2023 Finals Formats Explained
The finals series will utilise 2 formats over the 3 week period; A Top 4 & a Top 6.
The Top 4 is being utlised across St George JRFL competitions and a mixture of the 2 is being used across Cronulla & Southern Competitions.
The number of teams in the competition determine which format used if there are 6 or more teams then a top 6 format is used. If there are 4-5 teams, then a top 4 format is used.
Although all St George competitions have 6 or more teams, the league sees top 4 games being more competitive and rewarding.
See the formats below, seeding is based on the final position on the competition ladder at the end of the regular season.
The top 4 format provides double elimination for the first 2 seeds with positions 1 and 2 squaring up in the upper side of the bracket. Seeds 3 and 4 battle it out in an elimination final with the loser’s season ending. The winner of the elimination final will play the loser of the qualifying final with the winner of 1v2 earning themselves a direct ticket to the grand final with a second round bye. The winner of the week 2 clash between the EF winner and QF loser will play in the grand final against the team with the bye. The winner of the grand final will take home the chocolates.
The top 6 format provides seeds 1 and 2 with a first found bye with all games being an elimination clash. Seeds 3-6 will play each other in an elimination finals in the first week. The two games will be 3v6 and 4v5, with the loser of each game eliminated. The winners will then proceed to the next week to take on seeds 1 and 2 in the preliminary finals. Seed 1 will play the lowest remaining seed and seed 2 will play the highest remaining seed. This means that if seed 5 and seed 6 advance, seed 1 will play seed 6 and seed 2 will play seed 5. The winners of the preliminary final will advance to the grand final to play each other and the winner of that will be declared premiers.
