THE Super Eight format introduced by the Fiji Football Association is bearing fruit as competition in the National Football League (NFL) is getting stiffer after each round.
And the biggest shock of the 2012/13 Fiji Sun/GP Batteries NFL has to be the bottom placed Nadroga's 2-1 win over previously unbeaten Nadi on Sunday.
Goals from John Rounds Jr and Waisale Tale Jr saw the Stallions finally ending the Jetsetters seven match unbeaten run at Churchill Park in Lautoka.
NFL chairman Sheik Ibrahim said the Super Eight format saw super premier teams in the bottom two in the league doing everything possible to crawl out of the danger zone.
He said Nadroga through its win over Nadi had got itself on a safer position in the NFL points table.
"I remember the Nadroga president (Vijay Singh) saying there will be surprises in the upcoming national league round at the special general meeting last week," Ibrahim said.
"Congratulations to the Nadroga Football officials for putting together the team and their supporters for backing them up all this while."
Ibrahim said they were expecting better results in the upcoming rounds as the fight to remain in the top eight intensified.
He said the onus would be on the top eight teams to perform to their best and avoid any upset losses.
"At the moment Savusavu looks in real danger. They had so many chances to score in their past games but they couldn't and they really need to improve to get away from the bottom place."
Ibrahim also said they were not expecting any disruptions in the running of the NFL apart from the Oceania League and the under-20 playoff.
Ba will be representing Fiji in the O-League while Fiji will host the Oceania Football Confederation U20 playoffs later this month.
The Fiji FA passed the Super Eight format at its special general meeting last week.
This coincided with the introduction of automatic promotion/relegation which will see the bottom two teams in the super premier division getting relegated at the end of this season.
From 2014/15 season, the top two teams from the premier grade will have a chance to move up while the bottom two from the proposed Super Eight will be demoted.