ROW upon row of empty seats at the do-or-die play off games at Huddersfield and Wigan last weekend have set a few alarm bells ringing among the rugby league followers – and hopefully administrators.

There is no shortage of explanations doing the rounds as to why the attendances for the play-offs so far have been pitiful.

Equally there are plenty of folk offering remedies, ranging from scrapping the play offs to slashing the price of admission.

Maybe the recent all-pay attendances should be looked at with a bit of historical perspective. These are hard times. And they have got considerably tougher since fans saved up and shelled out for their season tickets 12 months ago.

Bus fares, electric bills and the price of bread are only going one way – as is the dole queue. It is doubly unfortunate that rugby league land is probably bearing the brunt of a lot of the squeeze on the public sector.

We have to recall that in the early 80s, the last time we hit similarly depressing times, that crowds across the board were less than half of the current average. Saints bobbed along, surviving on gates between 3,500 and 4,500.

Only Hull bucked the trend back then, the only club to pull in regular five figure gates.

In that context and, adopting a glass half full mentality, we have to say that gates for regular league season are magnificent. Of course that is masked a little by the numbers of junior season ticket sales which make it very attractive for youngsters to attend regularly.

But once we get to all pay games – Challenge Cup and play-off – we suddenly expect the same number of people, often at the drop of a hat, to find extra rugby money from their weekly budgets.

It is ill-advised for any of us in the press, who let’s face it don’t have to dig into our pockets or raid the shopping budget to find the £20 admission money, to moralise about low crowds.

Instead we have to ask if the product we are asking fans to part with their money is top-notch and question whether every game is meaningful.

It is clear that fans have twigged that the current top eight system is bloated and that is why they are not champing at the bit to snap up tickets.

The problem starts before the league programme ends, meandering to a conclusion with the jockeying for positions on the starting grid hardly setting pulses racing.

Then the prizes for everyone mentality, which rewards the mediocrity of teams in the bottom half of the table in allowing them to compete for the title, is also detrimental.

Not only has it produced lop-sided scorelines in those fixtures, but in order to accommodate them it has also diluted the edge of the first round of top end games.

Sometimes less is more.

Hopefully after this year’s wake-up call the powers that be will have a big think and revert back to a top five play-off – a system that rewarded the league leaders properly and made every play off game count.