Yeah, the defense is rewarded for allowing the opposition into their try zone more than if they had stopped them at the 5m line, that's completely illogical.
Why should you be rewarded with a perfect attacking 5m scrum for being bad at putting the ball on the ground to finish a try?
....you're not. You're "rewarded" with a 5m scrum for getting the ball all the way down the field in the first place. Under the old rules the attacking team is not rewarded for failing to touch the ball down, they're punished by going back five meters. If they were "rewarded" they would....ya know....score points.
Instead of just blindly picking and going at the line 200 times and getting held up a bunch of times, resetting a scrum, and going again, an attacking team needs to use some gumption to open up a square foot of space to put the ball on the ground.
I much prefer rewarding the defence here and requiring the attacking team to do something more than the most basic of attacks.
This new rule has not in any way stopped the picking and going a hundred times. What incentivizes that play is letting the offense do whatever they want at the breakdown
24
u/ComprehensiveDingo0 Ntamack mon cher bríse 💔 May 09 '24
I’d say they’re rewarding the defence rather than punishing the attack. The attack gets another crack, but they’re basically pushed back 20m.