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http://www.planetrugby.com/news/loose-pass-353/Loose Pass is compiled by former Planet Rugby editor Andy Jackson
ექვს ერზე >> The joy of six
Praise be, we’re almost there!
With the world seemingly cut adrift on a churning sea of fathomless idiocy, there she stands, totally impervious to the frothing flapdoodle that laps at her stately toes.
Ah, the Six Nations! How we’ve missed your familiar embrace.
She’s an ever-fixed mark, a beacon, a refuge, a hideout, a haven, a shelter from the storm, a sanctuary.
And now, in this time of such relentless flux, her perennial charms burn even brighter. The eternal sights, sounds and tastes of Europe’s six finest capitals will be panacea for all. The customary banter and fair-natured jingoism will wash over us like tonic, and we’ll roll home content in the knowledge that we can still rely on a few constants.
But wait! There has been a change to the time-honoured show, and it’s consistent with the global pandemic of our age: change for change’s sake. The old girl’s guardians have decided to sex her up by attaching bonus points.
Blurgh!
We’ve nothing against bonus points per se. Indeed, they’ve been known to gee up pedestrian rugby – and, let’s face it, pedestrian rugby is another long-standing Six Nations tradition.
No offence meant, of course. It’s just that playing five Tests in 40-odd days requires the maintenance of dry powder, and you see a lot of dry-powder maintenance when a team goes into the final quarter, two scores clear. So perhaps the lure of bonus points will keep games interesting for longer.
But that’s about all the support we can muster.
Firstly, bonus points aren’t all about positive, try-peppered rugby. A side could now seal the championship by losing their final game by a narrow margin. Worse, chances are they’d actually approach such a match with that one-point mentality. Doesn’t really smack of ‘Super Saturday’, does it?
And just ponder the home-and-away imbalance. Some teams get three home games per year while others get only two. It’s unquestionably easier to score four tries in front of your own fans, so where’s the logic in adding extra advantage to this already sizable advantage?
And what of the conditions and seasonal variations? You’d want to draw Italy in Rome on the final weekend when spring has sprung and the track is hard and dry. Running four tries past them in the depth of winter is an entirely different prospect.
And then there’s the big one: a team could clinch the Grand Slam without topping the final table.
Yes, yes. We know that three extra points will now be awarded to the team that completes the clean sweep, but that just seems like an extremely cumbersome appendage: an officious shepherd’s crook used to pull one side across the line in front of the other.
Indeed, will future historians of the game be forced to differentiate between ‘absolute’ Grand Slams and assisted ones? With England set for a showdown with Ireland in Dublin on St Patrick’s Day weekend, Sod’s Law dictates these arguments may well spill forth sooner rather than later!
And what about the other end of proceedings? Would an ‘absolute’ wooden spoon – zero point from the possible 25 – trigger anything other than red faces? How about relegation?
Now there’s one change we could get behind!
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