Roar Guru
More and more, rugby is competing with other sports for a slice of television’s revenue pie. Whether the dottering old fools of the IRB (who awarded New Zealand the next RWC because they hadn’t forgotten Japan’s involvement in WW2) care to admit that is an entirely different matter.
Our Northern Hemisphere cousins effectively killed the ELVs with a misinformation campaign that at times defied belief. But they got away with it and it delivered their desired result – the return to kickathon rugby.
The abandonment of ELVs has seen rugby become a goal-kicking spectacle once more.
Witness the last Test between the All Blacks and the Springboks, with Morne Steyne kicking goals from everywhere to single-handedly win the game.
Match results have returned once more to the whim of a referee and destroyed the game as a spectacle.
As a player, nothing irritated more than losing a match where we had scored more tries but our goal-kicker had left his boots at home. Somehow it felt as if an injustice had been done.
Conversely, winning by penalties when the opposition had scored more tries equally did not feel quite right.
It is time to think outside of the square.
To return to running rugby, I believe that it is time to stop kicks at goal from penalties. Couple this with field goals being reduced to one point, this will see a quick return to running rugby.
This can be achieved without changing the rules of the game, whilst minimising the referee’s impact on results.
Using this method will see the team scoring the most tries winning the game. Where tries are even, conversions will make the difference, and where tries and conversions are equal, it will then come down to a one point field goal to decide the game.