Is it time to get rid of the McIntyre Finals System?
Debates about this finals system have long been discussed and yet again, the conversation has come up. Should it stay or should it go?
Devised by Ken McIntyre, it is a playoff system of the top 8 finishers in a competition to ultimately decide who plays in the Grand Final. It has come under scrutiny because of the unfair disadvantage that it gives to the teams who finish first or second. These teams get a home final to begin with, but should they lose their first game, they are not eliminated; they simply play a game the following week to stay alive. The same cannot be said for a team finishing seventh or eighth however as they only have one crack of the dice. If they lose that game, then their season is over.
Perhaps the NRL should follow the AFL in removing such a complex and confusing system. The AFL had the system until 2000 when it scrapped it for a much less complex system. In the AFL, 1st plays 4th, 2nd plays 3rd, 5th plays 8th and 6th plays 7th. This makes the games fairer as teams are playing other teams who are in the same league as them. The top 4 teams are without a doubt the form teams of the competition and so the games are much bigger and provide a contest.
As previously mentioned, debate on this topic is growing due to its illogical nature. The major problem many fans and media have with the system is that it allows the possibility for the teams that finish third and fourth on the ladder to be eliminated in the first week of the finals, although this has never happened in its history, and would require 7th and/or 8th to beat their much stronger top-two finishing counterparts.
Another criticism was that, if first-week results go as planned, then first defeats eighth and second defeats seventh. This leaves the teams who finished from third to sixth effectively playing "dead rubbers" in the first week, with the results merely reshuffling the order of these four teams.
It also possible that in week two, a first week loser may play an (on paper) easier opponent than the team that defeated them in week one, as happened in 2000
To rectify the second criticism, the AFL always scheduled the first round of the finals such that, in chronological order, the games were played: 4 vs 5, 3 vs 6, 2 vs 7, 1 vs 8. So, there was never the situation where two teams would play, knowing that their result would certainly not matter. However, if the final two games ultimately went as predicted, then the first two games again seem to retrospectively have little meaning.
As is the case with all systems, there are advantages as well as criticisms. The major advantages of the system are that it provides the best chance that the top 2 teams after the regular season will meet in the grand final, and that no matches are repeated twice in the first three weeks.In fact, only twice since the NRL started using it (1999 - Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks; 2005 - Parramatta Eels) has the team finishing first failed to make the grand final.
When compared to other final eight systems, the McIntyre system allows for many more combinations of the eight teams in the grand final - with only two combinations (1v7 and 2v8) being completely impossible.
Is this system the right one for the NRL? Maybe, but only time will tell us. We are yet to wait for an outcry from the players union and several coaches. Only then will the NRL perhaps decide to take some form of action. It can never be of their own accord, it is always from the criticisms that come from players and/or coaches. Hopefully, the time will come when such a disadvantageous system to certain teams finishing in the bottom 4 of the eight will be rectified so that it gives a fair advantage to all teams.
