What draw specialists Irish make of Premiership golden point idea
London Irish boss Declan Kidney has admitted he would need to put a little more thought into the suggestion by Curtis Rona that a Gallagher Premiership match should go into overtime in order to produce a winner on the day if it ends in a draw after 80 minutes. The Exiles have become the draw specialists of English rugby, drawing three of their eight Premiership matches this season while they also drew two other league games earlier in 2021.
They have all been dramatic, high scoring affairs. It was last January when London Irish came from behind to draw 27-all at Harlequins, while a second-half surge also netted them a share of the spoils in a 34-all home draw with Bristol the following month. Switching to this season, the Irish have battled out 31-all, 25-all and 34-all draws versus Sale, Gloucester and Saracens respectively, again coming from behind in all three of those matches to clinch equality.
A veteran of the NRL in Australia, where overtime is used to ensure a winner is declared on the day in the event of a draw at full-time, London Irish midfielder Rona recently told RugbyPass he would be in favour of some method being introduced into the Premiership so that matches stop ending in draws.
“Fans want to see a winner. If we had a vote, I’d vote for it,” enthused the ex-Wallabies international. “I’d probably say it must be a try. A lot of teams would say just points because you get a penalty and kick for goal and that is the game, but a golden try would be amazing for this league.
“Look at what they have done with the 50:22, which is awesome for attacking players. The whole dimension of rugby has changed now. People have to resort to dropping their back three to cover for those 50:22s, and it [a golden point] would make the game more exciting. People want to see winners.”
'I wasn’t selected again and that was my Wallabies career done'@Rona1Curtis talks to @heagneyl ??? about @londonirish , leaving Australia, the NRL, why he prefers union to league & what actually went down between him and Michael Cheika in Wallabies camphttps://t.co/Bk10QMKsIC
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) October 31, 2021
It was in 2012 when Kidney, the then Ireland boss, infamously described a draw in the Six Nations versus France as “like kissing your sister”. Nine years later, RugbyPass reminded the current London Irish coach of this quote but he admitted he hadn’t thought all that much about a solution to his team’s extraordinary glut of Premiership draws. “It depends which draw you were asking about. There were some draws I was happy to get and there were some draws I was happy thinking, yeah, give me another five minutes… Would I like that? I think I’d bow to Curtis’ experience of it. I don’t have the experience of going down to that extra (time) one.
“I’m not sitting on the fence, I just don’t have the experience of it and in a league campaign of 22 matches, there is going to be a few draws here and there anyway. If it got to ridiculous stages, I would investigate it a little bit more but would I be sorry if it [a tiebreaker] came in? I’d have to see how it would work. Is it the first score, is it a case of who wins the toss? I don’t know but if that [tiebreak] is the experience of Curtis and other lads, I’d back them.
“Our last draw was Saracens and you were kicking to draw the match, your supporters couldn’t be happier. The previous draw against Gloucester, they came right back into it when we had the lead (before it finished with Irish getting late points to draw)… we’re still picking up points and that is sometimes what you have to do – you are not going to win a league before Christmas but you can certainly lose it.
“It’s just a really good, competitive league. I’m not just talking it up because I work in it. What it has going for it is any team can beat any team on any given day. There are no done deals before the matches start. I know there have been some scores where a team has gotten away on them but by and large that [competitiveness] is the excitement of the whole league and it is a really impressive league to be involved in.”
Comments on RugbyPass
Bulls by 5. Plus another 50.
3 Go to commentsJohan Goosen avatar. Cute. Surely someone at RP knows how to do a google image search?
3 Go to commentsCan’t these games play a little earlier? Asking for a friend.
3 Go to commentsIt’s impressive that we can see huge stadiums with attendance in the 40 000 to 50 000 region. It shows how popular this competition is becoming. What is even more impressive is the massive growth in broadcast viewership. The URC is one of the two best leagues in the World, the other being the Top14.
7 Go to commentsChristie is not Sottish, like the majority of the Scotland team.
2 Go to commentsHold the phone, decline over-rated. Is it a one game, dead cat bounce or the real thing? Has the Penney dropped? Stay tuned.
45 Go to commentsTotally deserved win for the Crusaders Far smarter than the Chiefs who seem to be avoiding the basics when it matters Hotham showed them what was missing and Hannah seems a real find - a tad light but that can be fixed over time
8 Go to commentsGreat insight into the performance culture with Sarries and I predict Christie will be a fixture in the Scotland team now for some time to come. However, he is slightly missing his own point around Scotland “being soft” when he cites physicality examples in defence of that slight. The issue is much closer to the example he referenced around feeling off before a game but being told “it doesn’t matter, you can still play well” by Farrell. Until Scotland can get their psyche in that square, they will carry on folding under extreme pressure…
2 Go to comments> We are having to adapt, evolve and innovate more than when we were in Super Rugby where there was only really one style that everybody had to play to gain the most success. Have = able to? Interesting what that one style might be? I thought SA sides still had bad tours now, or at least bad schedule, months away? Those extra few hours flights have to be a killer though, no surprise to see their sides doing so badly at the start of the season each year. I wouldn’t enjoy that unfairness as a supporter.
7 Go to commentsThe problem for NZ, and Aus, is they ripped up the SR model and lost a massive chunk of revenue that hasn’t been replaced. Don’t forget SA clubs went North because they were left with no choice, Argy unceremoniously binned and Japan cast adrift. Now SR wasn’t perfect, far from it, but they’ve jumped into something without an effective plan, so far, to replace what they’ve lost. The biggest revenue potential now lies in Japan but it won’t be easy or quick to unlock, they are incredibly insular in culture as a nation. In the meantime, there is a serious time bomb sitting under SH rugby and if it happens then the current financial challenges will look like a picnic. IF the Boks follow their provincial teams and head north then it’s revenue meltdown. Not guaranteed to happen but the status quo is a very odd hybrid, with the Boks pointing one way and the clubs pointing the other way. And for as long as that remains then the threat is real.
45 Go to commentsI think Etene has had some good tuition, likely while at the Warriors to be a professional that helped his rugby jump, but he was certainly thrown in the deep end way too early. Should have arguably 20 less SR caps, and therefor a way better record that he does at his age, but his development would have been fast tracked by the need to satiate his signing away from league. Again, credit to him and others that he has done it so well. Easy to fall over under that pressure in the big leagues like that but he kept at it when I myself wasn’t sure he was good enough.
1 Go to commentsAwesome story. I wonder what a bigger American (SA) scene might have mean for Brex.
1 Go to comments“Johnny McNicholl and the Crusaders” save a Penney. Who has been in camp this week and showed them how to play?
8 Go to commentsSo, reports of the Crusaders’ demise / terminal decline are perhaps just - slightly - premature/exaggerated…? 🤔 Will we see a deep-dive into that by the estimable Rugbypass scribes, and maybe one or two mea culpas? Thought not.
8 Go to comments1. The Chiefs are rudderless without DMac, which enhances his AB chances 2. Chiefs pack are powderpuffs. The hard men arent there anymore 3. They had their golden title chance last yr and wont threaten this yr. Gone in second round of playoffs.
8 Go to commentsHonestly, why did you have to publish such a foolish article the day they play us? 😂
45 Go to comments> They are not standalone entities. They are linked to an amateur association which holds the FFR licence that allows the professional side to compete in the league. That’s a great rule. This looks like the chicken or egg professional scenario. How long is it going to be before the club can break even (if that is even a thing in French rugby)? If the locals aren’t into well it would be good to se them drop to amateur level (is it that far?). Hope they can reset from this level and be more practical, there will be a time when they can rebuild (if France has there setup right).
1 Go to commentsWhat about changing the ball? To something heavier and more pointed that bounces unpredictably. Not this almost round football used these days.
35 Go to commentsThis is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?
35 Go to commentsWow, didn’t realise there was such apathy to URC in SA, or by Champions Cup teams. Just read Nick’s article on Crusaders, are Sharks a similar circumstance? I think SA rugby has been far more balanced than NZs, no?
4 Go to comments