More weight should be put on winning the league over 26 rounds. Its quite the feat & is the most common sense way to show who the best team was overall in a year, but of course theres more to it then that, for TV, fans etc etc.
Let's say the Dragons won every game from now until the GF. In the week off Bennett decides to take the team down to Bondi for a game of beach footy. The bus is involved in an accident and 6 of the players are injured enough to miss the GF.
On the other hand the Storm only just wins enough games to get a berth in the GF. The lower grade replacements for the Dragons put up a great fight but lose to the Storm by one point in extra time.
Tough titties you say. Fair enough, but what would you like to see as a synopsis under the following day's headline. "Storm proves once again they are the best team and have been crowned the rightful Premiers"
How about: "The 2011 Premiers couldn't make it a double by winning both trophies for the year and will have to be satisfied with the Premiership. The GF series cup goes to the Storm who were better on the day."
20 years on and a 15 year old Dragon supporter is glancing through the records and finds that St. George Illawarra won the Premiership in 2011 but missed out on the GF which was won by Melbourne.
He has no idea of the circumstances in 2011 nor at a casual glance who even played Melbourne in the GF.
The point is, nothing but good for the game and it's supporters can be had by recording each year with the simple facts surrounding two idealistically different competitions and rewarding the successful participants in both.
