Voss: Why I've changed my tune on NRL wildcard round

In the AFL, they will have their wildcard round this year for the first time. Their finals now becomes a top 10.

Seventh will play 10th and eighth will play ninth. The two winners will then go through to the finals.

There is a clear cut top 10 in the AFL and there is also a clear cut top 10 in the NRL.

If we had a wildcard system in the NRL and the competition were to finish right now, it would be the seventh placed South Sydney Rabbitohs up against the 10th placed Wests Tigers and the eighth placed Cronulla Sharks versus the ninth placed North Queensland Cowboys.

As the AFL explores possible changes and tweaks to their draw, I am putting the idea of a wildcard for the NRL back on the table.

We are expanding to 18 teams next year, 19 teams thereafter and possibly 20 teams sooner rather than later. With eighteen teams, 10 would miss out on finals as it stands. 19 teams and it will be 11 teams that miss out. When we get to 20 teams, 12 teams miss out on finals. That’s 60%.

We need to accept that expansion is coming in. We are going to reach within the next two years a minimum of at least 19 teams. The best option for finals would be a wildcard.

The last round of regular season competition would mean that teams don’t give their best players a week off because if you finish in the top six, you get the week off anyway.

Effectively, the first week of the playoffs are when the wildcards would be.

I think it’s time that we can have more teams involved in the end of season playoffs.

I’ve gone from total indifference to the concept of a wildcard to now where I’m saying let’s bring it on.

It’s not an emphatic yes but I am leaning more towards a wildcard round than not.