Super for Saints... but ARE the play-offs fair?
THE Premiership play-offs have brought colour and high drama to the closing weeks of the Scottish football calendar for the past nine seasons.
For clubs finishing third and fourth in the Championship, however, the task of reaching the top flight remains akin to Mission Impossible.
When the play-offs were first floated ahead of the 2013-14 campaign, the concept was weighted heavily in favour of minimising the risk to Premiership club so they would vote for the proposals.
It also required the Scottish FA to step forward to assuage the financial fears of clubs in danger of the drop.
With the newly-formed SPFL having no sponsor, they couldn’t afford to subsidise the play-offs so the SFA stepped in instead.
They agreed to underwrite the play-off system for the first two seasons by putting up a £250,000 safety net if a Premiership club lost the play-off final, with the SPFL taking care of the funding for future seasons.
That did the trick and a play-off set-up was voted through which required the Championship’s third or fourth-placed teams to play four matches before they reached the two-legged final with a top-flight opponent.
In stark contrast to those six games, the 11th-placed club in the Premiership only has to play two matches against potentially weary opponents in the final.
The odds are heavily stacked in the top flight’s favour and so it proved again on Monday night when St Johnstone beat Inverness Caley Thistle 4-0 at McDiarmid Park to remain in the Premiership on a 6-2 aggregate scoreline.
That continued the run of no team finishing third or fourth going on to win promotion to the Premiership since the pyramid structure was introduced.
Only two sides have even made it as far as the final from that position. In 2015, third-placed Rangers lost 6-1 on aggregate to Motherwell amid explosive scenes at Fir Park. Dundee United, who also finished third, were defeated 1-0 on aggregate by Hamilton two years later.
Over the years, the gruelling format for Championship clubs has been a regular source of irritation for managers of teams who have fallen just short in the pursuit of promotion.
Inverness defender Kirk Broadfoot admits a move to the English-style system of play-offs with two semi-final ties and a onelegged final would be fairer. But he insists it was not the gruelling schedule of games that caused the Highland side to stumble to a heavy second-leg defeat at McDiarmid Park.
‘If you look at the set-up (in England) it’s a semi-final then a final,’ said Broadfoot, who played his final game for Caley Thistle on Monday and is now seeking a club nearer to his family in Ayrshire.
‘Maybe it would be more entertaining that way? The set-up of the play-offs is obviously more favourable to the Premiership team but I genuinely think we could have won the game against St Johnstone and won promotion to the Premiership.
‘We have played six games in 20 days and that’s a lot of football. But I genuinely think the boys like it. All you do is play, recover, play, recover, play.
‘It’s like when I was playing down in England in the Championship with Rotherham. Games were on Saturdays and Tuesdays and you soon get used to it. Recovery is key. If you don’t recover properly you’ll get found out on the pitch.
‘It’s been a tough spell but we believed we could do it. I thought we were the better team against St Johnstone but goals change games.
‘St Johnstone got the early goal in the second half then got a second soon after and that played into their hands because they are a counter-attacking team.
‘We had to open up to try and get back into the game and that’s what happens. It was just a step too far for us. But I don’t think it was a 4-0 game.’
Inverness boss Billy Dodds echoed that theme after seeing his side prevail against Partick Thistle and Arbroath before falling at the two-legged final hurdle. After watching his side storm back from 2-0 down to draw 2-2 in the first leg, he had vowed that fitness would not be an issue for his squad in Perth.
Despite the heartbreak of the result, he hadn’t changed his mind after the 6-2 aggregate loss ended Caley Thistle’s promotions dreams.
‘It’s weird but we didn’t find it that hard,’ said Dodds.
‘I think the first two rounds are the toughest because you play Friday, Tuesday, Friday, Tuesday.
‘There’s no excuses for these last two games.
‘When we got our break for a week (after the first two rounds) you saw we were 2-0 down against St Johnstone on Friday night in the first leg but we kept going.
‘We got ourselves back in the tie at Inverness to 2-2 and I thought we had them after 45 minutes in Perth.
‘Credit to St Johnstone, they handled the pressure and they got the goals at the right time and they remain in the Premiership.
‘But we had a great chance. It wasn’t fitness whatsoever.’