It’s hard to understand why the McIntyre finals system lasted as long as it did.

Fans of the difficult to comprehend and ridiculously unfair format were as rare as silverware in Cronulla’s trophy cabinet.

The ARL Commission’s decision to scrap it in favour of the one used by the AFL ends 13 years of September uncertainty for NRL finalists.

For a team forced to play on the Friday and then have to wait until the Sunday afternoon to find out if they will get another game in the finals speaks volumes of its failings.

Then there were the utter flaws – which were truly exposed in 2008 when minor premiers Melbourne were beaten in the opening week of the finals.

They were then forced to go to Brisbane for a sudden-death encounter.

The eighth-placed Warriors were handed a home semi-final against the Sydney Roosters, who had finished fourth in the regular season.

The Roosters’ only crime was to lose in week one of the finals, and they then had to go to a hostile Mt Smart Stadium, where they duly lost.

The biggest question is why the NRL ever went for the complicated formula in the first place.

NRL chief executive David Gallop had been a defendant of the format, claiming the mid-season impact of State of Origin made it ideal for the NRL, and that due reward had to be given to the top two teams.

But as ARL Commission chairman John Grant admitted, the game had outgrown the McIntyre.

Credit must also go to the Commission for swallowing its pride and not allowing the fact it is following the AFL’s model deter it from making the change.

Rugby league officials will insist it was their system first and they where simply going back to it but, as Grant says, some things are just too important.

“It’s what’s good for the game,” Grant said.

“The game’s just at a different stage now.”