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As a 72-year-old ex-rugby league player who has watched the game evolve into what it is today, I find myself thinking how sterile and predictable the game is becoming.
Teams simply ruck it out for three or four tackles, pass it out to the backs and kick. It happens over and over again.
Ever since they took the old fair dinkum scrums out of the game and introduced the new ‘fake’ scrums, the game has lost something. The old scrums had their problems but there was always that bit of anticipation and uncertainty, waiting to see who would win the scrum and what might eventuate.
With the new scrums the result is a no-brainer, frustrating and a waste of good playing time. Add to this the time-wasting goal-line dropouts, and it amounts to a lot of downtime in the game.
A team should be encouraged and rewarded for taking a risk to run the ball on the fifth tackle. Hopefully this would bring back that element of anticipation and uncertainty that the game seems to be lacking, as well as reducing some of the unnecessary downtime.
To encourage a team to run the ball on the fifth tackle, I would like to suggest we award a six-point ‘golden try’. It would be awarded if a team takes the risk to run the ball on the fifth and scores a try.
This golden try should also be used to determine the result of a game should it end in a draw. In the event of a draw the team that scores the most golden tries would then be deemed to win the game. If there were no golden tries scored or an equal number of scored, then the game would go into extra-time.
This could encourage teams to go for a golden try more often throughout the whole game, knowing not only that it is worth six points but also that it could be the deciding factor in determining the final result in case of a draw.
Hopefully we would then see more teams attempt to run the ball on the fifth, adding that much needed anticipation and uncertainty. There would also be less kicking, fewer time-wasting scrums and goal-line dropouts, making the game faster due to less stoppages.
The fatigue factor would also become more important as a result of a faster games involving fewer scrums and goal-line dropouts. And we would finally see less drawn results.
These are the positives that would hopefully arise from introducing a six-point golden try. I’m sure there are some negatives, but what do you Roarers think?
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