How illegal is implicit collusion in a league game?

The Situation

Scotstoun stadium. Glasgow against Edinburgh. 75 minutes on the clock. Score? 37-20 to the hosts. Though it was close for a while, it's a 5 try romp to Edinburgh's 2. Glasgow have exerted their dominance and are now closing out for a top 2 place and home semi-final in the Rabo play offs.

What of Edinburgh? Top drawer European rugby is now out of their grasp. They are playing for pride. A win is not a means to an end, it's an end in itself. Their intensity has been higher this week than the previous month put together, but they just don't have enough for high-flying Glasgow. They look tired, but they are still battering the Glasgow line.

TRY! After some deliberation, Leonardi is awarded a try. Laidlaw converts. 37-27 to the hosts. 78:30 on the clock. Every Edinburgh fan in the stadium is now thinking the same thing - 2 league points beckon if we could just release Viss - TRY! Visser scores in the corner. Laidlaw converts. 37-34 final score. 5 league points to 2.    How did that happen?

The Evidence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4h2Y_tc980

The Debate

The final 5 minutes of Glasgow v Edinburgh last night got me thinking. What if Edinburgh *were* closing in on the ECC next season? What if 2 league points would have given them enough to put them through? Would last night's match have been a controversial result?

Take a look at that last try. To me, at the time and looking back, it looks just a little too easy. Maitland is clearly in the wrong place to defend Visser, something I have rarely (never?) seen him do. Let's just put it down to fatigue and switching off - the most likely answer. *Edit - I just looked properly and he's looking for an intercept. Perhaps wouldn't do that 6 points ahead, but fair enough given Visser is his competition*

Having said that, I have a few questions to discuss:

1. Would this have been controversial had it been a closer shave for Edinburgh and top-drawer European rugby?
2. If that were the case, how would authorities deal with looking for collusion?
3. If they found it - what would be an appropriate punishment?
3. Is collusion more likely in a union with only 2 pro sides than with more? For example, I can see the opposite being the case in an Irish local derby, where keeping the oppo OUT of European rugby would taste sweet. However when the Scottish (or Italian) derby happens, this is a derby of the entirety of Scottish (Italian) rugby, and so it might feel more "in it together" even if clearly all the players want is to win. In a sense then maybe this kind of collusion is the most you would see - I can't see a Scottish team throwing
4. Is this (another) reason to keep local derbies away from the business end of the season? And should that matter in looking into things, anyway? 2 points at Christmas is worth the same as 2 points in April.

I know this has happened in football before (World Cup) and I don't know enough about other sports to say. Interesting if anyone has anecdotes or stories they know of.

The Discussion

Discuss.

Good thread. I guess there will be a few unknown consequences of the rabo criteria for qualification for Europe going forwards and it's easy to imagine a situation like this could arise towards the ends of seasons. Interesting.

Regulation 6.3.2(c) I think, basically says everyone has to try their best. Pretty serious allegation that would have pretty serious consequences. Can't see it being genuine thought. Teams way out in front often take their foot off the accelerator towards the end of the game, especially if they still have big games coming up.

It was disapointing in a way as Glasgow had the best defence in the league and it was unlike them to ship away 4 tries like that, they probably would have set a new record for least try scored against in the 12 teams league.

I genuinely think they had an off day defensively though, intensity wasn't quite as high as in last 2 games and they could easily had another try scored against them if Strauss was quicker.

Watching the game I didn't think there was anything too sinister about it. Glasgow switched off in defence a a wee bit once the game was won. Didn't really occur to me that there was much else to it.

But if there was a proven case of it, hypothetically, I'd want it to be punished incredibly harshly. The problem when you get to this end of the season is teams will naturally rotate because of injuries/fatigue or put out inexperienced sides because they have nothing to play for and are building for next year, or take their eyes off the ball when they've gone out to a big lead because they have a big game next weekend.

I don't believe there was implicit collusion in this game. I think collusion would be much more blatant, i.e. one team trying to manage the outcome through a lack of effort. After Glasgow got the BP try they kept coming at Edinburgh and Edinburgh kept chasing those tries the whole way through. Some of the tackling may have been weak but I saw two teams chucking the ball around and trying to score points for 80 minutes.

Isn't it more a case of at 37-20 with the game won and bonus point in the bag Glasgow (consciously or not) simply switched off which we have seen time and time again by sides who have already won a game.

Would it not be simply match fixing? Therefore it would probably result in fines and/or points deductions.

So hard to prove though, right? You can't punish people for doing it unconsciously, yet maybe with the Scottish teams a part of the unconscious does let them score more readily than if they were another nationality..?

Ineffable wrote:So hard to prove though, right? You can't punish people for doing it unconsciously, yet maybe with the Scottish teams a part of the unconscious does let them score more readily than if they were another nationality..?

Do you think so? I think if it was Munster vs Leinster the winning side would rather eat nails than give their rivals anything cheaply. I'd be surprised if the Scots aren't the same.

Notch wrote:

Ineffable wrote:So hard to prove though, right? You can't punish people for doing it unconsciously, yet maybe with the Scottish teams a part of the unconscious does let them score more readily than if they were another nationality..?

Do you think so? I think if it was Munster vs Leinster the winning side would rather eat nails than give their rivals anything cheaply. I'd be surprised if the Scots aren't the same.

I think it would be better to compare Munster or Leinster against Connacht currently, and I mean no disrespect to Edinburgh or Connacht by that just that currently they are not in the same bracket of teams, whereas Leinster and Munster are both competing for exactly the same titles. When Edinburgh start to play at least to the sum of their parts then we will see far more aggressive and feisty games, currently the difference in positions added to the fact that most of the players play together for Scotland means that it is impossible to compare them to Leinster and Munster, but give it two season and Edinburgh will be competing for the play-offs; they can't not be with players like Ross Ford (on form), Du Preez, Rennie, Denton, Scott and Visser in their ranks.

Notch wrote:

Ineffable wrote:So hard to prove though, right? You can't punish people for doing it unconsciously, yet maybe with the Scottish teams a part of the unconscious does let them score more readily than if they were another nationality..?

Do you think so? I think if it was Munster vs Leinster the winning side would rather eat nails than give their rivals anything cheaply. I'd be surprised if the Scots aren't the same.

Maybe so but if either team were lets say 20 odd points ahead going inbto last 10 minutes then there is still the human factor of taking foot of gas knowing the game is won

Can't tell from the video. Would make more sense for Edinburgh to have won if conspiracy was the name of the game given they're in 7th place and need the points.

Edinburgh pushed and pushed for thier tries and when they got the third try, you could clearly the Glasgow boys were in disbelief.  They had totally switched off after the ref took ages to get an answer form the TMO and Edinburgh pounced.

Many teams swtich off near the end when they are out in front.

No conspiricy to answer, especially given the points mean hee haw for edinburgh now!

Edinburgh also relied on one very dodgy TMO decision for their second last try, but that's a totally different level of collusion......Foot off the gas.

Far too often the winning side takes their 'foot off the gas', because they know they can't be caught. That is a big problem with the losing bonus point system because there may be no incentive for the winning side to stop the loser getting an easy point out of the game. A far fairer way to award a LBP would be to take it from the winner's tally. That would ensure the winning side would keep playing in case they lost a point.

So 3 points for the winner and 1 for the LBP? Sounds good to me. I'd also prefer the TBP being for scoring 3 more tries than the opposition rather than just 4.

I'm pretty sure this article is bringing up a debating point than giving any kind of serious accusations, but a few points:

- Edinburgh are playing for pride and 7th place makes bugger all diference from 10th.
- Glasgow just switched off
- It would be very difficult to prove that another team deliberately let the opposition score, other than written evidence that it would happen prior to the game.

I like the idea of 3 tries ahead as opposed to just scoring 4 tries, but on the other hand if it is 50-20 and the losing team have scored 3 tries it would remove the incentive for them to press on and score a 4th try.

Other than taking the risk that if the other side score a try you lose a point. Currently there is absolutely no incentive scoring a 5th.

So basically, the current system works better for a team that is losing by giving them incentive to play on and get a 4th, whereas the new system would work better for the team that is winning is it would make them press on to make sure they are always 3 tries ahead?

I really don't think there was anything sinister in this game but its a scenario that could happen. For example in the final couple of games Leinster are safe for a home semi. Ulster need some points. could we see Leinster rest some players, ulster put out their strongest team and ulster get a win?

As 'resting players' comes under the category of sensible player management, I've no idea how anyone would hope to link that to collusion, explicit or implicit?