Bonus pts bring big incentives

GARETH Pitt (TRP letters January 6) either has a very short memory or has not been following rugby for long.

The bonus point system has revived many games that in the past would have just drifted away once one side established dominance.

Prior to the BP system there was no incentive for the winning team to score more points than was necessary and there was absolutely no incentive for the losing team to try to get anything out of the game. The BP system provides these incentives for both winning and losing teams.

In a season such as this, when two clubs are so far clear of the rest of the Prem, many games would have petered out by the 50th minute without the BP system.

At current Premiership ticket prices that would be bad news for spectators as players would be subbed off very early to prevent potential injury.

Perhaps an additional BP could be awarded for scoring three tries more than the opposition but the current system makes rugby so much more interesting to watch than it was before the system came in that to abolish it would be a massively retrograde step.

And even without BPs Exeter would still be top anyway. BOB LANE Newton Abbot