Gatesy writes:
Phil Kearns said on Saturday night that the field goal is a ‘blight on the game’.
Here are the Pros and Cons as I see them.
Against:
Rugby is essentially a team game. At least in our part of the world we see it as a running game, with the principal focus on scoring tries, by running at, and beating, the defensive line. A field goal, or even an attempt at one, is a sort of admission of defeat, that you can’t break the defensive line.
It is also an individual skill, rather than a team skill that gets the points.
For:
It is a way of punishing the defending team for being caught in the red zone.
It is often the culmination of a good team effort to drive the ball downfield to a kickable position
It is there, so let’s use it. It seems to me that we could look at the whole question of kicks. Why, for instance do you need to convert a try?
If the try is the result of a great team effort, though it might be scored in the corner, why should that be harder for the kicker than if it was scored under the posts?
Should a conversion be worth two, should a penalty be worth three, and should a field goal be worth anything, or something less than three?
Rugby is meant to be a series of contests. Is the field goal a contest, or is it merely the fair result of some other contest?
What do others think?
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tim phillips said | June 18th 2007 @ 4:45pm | Report comment
I think Kearnsy may have been (understandably) a little emotional at the time of his comments. I’m sure if he’d been asked his opinion on field goals following the 1999 RWC semi final it may have been a different answer. Drop goals are a great part of the game. Australia has always underutilized them.
slomo said | June 18th 2007 @ 7:18pm | Report comment
Tim, Kearnsy was joking. But the real issue is why was he commentating at all? What arrogance is it to cut out the South African commentators? Frankly I thought Kearnsy and his mate were boring.
Ben from Pretoria said | June 18th 2007 @ 8:35pm | Report comment
Why are Aussies trying to reinvent the wheel? Drop goals win tight games, it relieves pressure or are the result of pressure. Aus had 35% of the posession, 30% territory and had to make a gizillion tackles. The only thing that kept them in the game was a very good defensive effort. They frankly played no rugby.
I like Phil Kearns, always watch him on Inside Rugby on Supersport and do not for one minute think that he was serious. 1999 saw Larkham booting out the Bokke and the reason was because the game was tied and someone had to do something.
Long live the field goal!
jools-usa said | June 18th 2007 @ 11:09pm | Report comment
You’ll never have the points or rules of field goals changed by the IRB.
The group is dominated northern officials and field goals are part of the northern culture of kicking, not running for points.
Jools-USA
Ian said | June 19th 2007 @ 11:47am | Report comment
It is a skill that needs to be kept in the game. It looks much easier than it is on the field to kick a drop goal. It rewards teams for their hard work and also is a foil against the very developed defensive systems.
I would rather increase the value of a try to 6 points, and reduce the conversion to 1 point.
Clive Woodworth said | June 19th 2007 @ 12:25pm | Report comment
Phil Kearns is one of a continuing line of whinging Aussie comments people following on from Garry Pearce and Poidevin who loved to us the “cheap shot” comment when one of the Aussie tema was hit hard but somehow never got to see one when it was perpertrated by and Aussie hit man.
Also Kearns comment about drop goal being a blight on th game is just a continuance of the whinge..Don’t remember him being upset about Larkin’s 50 yard goal back in ’99.
Lachlan said | June 19th 2007 @ 1:46pm | Report comment
Field goals are ok as stalemate breakers. Like in League, they’re either used to break a deadlock, or to make the opposition score twice to win.
HOwever, in Union, fieldgoals are treated as ways to score easy points, being worth three fifths of a try rather than just one in League.
While I’m at it, penalty goals are worth too much in Union as well. We should follow league’s example and make them worth only two.
When was the last time a game of league was won by a team scoring more points from penalty and field goals, than points from scoring tries?
that’s the problem with Union, it has failed to fully sever the ties from its parent (soccer) where you kicked goals to score points.
And for the argument that we need three point penalties as a deterrent against defending teams killiing the ball in their own quarter, bring in a rule that if you’re caught doing a professional foul in your own quarter, the offending player is sin-binned and the attacking team gets to tap and run or scrum it down.
Referees need to be more liberal with the yellow card for professional fouls. Why let players get away with professional fouls more than once? Now that is the real blight on the game!
Paulmc said | June 19th 2007 @ 2:12pm | Report comment
Is there a rugby historian amongst us?
Was not the reason for putting the ball over the opponents line to to allow your team to “try” to kick a gaol? If this is the case the conversion should be worth the most points.
Think of the implications of this 4 for a conversion, 3 for a try, 2 for a penalty & 1 for a field goal.
Lachlan said | June 19th 2007 @ 2:21pm | Report comment
Paulmc,
I hadn’t thought of that, although it’s not a bad idea. I know in my old man’s day, a try was worth the same as a penalty goal (3 points), with the idea that killing the ball virtually gave away a try’s worth of points anyway. But I assume they then raised the worth of a try to 4 points when it became clear teams were simply waiting for a penalty. (can anyone confirm?)
I like that idea about the most points reserved for a conversion of a try. It would make scoring a try the gretaest incentive of the game.
slomo said | June 19th 2007 @ 2:55pm | Report comment
Aussies are great at innovation, and what better time to innovate than when the status quo doesn’t suit the Australian team. So, if you don’t like the scoring system or if someone else has an advantage because of superior capability, then hell, it’s easy, let’s change the scoring system so as to eliminate the advantage.
In fact, why not change the game completely so as to suit Australia, and the hell with what the other 138 coutries that play rugby do or don’t do. That way nobody will beat Australia becuase nobody will be playing against the Wallabies.
Some want to reduce the value of a drop to 1 point, others want to depower scrums and yet others want to get rid of the flank forwards. Seems to me you’ve already got a game with those characteristics in this country – it’s that abomination called league.
All this talk is absurd, guys; they’ve changed the value of a try 2ce in the last 40 years in an attempt to “improve” the game and it’s never worked. Every time Australia gets a beating there seems to be bleating from one or other source in this country It’s hard to know what you want – perhaps that boring-to-death-multi-phase-recycling-obstruction-running Brumbies invention.