World Cup workings
READER Doug McGarr says he was watching a rugby match on TV the other night, between Australian sides Brisbane City and Rays.
To his astonishment, conversions counted for three points instead of two.
“What the hell is going on Down Under?”
Actually it’s a most sinister development.
The Aussies have indeed changed the value of a conversion to three points. It’s a strategy for the Rugby World Cup.
They’ve also changed the value of a penalty and a drop goal to four points. A try is now worth six points. This applies only to Australia, not to other countries. So their reasoning is that in a match, against the Boks, say, where they score two converted tries, a penalty and a drop goal – and the Boks score exactly the same – they get 26 points and the Boks just 20.
That way they aim to wrap up the World Cup. Fiendishly cunning, these Aussies.
Conundrum
JUST kidding, of course. Actually the Aussies have experimentally increased the points for a conversion to three and reduced the points for a penalty to two. The idea is to incentivise try-scoring.
The big conundrum, though, is whether it will incentivise illegal play to prevent try-scoring. Only two points at stake to stop a possible eight points.
It’s similar to what was done with the national club tournament every Easter here in Durban. For that competition, the value of a penalty was reduced to two points. It ran like that for years. Somebody eventually crunched the numbers and found that the new scoring system had not affected the outcome in a single match played.
Whether it increased the hunger for tries is difficult to say, though I have yet to encounter the rugby side that seeks anything but to score tries.
What we do know is that the Easter tournament brought to Kings Park international caps who were also turning out for their clubs. Those were the days – Boks playing regularly at provincial and club level as well. Rugby was a solid pyramid.
These days, alas, it seems to be propelled by TV, sponsorship, smoke and mirrors and perhaps a touch of witchcraft.
But the music’s pretty good when they turn it up loud.
Argument evaporates
IN THE early 1990s, a lot of folk were packing for Perth and elsewhere. The argument to dissuade them was: “Nowhere else in the world can you watch Natal rugby.” Oh boy, that one evaporated at Kings Park last Saturday. That early second-half lapse in tackling was plain embarrassing. And with the players from the ’90s looking on after the 125th anniversary celebrations. Oh dear.