I am being turned off rugby by the game’s rules, and the blame falls at the door of the IRB. It’s bringing the game into disrepute.
Specifically, and there are numerous others I could grizzle about, too many games are being won by penalty kicks.
Examples are in every game but there are too many to list.
To refresh people’s minds of the latest example: Durban; 6th April; Sharks with six penalty goals beat the Crusaders who scored the only try of the match.
It was a game where the Crusaders should have won, and like many others, the Crusaders outplayed the Sharks.
They just didn’t outscore them.
And before the great outcry starts, I do not keep tabs on the numbers of games where there have been more goal-kicks than tries, nor other games where kicking for goal seems to be the only reason to waste eighty minutes of your life watching rugby.
Dubious scrum/breakdown rulings by referees have many teams win games at full time by the three point penalty goal.
Rugby is a team game whereby the object is to provide a reward for a team’s effort in the way of tries.
Tries are so important we even reward teams who get four of them in a Super Rugby game with greater competition points.
Kicking goals is a skill honed to near perfection by an individual.
But the game is not about watching a perfectionist kicker spend much of the eighty minutes kicking the ball between two posts because a bloke with a whistle constantly provides him the choice to do so.
It is a team game played by fifteen skilled team players working together endeavouring to score tries.
I am so over it and am sickened to the point of having to watch trivial misdemeanours interrupt the game flow, and see disappointment of a superior team losing due to disproportionally rewarded outcomes.
This hoary old chestnut has been argued many times before, and this article holds nothing new, but, and this is the gripe; when so many fans without a vote tell those few with it to change the rules to make the game worth watching are being ignored by a ‘take it or leave it’ attitude, I move on to only watching games where I am entertained by the likelihood of teams who provide tries, and to hell with the rest.
Simply put, our IRB still cannot get over the fact that league has got there first, and in their eyes we cannot be seen to do what league does better.
Because of this attitude the game is brought into disrepute by them by them not correcting the problems union has.
It can be simplified into a spectacular game by:
1. Removing a three point kick at goal for a scrum/ruck infringement and for being offside. (Make indirect free kick/tap/or drop kick at goal.
2. Reducing a drop goal to a one point score.
3. Allow a three point kick at goal only for foul play combined with a yellow or red card.
4. Make the player let go of the ball when he hits the ground in a tackle, not “place it,” thereby allowing an even faster flow of the game from a ruck.
With just these four simple changes, the need to score tries becomes more paramount.
Granted there are many other changes needed, but when teams out-point but don’t out-play their opposition and are rewarded for it because of goal kicking points, I would prefer to go and play tiddlywinks with Tana Umaga.
Rascar
Guest
Like most rugby fans I have no problem with penalties being part of the game, but it is clearly unjust to win 6 points for two questionable infringements near the half way line, against 5 points for a well worked unconverted try in the corner that took a dozen phases and 5-10 minutes of pressure. Devaluing the penalty to 2 or even 1 would logically result in more fouling, so I'm not sure that's the answer. Perhaps the best solution is the simplest one. As someone proposed above, rule that any penaltly kick HAS to be taken as a drop kick.
LaurensK
Guest
So why all the fuss with league then?
mitzter
Guest
There was plenty wrong
mitzter
Guest
I've heard this before, imilar to the law 30 years ago or so that the first player from the defence to the tackle couldn't pick up the ball
Jerry Graham
Guest
Yeah, I've got no problem with result.
Dublin Dave
Guest
It's repetition time so I will repeat. If you look at the scoring patterns in international matches 60 plus years ago, tries accounted for a much greater proportion of the points than they do now. Of course, matches tended to be low scoring anyway but tries were a much more important factor. Heck, in 1948 Ireland won the European Grand Slam without scoring a single penalty goal in any of their four matches. Fancy doing that nowadays! So the answer is simple: Revert to the scoring values of those days ie drop value of a try to three points; increase value of dropped goal to four. Oh and try and make today's balls as unkickable as the balls of the time were. My oft repeated suggestion is for "atomic" balls, ie stick a weight made of wood or metal in the middle of the ball so as not to sacrifice grip for passing moves but make it damned hard to kick. Problem solved.
Rebel
Guest
Less in union than in league. Many league matches turn into a drop goal shoot out and the 1 point result does not deter them.
LaurensK
Guest
Why? How many drop goal attempts are there on average per game?
Bobby
Guest
Either make a drop goal one point or if a drop goal misses restart in play will be taken back to where the drop goal was taken and given to the opposition as a tap restart or scrum.
Straight Banana
Guest
I say there should be automatic yellow cards for any penalty in your own 22m area. That will sort out the deliberate infringements to incur a penalty rather than allow opponents to score. Saders would have been down 4 players for 40 mins in this game so puts it into perspective.
jason8
Guest
There was nothing wrong with the ELV's.... that solved a lot of my gripes in the game.
SA teams do concede many penalties, there is no doubt, as long as everyone cops penalties for the same offence then all is right in the world, eh?
DR
Guest
Sigh. Different games, different conditions, different refs. Crusaders also lost to canes after scoring more tries. That's their problem for giving penalties. Only 1from the 7 kicked on the weekend was a questionable decision. Discipline and playing to the ref are part and parcel of union. I have personally enjoyed the rugby this year and I think the game is headed in the right direction. Rucking will help speed the game up too. Would certainly sort out a lot of the cheating by...........wait for it.....everyone!!
SkinnyKid
Roar Rookie
yes but if they were that easy we'd see a lot more of them wouldn't we?
LaurensK
Guest
The school I went to didn't have the same massive Afrikaans farmer boys like other schools in our region we played against. This forced us to get really fit and play a cheetah style running game, tiring the big forwards of the opposition, with a fairly good success rate. I assume the same way it was easier for bigger teams to play a more direct approach. Regardless, we all had our own playing styles. What I loved about rugby back then was that anyone had a place on the field. Fatties were forwards, tall skinny kids locks, short kid scrum half etc. unlike soccer. Aren't we changing this by trying to change the rules too much?
SkinnyKid
Roar Rookie
so the right team won then....
Jerry
Guest
I'm not complaining, I'm just pointing out that Richard's statement that SA teams concede just as much when under the pump has some merit. You're the one who implied (by omission) that they don't.
LaurensK
Guest
Well that is rugby. Don't complain. You win a rugby match by accumulating points. Drop goals, penalties, tries, whatever I read someone says drop goals should be disallowed. How one dimensional do we want this to become? Like I said. People that want a league style sport should watch league or just start a touch rugby tournament :)
LaurensK
Guest
Mania. Why should rugby emulate league. People that like league should watch... League. If it is so much better why its popularity mostly restricted to Aus?
Jerry
Guest
Well, how about the Sharks and Kings giving up 7 & 8 kickable penalties respectively in the last round?