Original blog by best_fullback
"If winning isn't everything, why do they keep score?" – Vince Lombardi
Sat watching the build up to Cardiff City v Queens Park Rangers this Saturday on BBC1, its preceding show Football Focus discussed the relegation situation in the Premier League. With a graphic showing the bottom ten teams in the league, presenter Dan Walker queried pundits Lee Dixon and Mark Lawrenson as to which teams they thought would be relegated from the league, given their current league positions with 5 games left to play in the season.
Lee Dixon quickly replied "Well Dan, I believe that the three teams that play the worst over the 38 games will be relegated, and the team that plays best will win."
Hardly sports punditry at its finest, but there is an actual underlying point to be made from this statement. A league by definition is a competition designed to place teams in order of their ability to play consistently well against the other teams; and therefore rates a team's performance. Perform badly and you will be near the bottom, perform well and you will be nearer the top. So why in Rugby does this barometer of ability go out of the window, and the winner of the league does not automatically reap the rewards for their toil over the course of the season?
It is quite commonplace in Football to see that the team with the most points over all the games in a season will win the league. Simple. The 1/2/3 teams (depending on the league) with the lowest points will be relegated. Also simple. It makes sense.
The Shaughnessy play-off system, invented by American Baseball manager Frank Shaugnessy in 1933 dictates the winner and/or loser(s) of a league in the alternative manner of a post-season knockout competition. There is no winner after all the league fixtures, and no matter how well a team may have performed over the course of months, or how many points they finish clear of competing teams; this is not what will decide their fate. These league performances will be irrelevant, and the slate will be wiped clean. They will have to perform again against the best teams in the league to claim the ***le they should already rightly have.
To clarify the Shaughnessy play-off system I will use the typical example of the Aviva Premiership. After 22 rounds of the competition have been played all the teams will be sorted by their points they have accrued over the season. The top four teams will then enter play-off semi-finals, with the team finishing 1st playing at home against the team who finished 4th. The team who finished 2nd plays at home against the team who finished 3rd. The winners of these two semi-finals then enter a final at Twickenham to determine the league victor.
The other worldwide Rugby leagues use either the exact same system (Magners League, ITM Cup, Currie Cup), or the same with minor variations. In the Top 14 for example; eight teams can possibly win the league, with 3rd – 8th playing in quarter-finals, who then play against 1st and 2nd respectively, and the two winning teams contesting the final. SupeRugby uses a similar playoff system, though the adoption of SANZAR conferences means the top team from each conference will enter the finals, with the next three highest scoring teams from all three conferences gaining 'wild-card' entries into the finals. They are all put in a finals ladder rated by points. The bottom four scoring teams play quarter-finals, 1st and 2nd are then added for the semi-finals, and then the two victors meet for the final. (Ed: Phew! If you still don't understand after that there is a helpful video explanation here:
http://www.superxv.com/format/)
The Aviva Premiership, RFU Championship, SupeRugby, Magners League, Top 14, Currie Cup and ITM Cup are all examples of major professional Rugby Union competitions worldwide that currently use the Shaughnessy play-off system. In fact, these competitions are the top worldwide Rugby competitions, so why is such a system for deciding a league winner so universally adopted, yet other sports are perfectly content to decide leagues on points?
The use of play-offs is generally is to raise excitement at the end of the season. No-one can discount the fact that a sudden-death winner-takes-all competition between the league's best teams would lack in drama, but at the same time are these unnecessary competitions not cheating a true worthy champion of their ***le?
No example of this is more poignant than that of Gloucester RFC in the English Premiership. In the 02/03, 06/07 and 07/08 seasons Gloucester finished top of the Premiership, only to lose their rightful ***le to another team. To add insult, in 02/03 they were to finish the season 15 points clear at the summit of the table, only to be thumped 39-3 by Wasps in the final and finish the season empty handed, despite clearly being the best team in the league. Gloucester are not the only team to win nothing despite finishing at the top of the Premiership; Bath and Leicester also suffered similar fates. In fact, since the inception of the full Shaughnessy play-off system in the 02/03 season only two teams have successfully finished top of the league and won the play-off final (Sale and Leicester twice) and incredibly Wasps have won the Premiership ***le four times despite never finishing top of the league table at the end of the season.
On one hand you can commend the ability of teams to peak at the right moment of the season, capitalising on the cup knockout structure, and blast teams such as Gloucester for not having enough fortitude to win two more games after they have clearly proved their supremacy. I personally think this is too lax an attitude to take. Depriving a team who have clearly shown their ability, consistent performance and constant capability to get results, after playing each team home and away, should be crowned champions. Allowing a team who has finished, in some leagues, between 2nd - 8th and up to 20 points behind the league leader a chance to win the ***le by winning 2 or 3 games in a row goes, in my opinion, completely against the actual principles of league competition, unduly distorting team performance and, most importantly: rewarding inconsistency.
Other examples include The Ospreys winning the inaugural Magners League play-offs last season after finishing 2nd, Clermont Auvergne winning last season's Top 14 after finishing 3rd, the Blue Bulls in 2009 winning the Currie Cup final after finishing 3rd overall, and interestingly in this case, neither the 1st or 2nd placed teams even featured in the final.
In contrast the use of the play-offs in the SupeRugby competition feels the correct solution after splitting the three SANZAR conferences apart. Now that SuperRugby is played by teams against other teams from their country in majority, teams who do not win the actual SuperRugby ***le in the post-season play-offs can at least have the aim of winning their conference; an achievement that cannot be taken away from them (even if there is no official prize for winning a conference).
To me the ideal use of the Shaughnessy play-off system, if it has to be used, is in the manner employed in the French Pro D2 and present in the English Football League. Here the system is only used to specifically decide a 2nd or 3rd promotion spot to a higher league. In Pro D2 the winner of the league is the champion, and gains automatic promotion. The teams from 2nd to 5th then enter a play-off to decide the second team to win promotion. At least a system like this guarantees certain success for the team who plays the best in the league and accrues the most points. The draw an analogy with the current position in the English Football Championship; I hardly think Queens Park Rangers would be too thrilled to be told that even though they had comprehensively won the league (when they do) that "Sorry lads, we're gonna chuck you in with the other teams down to 6th, no matter how many points clear you are". Neither would Chelsea be best pleased in the Premier League in 04/05 when they won the ***le by 12 points to be told that, even though they had taken the ***le away from the Arsenals 'Invincibles', that they still had not won the league and would have to win two more knock-out games to secure it.
It seems when you look over to our counterparts in football, they have everything done preferably. In the lower leagues winners are rewarded with automatic promotion, as are the 2nd placed team, with team 3rd – 6th left to fight for the 3rd promotion spot; giving an outside glimmer of the second best prize to the better-than-average teams. Bottom teams are relegated no matter what. In the Premier League the winner is the winner; no one else. Other lower placed teams receive European spots and lowest three teams are relegated.
What do the English Rugby Leagues have? Anyone from 1st – 4th can win the Premiership ***le and only one team is relegated. In the Championship everyone plays each other twice, and then the top 8 go into two leagues of 4 to play each other twice again. The top two teams in each league then go into a play-off for one team to be promoted. The bottom four meanwhile play each other twice, and the bottom team in that league is relegated.
That means that you can effectively miss out on relegation by, say, points difference; finishing 8th, and then in effect have a second opportunity to gain promotion in this quasi-league system. Similarly you can finish bottom of the league and still have a chance of redemption. How is this in any way equitable? We need to be rewarding the best teams outright, and giving an outside chance to the mediocre few of a lesser reward, not opening the floodgates to mediocre and beyond for the greatest award, giving slim hope of promotion to league 'strugglers'.
I will not say that play-offs are not exciting – they are incredibly exciting from the position of a neutral – but if I was a fan of a team who had won the top league and then lost in the final I would feel completely hard done by. Fair enough in a cup competition such as the LV= Cup where every game is a sudden-death knock-out, it would be an easier pill to swallow, but when the league structure is switched after 22 games from round-robin to cup knock-out, it totally changes the composition of the league. Wasps are a perfect example of a team perfectly suited for this, in the past able to significantly raise their game for cup competitions meaning, as shown before, they have won the four Premiership ***les without ever winning the league.
Besides the excitement though, a huge portion of responsibility should be shouldered by the governing bodies who decide these post-season play-offs. In England, and France especially, where the final is played at the national stadium, the ticket revenue that the respective bodies receive is massive. Especially considering in the Premiership that the semi-finals last year at the clubs' home grounds recorded attendances were 13541 and 21575 respectively; totally eclipsed by the 81600 who attended Twickenham to see the final. At a guesstimate that the RFU receives half of all revenue of ticket sales (as is commonplace in Football League play-off finals at Wembley) it is clear to see revenue would be exceptional. Add into that domestic and worldwide TV rights to the match and you have a real money-spinner on your hands.
On the other hand, are there any positives to take away from the play-offs? Well as said before they are incredibly exciting, but they also do a tremendous amount to raise awareness for the sport. Rugby is a fairly 'new' sport worldwide, with a World Cup competition that has only been running 24 years, and a sport that has only been professional for 16. In England especially is plays second fiddle to Football by a considerable margin. Similarly, nations which people in the northern hemisphere consider massive Rugby playing countries, such as Australia, it is not the most popular sport, and widely regarded in cities such as Melbourne as inferior to Aussie Rules Football and Rugby League. However, the massive expansion of SupeRugby since the inception of professional Rugby Union now means cities such as Melbourne have their own Union franchise. Equally, attendance for the Premiership has had an unprecedented rise in the years since the millennium. If having play-offs means that the sport gains recognition around the world for its excitement in the short term, then that is of course a good thing.
Anything that can raise the awareness, excitement and participation of the sport we all love is surely what we want. However, I personally believe in the long term that play-offs are not the correct method to do this, or at least not in their current format. Maybe play-offs for positions in Europe, or secondary promotion positions would be more accommodating; giving higher value both to the champion's position as well as the European places that lower teams will fight to receive.
This is no case of sour grapes; I am just a sport purist. As much as outside gimmicks and money-spinning ventures can be avoided is my ideal. I want to see teams win the league for the right reasons; after all, if you can't play well enough over a season to be at the summit of the table, why do you deserve another shot at the ***le?
