything new.

Anyone who refuses to see the obvious is an idiot. Saddened is not right, he's talking from a team of comfort, with a point of view that you failed in the 23 so you have no right to compete in the split 7! I may also have done the same had Wire been in the top 4 but that spent make it right.



What is the feckin point of having a split if you cannot compete?! You have to make the concept so any team has a chance to make the final 4. This is effectively impossible for all 8 teams.

There is no perfect format, they all have disadvantages.



If you allow the top 8 to play off then someone (leeds) will finish 5/6th and win SL followed by an outcry (quite rightly) that they don't deserve it. If you restrict it to a top 4 play off then there will be dead games for the 4-8th placed teams.



The current situation where the top 3 (probably top 4) are virtually through to the play offs is the RFL's worst nightmare. They were probably hoping for a very tightly packed top 6 - 7 who would need to fight for those last 4 places, but hey ho, they aint got it.

next season could be completely different, next season its possible that you could have 6 points covering 1st to 8th,, or you could have twenty points, its just how the seasons pan out. Just cos this year hasn't fell into a perfectly convenient fashion for the fairweather moaning types, doesn't mean that it's a write off.

So you'd have the top 12 playing home and away and then drawing straws to see who reaches the final then? That's the only way to ensure every team has a chance.



5th-8th aren't cut adrift by the format, they are cut adrift because they don't win sufficient games to threaten the top 4.



You suggest there is no point of a split if you can't compete. If there was no split, there would be even less chance to make up the ground as the top 4 would be facing Wakefield and Salford in those final games.

In a horse racing hcp weights are applied to make the contest even so every horse has a chance if winning.



In a dog hcp, the slowest dog is given yards starts to give every dog a chance to complete.



The RFL have divised a concept that makes it completely impossible by going against every rule of competition, giving the fastest dog the lead! Giving the best horse less weight!

How is it completely impossible? If you finish fourth you can win the title. If we can't finish fourth we don't deserve to win it. Remember the outcry when Leeds won it from fifth? It's amazing how short some people's memories are.