WITH GEORGE HOOK’S last breath as an RTE pundit, he actually made a decent point. He said the lawmakers need to change the rules to encourage attacking play. Conor O’Shea said no, that teams just need to go out with the intent to play rugby.
That was a nice sentiment but rugby – and in particular the Six Nations – DO need to make some tweaks to reward attacking play. Today, Wales, England and Ireland threw the ball around because they had to, not because they suddenly thought that was the most efficient way to play rugby.
They were chasing points totals.
The issue of bonus points in the Six Nations is usually rubbished because in the current format, it would mean that a team could win the Grand Slam but lose the championship (it is two points for a win at the moment).
If the format was changed to give five points for a win, and only try-scoring bonus points were brought in, then that problem would be solved.
Sure, a Grand Slam team could finished tied on 25 points with a team who lost once but picked up five bonus points, but why not make the first tie-break the Slam? There would be no losing bonus points in this scenario so a one-loss team could only match a Grand Slam winner.
That would encourage teams to attack more regularly and while the tournament wouldn’t turn into the riveting spectacle we had today overnight, there would definitely be more tries scored.
It is just one idea that could potentially harness some of today’s entertainment and make it more prevalent.
Either way, might have George Hook finally stumbled onto something right before he left the building.
