Niall Quinn

I've looked at the reality of what actually happened in the last three years.

Why three years?

Because quite simply, Don, I haven't got the time to go back 15 years.

So if you go back to the reality of it, you can actually say that everybody knows it's flawed.

Here's the margin for error.

That reality takes into account all of the things that you're talking about, which is runs of form, et cetera, this and that, the imbalance in terms of whether you've played home games or away games, whether you've played the top teams or the middle teams who have lost the interest in the last two or three games of the season.

So I think that's, if you like, a broad check, which actually does the same thing.

and does it take into account all of the factors that influence the tail end of the season?

But it's not important.

Why did they not accept it?

Because in Lincoln's position, it makes absolutely no difference to them.

They can stop playing.

The margin of error just says that basically, you know, we wouldn't go down.

We're not asking for playoffs at the bottom end of the league because we recognize roughly about halfway down the league, that's where the financial, just slightly over halfway down the league.

That's where the financial problems hit, and that's why the financial motivation is to stop playing.

They don't want to fire up again and start playing.

We don't necessarily at this stage want to fire up again and start playing either.

But what I'm saying is that if those who want to play can play in the playoffs, and so for Lincoln it makes absolutely no difference to them.

For all of the teams who are not in the playoffs, it makes no difference to them if they want to stop and hibernate to some extent because of the costs and the issues that they've got.

Yeah, I have to be careful what I say here, but the issue is, look, COVID, this is an unseemly argument, if you like, around how we finished the season, et cetera, because there are bigger issues coming along down the line in the game in terms of, you know, COVID is exceptional.