Peter Jackson: Hold it all! England have won the title…

When the Six Nations discuss the ‘on-going’ issue of bonus points, they would be well advised to examine the distorted impact it would have had on last Saturday’s climax.
Under the system as used in Europe’s three major Leagues and the Southern Hemisphere Rugby Championship, England would have been declared champions. They would have finished one point ahead of the Wales team who had just subjected them to a beating of such unrelenting ferocity that it could have come straight out of the All Black manual.
Imagine the embarrassment such an outcome that would have caused, not just for the tournament but for the vanquished England players. Imagine Chris Robshaw and his demoralised troops standing on the podium trying to look pleased with themselves despite having just been stuffed by a company of Welsh taxidermists.
The very notion of one team being able to walk off with the trophy after being outplayed at every level by their opponents stretches the elastic of credulity beyond one of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales. For the committee running the world’s oldest annual international sporting event, it is a timely reminder that you tamper with the points system at your peril.
How ironic that, at a private briefing given by the Welsh Rugby Union to their more favoured journalists before the Championship kicked off, senior Welsh officials gave their support for the introduction of bonus points. The idea for this year had been shelved, largely because France’s objection eliminated any chance of a unanimous decision.
For Wales, it was just as well. Under the method used everywhere else, four points are awarded for a win, two for a draw with one bonus point for scoring a minimum of four tries in a match and another bonus point for losing by seven points or fewer.
England, therefore, would have gone to Cardiff with 17 points – four wins at four points apiece plus a bonus for their four tries in the opening match against Scotland at Twickenham. Wales would have gone into the same match with 12 points – three wins at four points but no bonus points.
In that event, nothing short of a try-bonus win would have been enough to retain their title. That, of course, would have changed the entire dynamic of the occasion and nobody will ever know whether Wales would have been able to go the extra mile and double their try tally from two to four.
Suffice to say it would have been a very tall order even on a night when they rose to the occasion so magnificently as to evoke memories of the most recent truly great Welsh performance, the World Cup quarter-final destruction of Ireland in Wellington some 18 months ago.
And yet for all their collective excellence against England, Wales finished up some way short of try-bonus territory. The facts of the matter are that they have not scored four tries at home in the Championship since thumping Italy five years ago.
The advocates of bonus points argue that it keeps a losing team interested and that it gives an added incentive for scoring tries. Traditionalists will argue that no international team worth their salt need the carrot of a losing bonus point to stay interested, that sheer pride in the jersey takes care of that.
As for encouraging more tries, well it certainly hasn’t worked for some teams in some European Leagues. The bonus point incentive has not done much for Mont-de-Marsan (15 tries in 21 matches) nor for Racing Metro (23 tries in 21 matches) and they are in the play-off zone.
The system, as applied to the results of the 2013 Six Nations, would have had a calamitous effect. Wales out-tried England 9-5 on tries and outpointed them 56-16 on points-difference. How silly would that have looked had they been declared runners-up simply because England managed to score four tries in the first match, even if they then failed to score more than one in the next four?
What’s that they say about lies, damned lies and statistics? If the tournament organisers decide to leave the scoring method well alone, who could blame them?
As a spectacle, 2013 may have been less than vintage. It had a wondrous opening round and an unforgettable finale beneath the Cardiff roof but some forgettable matches in between often in foul weather. Whether bonus points would have made any difference is a moot point, no pun intended.