Will the new Rugby Championship points change come here too?

[wormus]

The Rugby Championship have modified the "Bonus Point System" such that the four try bonus point that either team can achieve is replaced by a bonus point to a team finishing with three or more tries ahead of it's opposition.
The losing bonus point for finishing seven or fewer point behind remains.
This could have quite an impact on the Premiership, although Tigers did not achieve many try bonus points last season, but I live in hope, well Rugby really!
:- http://www.planetrugby.com/news/rugby-c ... to-london/

[BeeJ]

They've been using this system in the French leagues for a while. If our Gallic chums are still talking to us, perhaps they could clarify this.
One thing it does is prevent both teams getting try bonus points in a high-scoring match.

[Iain]

I rather like that idea to be honest. Prevents teams from stopping playing once they've got the fourth try.

[Roly]

I rather like that idea to be honest. Prevents teams from stopping playing once they've got the fourth try.

Scoring the 4th try is usually a catalyst for a raft of substitutions (providing the result isn't too close) so there can be a loss in continuity, but I don't recall a team actively stop playing after doing it? If anything, a team kick on for more after getting the bonus point?

[Firesafetydave]

To clarify (I checked the link posted, but it didn't say), when they say the try bonus point is for being "3 or more tries ahead", what would that be in points? You could argue for 15 or 21...

Or what about something like how the England tour of Australia is going at the moment? Not to be controversial but England haven't outscored Australia yet, try-wise, but have managed two famous victories...

If they mean purely try-count, then how many TBPs will be scored in the whole of the Premiership between say November and February, when conditions dictate pitches will be heavier, matches slower and lower scoring? (other than Sarries / Falcons / Wuss home games... artificial pitches... not in the spirit of the game... grumble grumble )

[mol2]

I'd scrap them altogether - the game is played to win not to score 4 tries.

[Firesafetydave]

Took a look at last year's AP matches, and found:

23 October 2015

Sale Sharks 27–13 Worcester Warriors

[Sale]
Try: Cipriani 6' m
Seymour 29' m
Beaumont 44' c
Leota 80' c
Con: Cipriani (2/4)
Pen: Cipriani (1/2) 40'

[Worcester]
Try: Arr 64' c
Con: Lamb (1/1)
Pen: Mills (2/2) 16', 27'

... so Sale got 3 more tries, but only won by 14 points...

Teams with prolific kickers such as Fazlet might grind out a LBP or even a win from a score similar to above, with 15-20 mins left, just with PENs and DGs.

[Cagey Tiger]

If they mean purely try-count, then how many TBPs will be scored in the whole of the Premiership between say November and February, when conditions dictate pitches will be heavier, matches slower and lower scoring?

I would imagine a similar number to the current system. In the new system, you get a bonus point with 3 tries to nil (new), 4 tries to 0 or 1 (same in both systems), but not with 4 tries to 2 or 3 (a common occurrence in "winter" ).

[BeeJ]

To clarify (I checked the link posted, but it didn't say), when they say the try bonus point is for being "3 or more tries ahead", what would that be in points? You could argue for 15 or 21...

If you score 3 tries and your opponents score 0, you get the TBP. If they score 1 try, you must score at least 4 tries to get the TBP; if they get 2, you must get 5 for the TBP etc etc.

It is actual tries scored, not 'tries worth' of points. Kicking 5 penalties do not equate to 3 tries scored as far as bonus points are concerned.

[Stu_F]

It's been used in France for a couple of years and not been adopted over here, why would we now knee jerk to the Southern Hemisphere adopting it?

[Noddy555]

I think the bonus point system is working fine as it is so why change it? I wish people would adopt the old maxim "If it ain't broke, doesn't need fixing."

[johnthegriff]

Ironically anything that encourages try scoring makes not conceding more important hence more penalties given away. I agree with Noddy stop messing about, just get on with playing rugby, although I think there is a case for down grading a drop goal.

[DickyP]

Tinkering in the manner proposed still doesn't address the inherent problem of bonus points: it declares that some wins are better than others and some defeats less bad, without taking into account the real achievement of the win. Was our exciting away win in Munster last season really a lesser achievement than our mundane multi-try thrashing of an inept Treviso at Welford Road.

There are then the misconceptions of the system.

1) Scoring tries and open-attacking rugby are NOT synonymous. Exeter scored lots of tries last season but few were from 'open-attacking-rugby' - a majority were short range grunt and shove.

2) The object of the game of rugby is NOT to score tries - it is to score points. If it were that the point was to score tries why have any goals, especially conversions?

[Cagey Tiger]

Tinkering in the manner proposed still doesn't address the inherent problem of bonus points: it declares that some wins are better than others and some defeats less bad, without taking into account the real achievement of the win. Was our exciting away win in Munster last season really a lesser achievement than our mundane multi-try thrashing of an inept Treviso at Welford Road.

There are then the misconceptions of the system.

1) Scoring tries and open-attacking rugby are NOT synonymous. Exeter scored lots of tries last season but few were from 'open-attacking-rugby' - a majority were short range grunt and shove.

2) The object of the game of rugby is NOT to score tries - it is to score points. If it were that the point was to score tries why have any goals, especially conversions?

While I agree that the bonus point system has its flaws, if we follow your argument, so does a system with no bonus points. All wins would be the same so our win against Munster would be on a par with the Treviso thrashing. So no account of the real achievement of the Munster win and a similar flaw to the bonus point system.

As I understand it, the bonus points are to encourage try scoring (as scoring any try is felt to be more exciting than kicking penalties) and to encourage teams to play for longer in games where the result in terms of win/lose/draw is pretty much decided but, for example, 10 minutes before the end, one team is say 12 points down and/or they have scored 3 tries. With no bonus points, teams in this situation would have played time out. Now, they keep going.

I am happy to be corrected on this, but wasn't the original aim of the game to score goals? By doing what we now call a try, you earned the right to have a "try" at (i.e. kick) at goal? It isn't that long ago, that when showing the breakdown of the match score, The Times recorded goals (now generally referred to as converted tries), tries (i.e. unconverted) and penalty goals (usually shortened to penalties nowadays).

I don't know (and am too lazy to trawl the Internet to find out) whether there were any points at all originally. As the game has evolved, the points awarded for a try have increased to reflect the difficulty in scoring them and to reflect their importance relative to a penalty goal.

[MrPartridge]

I'd scrap the LBP if I had my way. Absolutely hate it! Why reward defeat? Have seen a number of great games over the years end with the team losing by 7 or less kicking the ball off the park when able to win with a converted try. Pathetic. Can anyone imagine that mindset in any American team sport? "Whoop, we just lost but only by a field goal".

My argument is that the LBP makes close games less exciting. Get rid!