What a Rugby World Cup it has been so far. Almost every game has been massively entertaining right up to the final whistle.
The bonus points in the group stages were an interesting experiment, I cannot say whether I really found them to be useful or simply confusing, but it did get me pondering how to rejig the points system.
I find five points for a try and two points for a conversion to be fair. I would, however suggest changing penalties down to two points or even one.
My reasoning here is that we are now in the age of precision kicking, with games often decided by kicks sunk or missed and a higher proportion of penalties taken at goal from penalties than ever before.
This I feel places too much emphasis on both the kicker’s and a team’s attempts to win penalties at set pieces. Anything that makes teams run the ball more and keep it in play should be encouraged.
Whilst Scott Spedding’s 55-metre penalty kick was a thing of beauty against the All Blacks and whilst I do appreciate the talent of players like Biggar, Carter and Sanchez, I would rather watch a game which is fast-moving and flowing. Thus I would keep drop kicks scored at three points, but downgrade penalties.
The Economist has recently published an article suggesting that teams should kick penalties more rather than less since this increases the chance of getting points on the board.
The bold statistics leave out the context which can be so important, but I would still take this as evidence that penalties are now having too much impact on games.
On Reddit, there were some interesting suggestions made in discussing the Economist article: Taking away the plastic tee which players set the ball on would certainly make kicking more difficult, although the pitch would then get churned up with divots in front of the posts.
Turning all place kicks into drop kicks has a certain logic, since it would mean that more penalties were run and also reduce the time wastage considerably; ruling that only front row forwards can kick penalties would add some entertainment value.
There have been concerns expressed that if penalties were reduced in points, that this would encourage cynical fouls (the argument goes that players would rather concede a possible two points than five for a try).
I am not sure about this, I see quite a lot of cynical fouling anyway as part of desperate defending, it is already part of the game where you like it or not.
The referee has the firepower to fight cynical fouls, whether that be a yellow card or the awarding of a penalty try. Definitely a change in the point scoring system would shake things up a bit.
I know how hard it is to kick penalties and conversions, all you have to do is try to do it yourself to see how amazingly talented this kickers are, but the game has changed over the years and now the focus is set too firmly on penalties instead of tries.
Scoring systems have evolved over the years, although it is true that penalties have consistently been three points since 1886. Nevertheless, the game has to change to stay alive!
