Rugby union of fools

I went to the rugby final on Saturday. The game has a problem and it’s called penalties. The ref won on Saturday; for the teams playing I call it a draw.

At a stadium distance I couldn’t spot the exact cause of any one of the twenty plus penalties that ruined the game. Unless I watched the big screen; but for the price of the tickets I could have bought a new tele. So bugger that.

They need to do two things.

First, only penalize ruck and maul infringements if the infringement results in a turnover. And when that happens not only is there a penalty but the infringing player automatically gets ten minutes in the bin.

Second, they need to remove four players from the scrum. They are getting too heavy and the penalties are there to protect the players. Any penalty at the scrum should be a tap restart and again the infringing player should get ten minutes.

That is, reduce the whistle blowing and stoppages but make it really hurt when the whistle does blow.

PS avid fans of the game have Stockholm Syndrome; everyone said it was a great game because they are so used to seeing penalty shootout slug fests. Imagine soccer if the whole game resembled 90 minutes of penalty shoot outs intermingled with a bit of passing.