ALL being well, (and not counting chickens) Saints will be presented with the League Leaders Shield after Friday’s game.

Saints have to avoid defeat - or Wigan will have to slip up at Warrington - for the achievement to be mathematically confirmed.

It is a huge shame that the prize for finishing top of the pile after a long, gruelling season starting in February is so woefully undervalued.

The same argument raises its head every year, but nothing of substance ever gets done to alter the fact that there is almost an embarrassment about the way we decide the champions.

Because football is so very strong in this country – and their system of rewarding the League Champions has remained constant through the decades – it is hard to explain to outsiders that the team finishing top have not won the top prize.

The big problem is that when Super League decided back in 1998 to do away with the first past the post way of deciding the champions, they threw the baby out with the bathwater.

After 24 years of rugby league awarding the title to the team finishing top, the way they forced through the Grand Final concept was to crush any notion that the team finishing number one on the take counted for anything.

For a few years between 1998 and 2002 there was not even a prize.

And when the trophy did finally emerge the damage had already been done.

It did not help that the prize was – and still is - derided as the hubcap.

Given the strength of the end of season showpiece at Old Trafford nowadays there is no way that this particular genie is going back into the bottle; the champions will remain the Grand Final winners.

But to continue inadequately reward finishing top is not simply disrespectful to the winners, but also the fans who stump up their money every week.

Surely the Grand Final is a robust enough event to dovetail with, rather dominate, the league competition.

Is there not scope to make the League Leaders something more substantial and have it as a genuine stand-alone prize to be fought for and be valued as much as winning the Grand Final.

Other sports have multiple prizes to play for, why not rugby league?

First off, the trophy. Let’s have one that looks like a fitting reward for 30 rounds of toil, skill and consistency.

The shield has been too easily derided – and it is going to nigh on impossible to do a PR job on rescuing that from the hubcap, frisbee or collection plate monicker.

Is the old Championship trophy – a pot that had such prestige, history and substance - still in one piece? Can we not use that one?

Secondly, let’s call it something that reflects that that part of the competition is complete. What about Super League winners for the team finishing top. The team finishing top, after all, have won the league. The Old Trafford victors would be Super League Grand Final champions.

Third, change the system so that in the play-offs it is not a no second chance knockout and go back to the top five play-off which rewarded the team topping the pile.

And lastly, split the prize money equally between the table-toppers and Grand Final winners.