Each team has an important game.

Salford, Widnes and HULL K R must win to avoid bottom 4.
If Hull win the above teams will be in the bottom 4.
Catalans must win to ensure top 8 position.
Warrington, Huddersfield and Castleford need to win in battle for fourth spot.
Leeds, Wigan and St Helens must win to continue fight for top three spots.
Wakefield playing for pride.

You were so close!

But fair point should be interesting. I expect Hull KR to beat FC and the bottom 4 not decided until next week much to the delight of the RFL and Sky commentators.

It should be to the delight of everybody really !! Fingers crossed this year's format has achieved what it was intended to achieve and given meaning to [ievery[/i match not just the play offs.

Leeds were premeditated? masters of the old format in apparently 'coasting' in many games as now seemingly borne out by this year's (unexpected by many) levels of performance that could well finish with Leeds top of the table. How many expected that in the close season?

Not really. their eyes are wide open for the middle 8

One little stumbling block of the Middle 8, Wakefield have been god awful most of season but will start the middle 8 in exactly same position as potentially widnes/salford who may have put together 9 wins over 23 games.

wakie over years have impressively ducked the chop. it wouldn't surprise me if the same happened again.

Agree BB.And one of Hull/Hull Kr likely to just miss out on the Super 8's in the last round of fixtures.Seems a little unfair they have no real advantage over SL's whipping boys going into the middle 8.Maybe one thing that could be looked at could be a bigger punishment for finishing bottom at the end of the regular season.Every minute matters? Pftt, Wakey have been in cruise control waiting for their real season to start for the last dozen games now and that can't be right.

Wakefield said weeks ago their season started with the 8s. They will finish bottom and on the same number of points as everyone else. For the last 3 months literally no minute had mattered for them

It mattered to James Webster as he is now out of a job. Similarly those that didn't perform are seeing their places in team (possibly club) taken by new signings. When they can only get a gig at a part time team next year then every minute they under performed mattered.

Yeah cos they were going to catch up to 8th weren't they. Very little difference in going down finishing 9th and going down finishing 12th. No difference between getting 6 points and getting 16 points for them. Once you are in the middle 8s no minute mattered and they were out of the top 8 pretty early.

No they weren't going to catch 8th by the time Webster was sacked.....it's those ELEVEN league games BEFORE when they gave up that saw to that.

When they could still make the 8 (they gave themselves a great start with 2 wins from 2) they decided to role over instead very early when they were still clearly capable for fighting for the Top 8.

Also their is a difference to what position to finish in. Same as the top 4 it's better to finish 9th and 10th because you get 4 home games in the middle 8. 11th and 12th only the 3 home games. 12th will be away to Leigh most likely.

Well definitely mattered then. The fans are flocking.

Just because you've never liked the new system you're scrapping the barrel by trying to highlight Wakefield as proof it's rubbish when their's 11 other teams who have gone about it correctly. In fact so are Wakefield now that they have a better coach in. What Wakefield's year has shown us, isn't that the new system is bad, just that James Webster is and he robbed the club of a chunk of money in attendance figures when he told everyone that they were saving themselves for the Middle 8's after only a few weeks into the season and subsequently proved it with no effort performances.

And if Wakefield stay up nobody will care about it.

I can't believe you want to accuse someone if scraping the bottom of the barrel then use Salford and two clubs who have publicly given up on youth development in hull fc and hull kr as clubs doing it correctly.

And attendances are down at many clubs, are we blaming James Webster for that as well?