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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013:06:25:20:48:45 by Wildwillie .

As per another thread yes I am quite happy with the top four play off approach, I would be less so with a top eight.

Take us for example. At the beginning of the season we were not in good shape, but our young squad learned and progressed and ended up well worth a play off place. The play offs reward improvement over the course of the season.

The playoffs is anti money, it stops those with large budget running away with the league and making it less exciting, instead after a hard season, you get the best 4 who battled hardened over a tough season play it out on more level playing field, it comes down to 2 games over 4 halves, to win it.

The big weakness of the play-off system is that the eventual winner has no time to strengthen their squad to compete at anything like an even level with the other AP teams. Also their ambitious players may have already signed for other AP clubs rather than take the gamble on the play-off results.

Depends whether you want excitement or genuine competition between AP and Championship clubs.

Exeter and Wuss did OK

Not sure you will like it next season if the rumours are correct re possible timetable. It appears that Sky, having lost Premiership rugby to BT, will have opportunity to show more Championship matches (Hoorah!!) but .................... due to scheduling problems, aligned to desire to take Championship Final to weekend fixtures, they may not be able to accommodate this until mid June 2014. So how about season finishing just when pre-season usually starts?

I agree WW, the season would have been over some time in Feb if it wasn't for the play-offs this year.

You would be devastated if you won the regular season and didn't win the play-offs but thems the rules and you make a good point about Bristol.

I agree with the train of thought that says winner of the regular season goes straight up replacing bottom prem side. Second, Third and Fourth in Championship play off against second bottom premiership for a second promotion slot with the existing play off format.

Semi 1 - 2nd bottom prem vs 4th Championship over 2 legs
Semi 2 - 2nd Championship vs 3rd Championship over 2 legs

Final over 2 legs

This has been mentioned on here before so I can't claim the idea as mine but there seems an inherent fairness to it to me. The team winning the Champ is immediately rewarded and the team finishing 2nd bottom of the prem gets the chance to prove that they are too good for the Champ by playing off against the 4th placed champ club in the semi and possibly the 2nd or 3rd placed club in the final.

Sorry dont agree with play offs from bottom of Prem, still too much in class, how do you think we would have got on against LI, we would have been stuffed, there still too much gulf that far up the table.

playoffs only needed between top 4 in Championship.

I agree with LeemingTyke. 2 up and 2 down, with automatic promotion for the League winner and play offs for the following 2-3 or 4. Similar with relegation. Bottom side = automatic, with play offs for survival between the next bottom sides.
Extends the season and adds interest. Also allows promoted side to get their recruiting on track.

What is in it for the Prem teams, in other words could it happen.

Play offs are a complete lunacy!

Despite total dominance throughout the season we have have had to endure an additional four games to secure promotion therefore in essence win the championship twice.

Looking forward to Leeds winning the championship next year and then the plays offs.....hopefully.

Agree wholeheartedly Wensleydale but that it what we are given, and until the powers that be realise the folly of such arrangements (including next seasons possible lunacy!) and we have to lump it. By the way do you have links with our erstwhile Leemingtyke given the geographic coincidence?

Quote:

Wensleydale Falcon
Play offs are a complete lunacy!
Despite total dominance throughout the season we have have had to endure an additional four games to secure promotion therefore in essence win the championship twice.

Looking forward to Leeds winning the championship next year and then the plays offs.....hopefully.

Folly or otherwise its an equaliser brought in to stop teams buying the league and the season being over in February.

I really dont get this thread
why on earth are we arguing about promotion and playoffs and their merits
there should be no promotion or demotion but there should be a fixed series of leagues in which players move up and down not teams or clubs
it works in the southern hemisphere and produces better players so why cant it here
we appear wedded to the somewhat flawed model of football where the the international team fails to deliver because the top league is full of overseas stars(bit like french rugby clubs)
the fact is that the premiership should include,as of right newcastle,sale ourselves,pirates and a team from lancashire in a format of 12/23/13 clubs or whatever
the championship should be fixed on a similar basis other than it should incorporate national one and the teams play each other once a season not twice on a home this year away next basis

stop discussing promotion/relegation and create a model that will win us world cups etc

Don't see how two close calls against Leeds and Bedford equates to total dominance.

What would you call 21 wins in 22 matches?

From what I saw mostly boring

Quote:

Wensleydale Falcon
What would you call 21 wins in 22 matches?

That's the whole idea of play offs you can win 21/22 in the league and walk over all, however you need to be at your best for the final 4.

"From what I saw mostly boring"

Oopnorth you have hit the nail on the head.

Whilst we all want to see northern based clubs in the Premiership clearly Newcastle have an awful lot to do to get themselves ready for next season. They have no creativity in the backline and play a very one dimensional (that's code for boring) game. I really couldn't watch that week in week out.

One other point. Whilst they may have won 21 out of 22 matches, how many teams they played against in the normal season would you think "rested" players on the understanding that they were unlikely to get anything from a fixture against Falcons ? I would suggest a significant number. A contributing factor perhaps ?

Play-offs aren't perfect and I admit to prefering automatic promotion for first place and then a play off for 2nd place but that would involve potentially 2 down from the Premiership which would mean maybe another London club could be in danger - perish the thought ! However at least with the current format you know exactly waht the challenge is at the start of the season and plan accordingly, hopefully timing your challenge to perfection by the end.

As it seems, we did!

Was it seven games won on the trot at the end, after the Doncaster debacle?

If we do the same next season, who knows what the result might be.

Up the Carnegie TYKES !

21 out of 22 still equates to total dominance and in relation to players being rested against us we can say exactly the same as there were many games where we made numerous changes.

That said even the Leeds supporters that I spoke with after we won at KP admitted that over the two legs against Leeds apart from the first 20 minutes and last 2 minutes at your place Newcastle controlled the game. At KP Leeds could not get out of their 22 for about 70minutes out of the 80........again total dominance!!!

As for boring..that's down to opinions...we achieved our goal and that was all that was required to return to the Prmiership.

I like many others am under no illusions that there is an awfull lot more work to be done at Newcastle in order to get to where we wish to be.

Good luck to you guys for next season.

Yes good luck Wensleydale.

It smacks of "sour grapes" to call the Falcons boring. I hope we are just as boring in the play-offs next season!

The difference between the Falcons approach and Leeds' approach was simple. We had nothing to lose, they had everything to lose. It only makes sense that they played the %'s and we played loose, as WW says I would be happy for Leeds to do a Newcastle in next yrs playoffs.

Let's not count chickens. There is plenty of time for the RFU to put a spanner in the works, before, or even during next season!

Not sour grapes, just true. Their game plan was understandable but lacking in ambition at KP, and boring to watch. Yes the game was exciting for both sets of partisan fans, but watching a team who had supposedly swept all before them revert to 10 man drudgery was disappointing. And it nearly backfired on them.

I have nothing against Newcastle and Wensleydale put his/her point across very well and politely, so good luck to them.

I've said before and I will again - the playoff system is an excellent way of getting teams to up their game as the season comes to a climax and to give the eventual winners - this season, Newcastle - as tough a run-in as possible to set them up for Premiership rugby.

Remember the RFU want and need as many young English players at the top level as possible and this is the best way for Championship clubs to develop talent that can be good enough for the Prem. When Exeter went up and did what they did it was a triumph for the system.

Playoffs are here to stay. And I am mightily glad about that.

Waiting for the good times ...

..and waiting ....


... and waiting ...

"Exeter went up and did what they did it was a triumph for the system."

A bit selective here methinks. What about London Welsh - hardly a triumph?

London Welsh had a good first half of the season. Remember Sale were dead certs for relegation at one point. The criminal actions of one man upset things badly for Welsh.

Waiting for the good times ...

..and waiting ....


... and waiting ...

Interesting thread.

From a London Welsh supporter perspective, the playoffs in 2012 confirmed the club had stepped up a pace and could possibly compete at Premiership level though many players would need to be replaced as frankly not up to it though handy as 3rd reserves just about. If it had not been for time lost to proving MSC were a cartel protection racket, we could have been better prepared for the following season (though opening fixtures of Tigers and Quins meant the Gods had decided we shoud start the season after these two matches right at the bottom, and so we did for a while, aided by playing on Sundays after the other clubs had made their points for the weekend). As we did. Had it not been for the 5 points deduction we might have scraped into survival, but only just, despite those pitifully few wins being so few.

I think a play-offs system that delays the season end by several weeks is messy, not least as the players lose some momentum in the gap between main season and playoffs. Maybe that's a test of how focussed is the team to survive that time gap.

One post - by trundle123 - suggests having 12 or whatever permanent grounds on a regional franchise basis, in which the grounds (and the clubs nominally occupying them) don't change but players migrate up and down the ladders unaided by promotions/relegations. It could work, but one of the few pleasures of league rugby union is being able to see which CLUBS are moving up and which down, and another is visting or being visted by an annually slightly differing set of clubs. Over the years I have visited, and enjoyed so doing, quite a range of clubs. I don't get a particular kick from knowing our star players have now moved onwards and upwards, or down/out. So what would clubs be playing for, if not promotion? Just the hell of it? As in the days before professionalism? At the moment I respect the players with my club and give them my usually unhesitating support, but if the only way they could advance was in the transfer market we would soon get bitter about having our players tapped by rich clubs in the cartel waving their chequebooks. What about the spectators?

The needs of pro rugby, and the returns to spectators are a paradox. On the one hand pro rugby needs more than 4/6 clubs which are financially robust and self sustaining, and the yearly scrabble about between the Championship and the Premiership does not help to create the stable environment.

On the other, rugby needs to be interesting and not just for the elite few clubs at the top, and playoffs and P&R is stimulating by providing uncertainty and an element of change (at least in the end to the two clubs affected).

As you say Dan one of the joys of rugby has always been the chance to watch and visit different clubs, as fixture lists changed between seasons. For example Headingley never had regular fixtures against London Welsh, we could not get them you were too good and too desirable, and what a joy it was when we did secure one, many years ago.

Sorry to drone on, franchising could make the game very iterative and stale but is probably necessary financially.

Personally, I like the play-offs (top 4, not 8), surely no Leeds fan was saying otherwise after the first leg against the budgies, it keeps everything interesting till the end. Not sure its fair to say Newcastle were boring, I'd take a boring promotion season! Think we can play better rugby than them tho, we've got some real talent and if Hughes lives up to hype this really could be our year!

COME ON LEEDS!!

oop north/dan fw
premiership clubs have for the most part and I include the pre pro era,always been representative clubseg
Glos,Tigers Northampton have always been representative clubs runnining two teams and picking from clubs in their hinterland
the welsh clubs always have and still run the same way
the north and maybe london was slightly different in that county rugby fulfilled the role played by the big clubs
the fact is that promotion and demotion benefits no one and in my view we have to accept that the prem is England's equivalent of the super 14 and geared to generating England players for now and the future
Having played top level club rugby in the past there was no need to play for promotion and demotion because playing in a team with the aim of winning was enough
I would advocate a complete restructuring of the leagues whereby they are fixed and incorporate 20 or so clubs and are played on an away one year and home the next basis with proper funding and infrastructure.
funny how this system works for the south africans australians and new zealanders