The simple answer is ? / opinions please.

[stegy]

Hi I am a season ticket holder at Wigan that travels for every home game from Accrington. In my opinion the play offs do not work they should be binned. Then we can get back to watching our best fit players in every game with the best team winning the league. I would also dump the Magic weekend it can be very unfair on fixtures. Increase the league to 20 with promotion and relegation. Finally I would like to see the season finish with a 3 game Lancs V Yorks.

[Kaii]

There isn't enough decent sides to have a competitive 20 team league plus i really enjoy magic weekend so want that to stay
The grand final feels special compared to the league so i cant see many people wanting to dump it, plus it is a good way to promote the sport

[Aaron C. Rescue]

Hi I am a season ticket holder at Wigan that travels for every home game from Accrington. In my opinion the play offs do not work they should be binned. Then we can get back to watching our best fit players in every game with the best team winning the league. I would also dump the Magic weekend it can be very unfair on fixtures. Increase the league to 20 with promotion and relegation. Finally I would like to see the season finish with a 3 game Lancs V Yorks.

Lancs v Yorks wont work, no real 'intensity' between the players, it cant come anywhere near SOO.

[thegimble]

Mid season games that are meaningless needs to be stopped. Either start the season a week later or after Easter Monday give the players a week off. So they get a break from Easter Monday and do not play for 10 days.

[markill]

Hi I am a season ticket holder at Wigan that travels for every home game from Accrington. In my opinion the play offs do not work they should be binned. Then we can get back to watching our best fit players in every game with the best team winning the league. I would also dump the Magic weekend it can be very unfair on fixtures. Increase the league to 20 with promotion and relegation. Finally I would like to see the season finish with a 3 game Lancs V Yorks.

No. In my opinion that is all wrong. 20 teams is too many, way way too many. Magic is fine, its only 'unfair' on fixtures because there are too many poor teams in the division. Sort that out and it would be fine. The playoffs do work, but it should be incentivised greater to do well in the league by having fewer teams play in them - over half the league in a very to heavy league is the issue, not playoffs themselves.

A Lancs v Yorks series that they could get popular and important would be great, but not at the end of the season - you really don't want all your international players beating each other up immediately before an international series.

[TonyH]

The team that finishes first should go straight to the Grand Final and teams 2-5 should battle it out to get to Old Trafford. That's how you get intensity in nearly every game, reduce the amount of Playoff places and make coming first actually mean something.

[devon jim 1]

Toney H I agree But (there is always a BUT). Just get bout the play offs re instate the old league championship re instate the Premier ship. Easy.( I have some great ideas when I'm drunk. The RFL should get drunk before they inflict theier ideas on us. WHAT? you say. Thry are drunk :exc: :exc:

[LORENZO]

Agree that we should re-instate top 4 play off only.
When the number of teams is reduced to 12 why not kick-off the season with a floodlit trophy comp or similar.
3 groups of 4 or 4groups of 3 playing home and away with the winners going into the play-off and final. If it is four teams of three the team second with the highest number of points for goes through.

Will get around all these early season games that count for little and, assuming that the prize is big enough, all the teams will need to hit the ground running.
Of course, the alternative would be returning the Challenge cup to May with the comp starting earlier.

[DaveO]

Magic is fine, its only 'unfair' on fixtures because there are too many poor teams in the division. Sort that out and it would be fine.

It's impossible to sort out because we are never going to get teams of equal capability. Some teams will at some stage always be the stand out team(s). If we must have a day out like this make it a CC round. Then the luck of the draw is expected if you see what I mean.

Magic is a perfect example of RFL incompetence because just how much effort do they put into promoting this when the International game is crying out for its status to be boosted with the fans here? They are promoting the league when they should be promoting the International game. Those who go seem to like it as a day out but it is very poorly attended so it doesn't even work from that point of view and now the novelty has worn off doesn't even get a great deal of media coverage.

The playoffs do work, but it should be incentivised greater to do well in the league by having fewer teams play in them - over half the league in a very to heavy league is the issue, not playoffs themselves.

What do you mean by saying "The playoffs do work..."? What are they trying to achieve?

Deliver the best team as champions (does not do this IMO) or are you referring to extending the season or some other objective?

[markill]

The playoffs ensure an exciting end to the season with a big show piece event, which in itself gives the game a good deal of exposure and makes money. I think the best team does end up winning, just what makes then the 'best' isn't what ordinarily we attribute this title too - i.e. the team that most consistently can beat all opponents - we get the team that can consistently win the bigger games against the better opponents.

I think we had a similar debate about the playoffs around the end of last season / off-season though Dave, so we're never going to agree. I like the 'American' model of leagues and not the 'European' model.

What we should agree on is all of these things would work out just fine if the league found a way to make more teams equally competitive without substantially reducing the quality. I think the NFL model is the most successful at doing that, and we've moved away from it. the NRL is more similar to it and is flourishing.