WE are back in play-off action this weekend with yet another round of quite brilliant fixtures for the Middle Eights.

There has been much debate in recent months about the concept, but I am an unashamed fan of it, in fact I think it is commercial gold and a genius solution for the sport in this country.

Yet again all four fixtures are absolute must wins for all eight teams. In all sports competition structures anywhere in the world, I find it impossible to conceive anything that delivers week after week like the Middle Eights.

Toulouse play Widnes and the bookies can’t separate them. If the French win and follow up Catalans success last week, Widnes will have played three, lost three. With matches still to come against Leeds, Hull KR and Toronto, I simply can see them escaping automatic relegation.

Over at Headingley, Hull KR desperately need a win to tilt the odds back in their favour of avoiding the million pound game in another fixture which is to close to call. Funnily enough I have a slight feel for the Robins.

Over at The Shay, Salford are probably firmest favourites across the four games and an expected win will go a long way to securing their place in the Super League next season…..providing their much publicised financial travails don’t finally catch up with them.

Perhaps most intriguing will be the Saturday evening game in Ontario, where Toronto take on London.

Both teams have one win from two fixtures and whoever picks the points up from this will be favourites to get at least a Million Pound Game berth, possibly even automatic promotion.

There is drama and uncertainty everywhere you look and quite why anyone except the insecure and, weaker lower Super League clubs, would want to tamper with it, is a complete mystery to me.

The reason the Middle Eights is so strong is because it matches teams of equal ability and brings freshness to fixture lists.

Rugby league, like many contact sports, does not do mismatches very well.

The physicality, the speed and the skills means that matches between unbalanced teams are not attractive.

That is why the RFL changed the rules for the Challenge Cup.

Sending Dudley Hill to Leeds in the early rounds of the Challenge Cup would be bordering on the unsafe. The current league structure seeks to match equals against equals, because that is what makes compelling sport.

Those Super League clubs have of course been launching a campaign to euthanise the Middle Eights for some time, arrogantly declaring they won’t be played next season. Well, we shall see. The bottom line is the Middle Eights are probably the most valuable asset that the RFL currently own.

I think they are worth more than the Challenge Cup, or International football, so how could the RFL Board even contemplate eradicating them? The empty seats last week should be a painful reminder to the RFL that they are not blessed with commercially compelling offers, so jettisoning the best they have, simply to suit the private agendas of half-a-dozen underperforming Super League clubs would be a dubious decision by the RFL Board.

And to contemplate replacing it with a one-up-one-down, with a relegated Super League club powered by a parachute payment, cantering through the Championship competition is quite appalling.

It the equivalent of young Jack taking the family cow to market and swapping it for three beans, only this time there is no happy ending; no beanstalk with a crock of gold; not for the Championship clubs at least.

Is that really the extent of the thinking by the brains trust of the RFL? I hope not. I think they can do better.

As I have said before the structure for the top and bottom eights does need tweaking. But is easy to see how this can be done.

Salford saviour Marwan Koukash suggested some time ago that the fourth semi-final place should be reserved for the club with the best record in the Super 8’s that didn’t occupy position one, two or three. That would give everyone something to play for.

I believe that would represent a considerable improvement, but if clubs are looking to kill something off, they are not looking for positive solutions.

The Super Leagues current offer of one up one down comprising 'loopy fixtures' is a retrograde step.

It is a perfect example of the medicine being more unpalatable than the original affliction it is intended to cure.

The good news is we have cured you of your ingrowing toenail Sir, and we know it is fixed for good, because we’ve taken your leg off beneath the knee.

As I said two weeks ago the missing piece in all of the deliberations between the RFL and Super League is that complete and utter absence of any kind of vision.

How do you grow the game while protecting the RFL members?

My suggested solution is to recognise what you have and where you are trying to get to. The sooner we accept that the top division should be 14 clubs, no loopy fixtures, 27 high-calibre games without repetition, overseas teams responsible for their own funding and two up two down with a play-offs to galvanise the whole Championship season, the better.

Use 2019 to introduce this in 2020, gives our highly-paid executives the chance to earn their coin with a ground-busting new TV deal making the whole rugby league family better off - the whole family.

The challenge for everyone is to put self interest to one side and make decisions which are genuinely in the best interest of the wider sport.