After the climax to the 2006-07 Guinness Premiership season, Sportingo's Donna Gee wrote a heartfelt article backing Gloucester’s sympathetic claims to the title (in finishing top of the league after the regular season), despite losing the final to Leicester. Whilst the play-off system is relatively new to Rugby Union, Donna’s comment merely joined a raft of similarly-held views in a century-old debate.

Play-off finals have decided the majority of Rugby League’s domestic championship titles in England, Australia, New Zealand and France. Yet, in typical ‘whinging Pom’ style, it is the English who have seemingly kicked up the most fuss over the system. Perhaps it’s due of our love for football and horse racing - where the first past the post is the accepted winner. Whatever the reason, whereas title play-offs are ingrained and accepted elsewhere in the world, we acknowledge them somewhat begrudgingly.

The roots for the championship play-off system go back as far as the 19th century. In the Northern Union’s third competitive season - 1897–98 - Hunslet and Bradford tied at the top of the Yorkshire Senior Competition, both with 48 points from 30 matches. Rather than decide the champions from superior points difference or fewest losses (where Hunslet had the upper hand on both counts), the administration deemed a title play-off was the fairest way to find a worthy winner. (Also, perhaps, true to the commercial virtues of the early professional era, it was a great opportunity to bring in more money from the paying punters.)

'The Grand Final has eclipsed the Challenge Cup as the event of choice and it is very much accepted by the Rugby League populus'


Held at Headingley Stadium in Leeds, Hunslet duly won the final, and the Yorkshire league, 5-2. A similar scenario occurred in the 1903-04 season; this time it was Bradford and Salford who topped the First Division championship with identical records at the league campaign’s end. (At Hanson Lane, Halifax, Bradford won the final 5-0.)

In 1905-06, two divisions amalgamated into one; and due to the large number of teams in the league, not every club played each other. Instead, clubs arranged inter-county fixtures, causing some to play more or less than others. So the championship was decided on points percentage rather than total competition points. Leigh won the title on 80%: from 30 matches, the Leythers earned 48 from a possible 60 points.

This didn’t go down too well in Yorkshire; both Hunslet and Leeds played a few more matches and amassed more competition points, but finished on a lower percentage. Crucially though, Leigh didn’t play their closest rivals in the course of the season. To help offset this anomaly, for the 1906-07 season, the championship play-offs were expanded to the top four places. As with the previous final deciders, there was a legitimate reason.

The percentage system used to decide league placings continued until 1930. In the 1930-31 season, each club played an equal amount of games; however, again, given the amount of competitors in one league, they still didn’t play everyone. Nevertheless, that legitimate reason was now more tenuous to justify a play-off system and the number of critics grew.

In 1933-34, Salford ran away with the league, finishing on 63 points, a meagre six losses from 38 matches and seven more victories than their closest challengers Wigan, who ended on 52 points with 12 losses. However, in the final at Wilderspool, Wigan crushed the reigning champions 15-3. On one hand, Wigan were the only team to do ‘the double’ over Salford that season and justly won the title. On the other, Salford dominated everybody else.

Mulling over Donna’s article was just like reading the Salford Advertiser’s response at the time. The sports correspondent - pen-named ‘Ajax’ - wrote a scathing view about the play-off system saying they would only acknowledge Salford as the true champions. Granted, you’d expect a local newspaper to be biased here, but the piece was less sour grapes than a strong reflection of opinion held by the play-off finals’ critics.

Despite a brief reprieve between 1962 and 1964, the Championship play-offs remained until 1973, where the top 16 now challenged for the spoils. Eighth-placed Dewsbury defeated third-placed Leeds to win the league title at Odsal, Bradford. Afterwards, The RFL reverted to the two-division system; so First Division clubs would equally play each other home and away and the table toppers were crowned champions. There was no longer a need for the play-off format.

This wasn’t the end of play-off format competition. To keep the now defunct yet exciting end-of-season climax, a new competition was initiated - the Premiership. Existing in numerous forms until the advent of Super League in the mid-90s, the competition came-of-age in 1987, where the final was staged at Old Trafford - laying the seeds for Super League’s end-of-season showpiece, the Grand Final.

As Donna points out in her article, she exalts the notion of a similar competition for the Guinness Premiership; where a first past the post league title and a play-off competition could harmoniously co-exist. The only flaw is that for the top clubs, Rugby League’s First Division Premiership was essentially a booby prize at the end of the season. Today, it wouldn’t generate anywhere near the amount of interest that league play-offs do - certainly not the Super League Grand Final, anyway. Although it was a fond event at Old Trafford, at best, the Premiership was more a fillip to iron out personal grudges.

Of course, the league play-offs returned in 1998, climaxing in the Super League Grand Final, with no other reason that it would create an exciting finale. Although initially there was (again) split opinion (there was a generation of supporters who were now used to the title decided by whoever topped the table), almost ten years on, we have a situation where the Grand Final has eclipsed the Challenge Cup as the event of choice and it is very much accepted by the Rugby League populus.

The colossal meaning behind the event - the championship decided during one October evening - generates so much interest; seemingly too big to turn one’s back on now. Perhaps Rugby Union commentators will grow to the idea that nothing else matters but this one game.

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