Kick for two or try for six!

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Welsh clubs to trial six point tries and two point goals

I've been campaigning for something to reduce the number of penalty kicks at goal for years. It will be interesting to see if this is what does it. Personally I'd ban kicking at goal at all for a number of minor offences, in particular in the ruck in midfield, but maybe this will have that effect.

Not sure about reducing dropped goals to 2 as well, though. A well-worked dropped goal is a thing of beauty.

I know a few OTF Rugby officianados are going to be outraged by this - toro toro in particular loves the finer points of a tight and scrappy midfield battle, settled by three penalties to two.

[Ray de Galles]

Kick for two or try for six!

Ostensibly it seems positive but then you read :

"Teams will kick into the corner and you can score tries from driving line-outs."

[Janik]

Kick for two or try for six!

Which teams will be encouraged to spoil illegally, as the penalty for doing so is now significantly reduced, from 60% of an unconverted try down to 33%. Yes, that risks penalty tries but only eventually; the attacking team has to do the catch and maul set-up cleanly three or four times first.

[Flynnie]

Kick for two or try for six!

Personally I'd ban kicking at goal at all for a number of minor offences, in particular in the ruck in midfield, but maybe this will have that effect.

Er, wasn't that substantially what the ELVs were about, with the predictable result that teams just laid all over the ball in the ruck?

I would look at reducing the size of the sweet spot on the ball, and perhaps banning kicking tees or something like that. Make kicking a penalty goal harder, but not impossible. And also make a second offence at the ruck a yellow card offence. Early and often use of the yellow card gets people's attention quick.

[Toro Toro]

Kick for two or try for six!

This is an awful idea. As Janik points out, it just incentivizes foul play by reducing the penalties for it.

You see this every time someone proposes making most scrum offences free kicks rather than penalties, too; props everywhere rub their hands together gleefully, and say "right, I'm dropping that bad-boy the second I start to go backwards".

"Too many" kicks at goal are the cost of clean play; penalties have to actually penalise the infringing team.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Kick for two or try for six!

When did you last see any scrum driven back in an international between top sides though? The purpose of them now simply seems to serve getting all the forwards into one place, to open up play for a bit for the backs. They might as well be uncontested for all the difference it makes to the team with put-in. The fact so many penalties (one way or the other) are awarded at them when both sets of front rows are doing stuff that the ref can't see makes no sense.

And I don't think there's a professional player alive who fully understands when and how he's allowed to join in a ruck to try and win the ball from a tackled player; it seems such an ambiguous area that the risk between attempting to turn the ball over and conceding three points seems too much of a coin-toss. If no-one even ever attempts to fairly take the ball from a ruck you might as well just go to rugby league rules.

[Flynnie]

Kick for two or try for six!

Something has to change though. I watched the 2003 final the other day, and England, who were widely regarded at that time to have regressed into their shell after years of expansive rugby under Woodward, looked positively swashbuckling to most teams today.

The effect of the ELVs (we have no truck with your hands in the ruck) and Woodward's strategy to nullify Chris Jack by having his back three ping-pong it down the field instead of into touch have made rugby insanely fucking boring, and that needs to change.

Running has really suffered at the expense of defence, kicking, and all-around general sillybuggers, and it'd be nice to do something to change that.

[Etienne]

Kick for two or try for six!

If you're worried about incentivising (who's the Atlanticist now?) fouls, then why can't you use the sin bin more.

[Kevin S]

Kick for two or try for six!

Flynnie wrote:
Running has really suffered at the expense of defence, kicking, and all-around general sillybuggers, and it'd be nice to do something to change that.

Watch League instead?

[seand]

Kick for two or try for six!

I'm not much of a rugby fan but I'll watch a bit of 6 Nations and World Cup. It can be a thrilling spectacle but all too often it's a needlessly complicated case of waiting for someone to concede a penalty.

My helpful and lucid observations:
The scrum and line-out are patently ridiculous.
There's at least 2 players too many per team.
As per this thread, it seems impossible to balance incentivising teams to play positive try-scoring rugby without diluting the value of penalties- thereby encouraging the concession of penalties.
The rules are too complex and arbitrary. More than once I've heard a commentator commend a player on 'good knowledge of the rules'. That's an extraodinary indictment of the rule book.

[Flynnie]

Kick for two or try for six!

A pretty nice way to get people off of the ball is by giving them a good shoeing, but you're not allowed to do that anymore.