As the NRL season races into finals, the conversation around the ‘dead-rubber’ games in the late stages of the year are still dominating headlines.
With the bottom four sides essentially throwing in the towel with nothing to play for in the final weeks of the season, the NRL has seen some out of proportion score lines.
Many suggestions have been floated to solve this issue, including a wildcard proposal from SEN’s Joel Caine, giving entry for ninth and tenth place into the finals.
“That’s why I’m so big on the wildcard round, go down to tenth, people will say you’re rewarding mediocrity, well you’re not because you’re actually punishing it,” Caine said on SEN 1170 The Run Home.
“Seventh and eight have to place an extra game against ninth and tenth, and everyone else has a week off.
“What it does if you do that, it just keeps the competition alive, we knew a long way out that there was a lot of dead rubbers coming up.
“If you had that wildcard round and people would get up off the bit, that tenth would get a shot at it (finals), but who cares.”
“The finals don’t start until the following week, so instead of having the week off and there’s no rugby league at all like the AFL, we’ve still got content.
“The top-six have earned their right into the finals which commences the following week, then you have the wildcard round… It gives us content and gives our best players the chance to have a week off.
“We aren’t rewarding mediocrity, we are punishing seventh and eighth which is mediocre, so you have to win five games to win a grand final, not four.”