When it comes to Rugby they're always dicks. Though maybe this last week I might be being a bit unfair. I thought the British media jumped in to the All Black BM'ing, but maybe it was just all Aussie. I thought I remembered a Daily Mail piece that was total dickery, but maybe I remembered wrong. There was certainly a lot of media dickery around the Richie McCaw elbow that was not an elbow and I'm sure some of it was of British media making. But perhaps I should reserve my righteous outrage just for the Aussie media.

It was awesome! I just texted my aussie mates "sorry" lol xD

Totally argee, nz always show alot of respect to other teams but here in Australia they talk so much smack

Going forward with this thread i can tell activity will be very small due to not being many rugby fans on the chartz. Next season when international rugby kicks off again ill turn the thread into just a general "Rugby thread" where we can just discuss rugby politics 😛 and in four years ill prep it for Japan or ill make a new one, depending on what people want.

Also id like all rugby fans to look at the new proposed rule changes. There's some good stuff like trys give 6 points and penalties 2.

http://www.worldrugby.org/news/90108 here are the changes.

I think going to 6 points for a try and dropping penalties down to 2 has unbalanced things. Either increase the try to 6 or drop the penalty to 2, but don't do both.

I think its a great idea! The early trials have shown games arw averaging an extra 10 more mins of running rugby.

Try to 6 i say.

I think I agree.

The calculations are interesting in terms of tries vs penalties.

6pt try, 3pt penalty: 2 penalties vs unconverted try = draw (obviously); 3 penalties vs try (+/- conversion) = 3 or 1 pt lead on penalties. 2tries+1 conv requires 5 penalties to gain a 1 pt lead. It is no all that common for top tier games to have 5 penalty goals. Therefore if you score 2 tries and one conversion it would become highly unlikely for the opposing team to be able to win by penalties alone.

5pt try, 2pt penalty: unconverted try requires 3 penalties to get a lead, converted try requires 4 penalties for a lead; 2 unconverted tries required 6 penalties for a lead. 6 penalties in a top level rugby game is rare, so if you score 2 unconverted tries you are almost guaranteed to win as long as you can hold the other team try-less, which includes a few deliberate infringements in kicking range. This is muy main concern with dropping penbalties to 2 points, deliberate infringing becomes more likely because rthe cost of infringing (as long as it's not a yellow card or penalty try) is small.

I like the avoidance of time wasting by making a penalty trry an automatic 8 point. Taking time out to take an out in front conversion that is a guaranteed 2 points just soaks up time unnecessarily.

I like the option of a 5 metre drop out if the attacking team knocks on in-goal. That would allow for much better pressure relief than a defensive 5 metre scrum.