The Choice is Yours

Given the success he has enjoyed since you forget that one of the earliest television airings for Steve Coogan's Alan Partridge character came on someone else's show. And yet I beleive that it was as the hapless sports reporter on The Day Today way back in 1994 that Coogan got the best out of Partridge. There was the World Cup goal montage including infamous commentary lines; "Goal... and another" and "He must have a foot like a traction engine" which still makes me laugh whenever I meandre onto Youtube pretending not to look for it. And then of course there was Alan's 'soccermeter', a useless invention to 'help explain the group stages' which bore no relation to the tournament format and istead just left Alan flumoxed and confused and desperate for a way out.

I was reminded of this specific clip today when looking over the new format for rugby league's Super League play-offs. The play-offs have been increased from six teams to eight in view of the expansion of the League itself, and so I had presumed the knock-out format would take the obvious route of quarter-finals, semi-finals, final. Instead, the RFL has gone all Partridge on us and instead the end of season knock-out features qualifying and elimination play-offs, qualifying and preliminary semi-finals, a Grand Final and presumably a spin-off Saturday evening television series that allows the public to have their say.

And even layed out in text the format still is not quite as black and white as it preturbs to be. This is because the RFL have come up with a unique and equally bizarre format for one of the many semi-final stages. Instead of a draw or a pre-draw to determine the opponents at this stage, the highest ranked team incredibly gets to choose who they play.

Initially your thought process leads you to conclude that they will choose the lowest ranked opponents and progress at will to the next stage. But think of this from he other foot, if you are the chosen opponents, the supposed weakest team of the semi-final stage then presumably you're going to need little more motivation to upset the odds. So, do you choose the statistically weak, or is it more important to choose the mentally weak? And who gets to decide? Rugby League is not a rich game, would a money spinning phone in be the way forward? Or does the decision rest with the team manager?

We could have another Strictly Come Dancing fall-out on our hands as the St Helens coach Daniel Anderson criticises the public for choosing to face Celtic Crusaders rather than going for his prefered option of Hull Kingston Rovers. "It makes a nonsense of the league," Anderson says, "this is about Rugby League not entertainment, the more people vote for Celtic Crusaders the more its unfair on those teams who are putting the work in week in week out" and so on. That said, I'll be first in line when the opportunity arises to select a mystery guest player... in you go John Terry, no you won't need any padding, hey lads, he says you're all northern monkeys.