More competitive than ever or just a poorer standard? : Sat Jul 06, 2019 6:18 pm
On paper this is the most competitive SL ever, with 10 points seperating 3rd from bottom and just 4 from 7th to bottom. And with the exception of Saints and to a lesser degree Wire who are a step up in class so far, I beleive anybody can beat anybody.Can't decide if that is simply due to the Salary Cap hitting full impact after all these years or if we simply have more players who aren't capable of playing well two weeks in a row. My own club Hull have been the extreme example of this, looking top some weeks and error strewn and out of sorts the next. Several others clubs are having this same up and down form though so it can't just be down to coaching methods at one club.
A good choice of Marquee players such as at Saints and Wire has seemed to provide an edge, but Leeds have spent big and got little return so not convinced marquee players has been the difference to how things where 5, 10 or 15 years ago.
Finishing top has been devalued and that could be a reason, as in theory you can still finish 5th and be Champions so there isn't as much of a need to perform every week. Maybe bigger financial rewards for where you finish in the regular season would help fix this.
Frustratingly for the game the TV games have seemed to feature one in form and one of our form team a lot of weeks, ive been quite bored watching some of the 'neutral' games as many seem to be blowout scores quite early. Hard to tell if there have been more of these games or i've just forgotten some of the bad ones from seasons past!