The only people who benefit from a draw in rugby union right now are the punters who backed it.
Every Monday morning during rugby season I post an article with my take on either Leinster or Ireland's match from the previous weekend. Since it's offseason now, I'm trying to do rants at this time instead to keep my hand in.
For the past two weeks I have covered major topics from the game...like challenging the transition to professionalism and comparing Super Rugby to the Heineken Cup.
This week, I want to go to the other extreme and discuss something extremely trivial – so much so that it may never actually be important...my point is that one day it could be and it's something that is very easily fixed.
One of the best innovations in the game of rugby union over the past couple of decades has been the introduction of the bonus points. Most of the game's biggest competitions involve a round-robin format, and soccer's system of a fixed amount of points for wins and draws just didn't cut it.
And so the system of 4 points for a win, 2 for a draw, 1 for four tries and 1 for losing by seven or less spread throughout the game, and it has definitely had an impact on the way teams play. Going into a final quarter a team could be ahead by more than two converted tries having only scored three themselves...this gives an incentive to both sides to keep playing to the end and this can only be good for the spectators.
The system, however, is not without its critics. I recently read one article on a South African fan site which described one of the bonus points as a “reward for losing”. That's a crass way of putting it in my book, but technically it is correct.
Then there's the notion that a team can win all their matches in a competition yet still not finish first. This, I feel, is why they don't introduce the system to the Six Nations. In a tournament that puts so much stock in the “Grand Slam”, it's mathematically possible, if extremely unlikely, to achieve those five successive wins while still finishing second on the table under the bonus point system.
But imagine the effects of this over the course of a 22-game season in the Pro12 and Premiership or in the case of the Top14, 26. It doesn't only affect the top of the league…a team that loses four matches in a row can technically get enough points as if they had actually won one of those games, and with things like playoff places and Heineken Cup qualification on the line, this can prove crucial.
On the subject of the try bonus, I think the little tweak they did in France deserves a mention. It's not enough to score 4 tries in the Top14, you must score three more tries than your opponents. I really like this idea, because this means the try bonus is something that can be taken away from you. So rather than running in four tries and shutting up shop as often happens, you need to be mindful of what's going on at the other end of the pitch as well, plus it means losing teams can only ever score one point which I reckon is enough of a “reward”.
So having spelled out how the format works and what its implications are, do I think it needs changing? Perhaps. I have two suggestions, one is extremely radical, the other is incredibly simple.
While I'm mostly in favour of bonus points, I'm not so sure they should carry as much weight as they do. Sports fans generally come to watch a contest where two individuals or teams are trying to win first and foremost.
So why not just rank the teams on the table first and foremost by number of wins?
The bonus points as they stand now (or as I would prefer, the Top14 method) could remain as a factor, but I would re-brand them “tie-breaking points” (or TBP as it could read on the table) and they would do exactly what they say on the tin...if two teams are level on wins, we can then check their TBPs to see who finishes higher (with one extra criterion in between that I will mention later).
This would mean no amount of bonus points could ever be as valuable as a win, but if your team is trying to climb the league, since you can only advance one win at a time, you'll need some TBPs in the bag should you ever catch the teams ahead of you.
Then if teams are still level we can move on to the more traditional things like results between the teams in question, tries scored or points difference.
One argument against this method is that we’d go back to the possibility of a team winning all its matches by 3-0. I put it to you that in the modern game if a team has a defence good enough to keep that many clean sheets it may just deserve first place; besides, I’m not sure coaches under any system would take the risk setting themselves up to go for 3-0 victories throughout a season-long campaign.
I believe it's this kind of “outside the box” thinking that the game needs. We're used to seeing standings presented in the format “P W D L F A Pts” - why? Because that's how soccer does it. Why should it be that way? How about we structure ourselves in a way that suits our own game?
Now I KNOW that's quite a dramatic change that is more than likely never going to even be considered let alone introduced. So instead let me suggest something a lot more do-able.
The way things stand now in most competitions, the first tie-breaker after points is the number of wins. This is designed to solve the very problem I mention above, though I don't believe it does enough.
Still...the Reds recently took advantage of this to win Super Rugby's Australia Conference title – they may have gone on to lose to the Sharks in the playoffs, but I'd say the Brumbies would have traded places for that result to have happened in Canberra Stadium rather than SunCorp, and it was all because Queensland had 11 wins to ACT's 10.
I see one flaw in this method. It's not a major one exactly, but it's still a flaw. If teams are level on wins as well as league points, the next tie-breaker in Super Rugby is points difference. The same applies in the Pro12 and Premiership.
But hang on a second...if you're placing so much stock on wins, what about draws? Are we saying that a team with, for example, 67pts, 14 wins, 3 draws and 5 losses could finish behind a team with 67pts, 14 wins, 1 draw and 7 losses, all because of points difference?
The above scenario has never happened, but could have last season in the Pro 12 if the Glasgow Warriors had turned just one of their league-record four draws into a victory. Would have been the difference in 3rd and 4th between themselves an Munster – not exactly crucial the way the league panned out, but it could as easily have been a contest between 4th and 5th which certainly WOULD have been significant.
This is my point – I know it has never happened, but one day it could. So maybe the leagues should stick another criterion in there after “most wins”, namely “most draws”. Not exactly the most attractive way to decide a ranking I know, but a draw is definitely better than a loss and should be treated as such in my book.
And of course in the radical proposal I mentioned earlier of placing wins as most important, draws should be next on the list, followed by the TBPs.
Hey...I told you it was a mostly trivial matter I was covering this time! But don't come running to me if your team misses out one day because nothing was done about it! I promise to have a sexier topic next week. Officiating at scrums anyone? JLP
