The try bonus point - Are teams Geographically handicapped

Try bonus points (and to a lesser extent losing bonus points) have become very important for teams to qualify out of their Heineken cup groups. Generally if a team is expected to win at home, they may try to go for the bonus point...

But teams who play at home where the weather conditions are terrible - GLASGOW, CONNACHT, will have to play a far tighter game and score less tries. Conversely home teams will great weather conditions have a far better opportunity to get tries.

Additionally home teams with generally poor weather might be more likely to give away more losing bonus points as the games will be lower scoring e.g. 9-3

I think bonus points make the game more interesting, but are they fair?





Maybe these handicapped teams should be threatening to pull out of the Heineken cup. ha

....bonus points should only apply on good days???


Of course then we'd have the guys coming out of the woodwork asking just what is the definition of a good day!

Only Chris Ashton should be awarded try bonus points.

viewtothegym wrote:Only Chris Ashton should be awarded try bonus points.

+1

Well right now the English excuse for underperformance is the Pro12s structure but once the ascendancy in Europe swings away from Leinster and towards Toulon, for example, Cockerill, Mallinder and co. can start whining that anyone could rack up 5 pointers in the weather they get down there.

Notch wrote:Well right now the English excuse for underperformance is the Pro12s structure but once the ascendancy in Europe swings away from Leinster and towards Toulon, for example, Cockerill, Mallinder and co. can start whining that anyone could rack up 5 pointers in the weather they get down there.

+1

+2 to you all. Good work. Concise thread.

It is a good point but it also works the other way, poor weather evens up games allowing poor teams to compete with the bigger teams e.g., CONNACHT beating Quins last HC, Aus losing to Scotland in the summer, Treviso beating Ospreys the first game of the RABO.

SecretFly wrote:+2 to you all. Good work. Concise thread.

+1

Is there any evidence to suggest that tries scored is proportional to latitude?

The LBP is inherently unfair, as the winning team may have no interest in stopping it, and therefore is a "cheap" league point. It would be far better to "take" the LBP from the winner's tally, so the winner would only get 3 and the loser 1.

I personally think toml has a point here, but then there are also different risk factors in running rugby.

Tro score 4 tries teams have to risk more.

Another thing The Stormers ended 2nd on the super XV log with o try bonus points.

Probably unfair but so are a lot of things in rugby, hopefully they balance each other out. Fairness is artificiable anyway

There are variables from the start which teams have no control over.eg.

1) A pool with weaker teams generally Italian gives the other teams in the pool an advantage of crucial BPs

2) The whim of French coaches that decide to put out totally different sides from one week to another eg. Ulster v Castres compared to Castres v Saints.

I guess you just get on with it.

I hate bonus points. An artificial construct to make games more exciting for people who prefer to watch football.

Rant over.

Football? The nil all classics? The balletic zig zag zig of the bamboozling Spanish?

Zig, zag...pass....zig...pass...zag...zag...zig... pass...zag...zig...pass...zag.... *yawn* - there's the bloody goalposts ahead of you when you're ready Spain!!!!.

Yes, football.

It's a fair point - it certainly occurred to me during the 2011 World Cup.

Just as an example (and not to make any sort of point, honest...), but in Group B, England played three of their four matches under a roof in Otago, and their fourth in the mild climate of Auckland. Scotland played all four of their matches in the open air, and two in a very rainy Invercargill.

Not to claim that this is the reason Scotland didn't qualify (heaven forbid), but I would argue that where the choice of venues can be controlled (and in the World Cup, it can), all effort should be made to provide the same conditions to all teams (or at least an equal spread of different conditions.). This should take precedence over the commercial considerations of putting big teams in big stadia, in my opinion.

SecretFly wrote:Football? The nil all classics? The balletic zig zag zig of the bamboozling Spanish?

Zig, zag...pass....zig...pass...zag...zag...zig... pass...zag...zig...pass...zag.... *yawn* - there's the bloody goalposts ahead of you when you're ready Spain!!!!.

Yes, football.

You show a shocking lack of knowledge of the round ball game Secret. You left out at least two more zigs, a zag and a hollywoodesque dive to the ground whilst being assaulted by a fan. Tsk, tsk!