FT: WALES 25 - 7 IRELAND. Grand Slam winners

[jamieccfc]

I think I'm only being realistic. I'll be as thrilled as anyone if we win the World Cup and, on a personal level, I wouldn't be too bothered about how we went about doing it. However, if you are in a position where you can influence the laws of a sport which is trying to increase a global profile that is pretty limited, rather than just a fan of the Welsh rugby team, you are not going to be too happy if your flagship tournament is won by a team playing a conservative game which places more of an emphasis on defending than the creative side of the game. Sporting winners create plenty of imposters of their methods and I don't think the IRB would be too happy if all of their members started playing the game in the manner we have done for our last fourteen games.

What can they change though they can’t say say the team with the most try’s win. I’m not sure how true it is but it’s plausible but apparently they was told to take it easy in the second half against Scotland ready for the Irish game

[the other bob wilson]

What can they change though they can’t say say the team with the most try’s win. I’m not sure how true it is but it’s plausible but apparently they was told to take it easy in the second half against Scotland ready for the Irish game

What I mean is that you could see situations like you had in football where match officials were told some time ago that any benefit of the doubt with offside decisions would no longer go to the defending team, they would go in favour of the attacking side. Also, the rules to rugby are always changing and if there was a will to encourage more attacking play, I'm sure it would be possible for interpretations, as well as actual rules, to be tweaked accordingly.

Also, I'm old enough to remember when tries were only worth three points, then they went up to four and now to five - in each case, the justification for the change was to encourage more attacking play. It's well before my time, but drop goals were once worth more than tries - think it was four points.