Dylan Cleaver: Bonus points make win meaningless

Bonuses have been in the news a lot lately. The banking industry, despite a collective haemorrhage that made hiding money in a sock under your mattress fashionable again, has excelled in paying its executives bloated bonuses.

Bonuses have become odious and this is true in the sporting realm as well.

Look no further than Pretoria last weekend when the Blues bagged the most undeserved bonus since Lehman Bros boss Richard Fuld said "OK, I might have made a proud institution bankrupt but I'm worth all the $484 million I'm about to pay myself." (Which, admittedly, wasn't that long ago but you get the picture.)

In case you missed it, 85 points were scored at Loftus Versfeld - the Blues scored 26 of them, which, with some rudimentary mathematics, leaves 59, yes, 59, to the Bulls.

The Blues were in disarray, finishing with 13 players and another couple of injuries in the bag.

But because the Bulls had done their damage early, racing to 26 points in the first quarter, they could afford to take their jackboot off the pedal and slip into cruise control.

This allowed the Blues to rack up some of the softest, most meaningless five-pointers in Super rugby history. Except they ended up meaning something and when the end of the season rolls around they might end up being the difference between a semifinal or a Mad Monday drink-up.

The Blues got a bonus point out of that farce. What kind of cockamamie system rewards incompetence?

To highlight the insanity of the four-try bonus point, take a squiz at this scenario. In round one, the Chiefs were involved in a mighty battle with the Crusaders. With minutes to go they trailed by one but were pressing hard for the territory that would have given them a shot at a win.

The Crusaders muscle up, turn the ball over and score on the hooter. If they knock over the conversion the Chiefs go home with nothing.

The kick missed but anyone can see the inequity of a system where a team pressing for victory into the final minutes can go home empty-handed while a team like the Blues, who effectively ran up the white flag before kick-off, can filch a point.

Here's another reason the creator of the bonus point should be tied to an oak casket and rolled down the crater of Mt Eden. You can lose and get two points (four tries, finish within seven points), and you can draw and get two points.

Ah, hello, since when has a loss ever been as good as a draw? Is this the apotheosis of the "it's not the winning that counts, it's the participation" mentality?

If you must insist on a bonus point for four tries because of the flawed notion the team who score four tries are inherently more deserving of a point than the team who score three, then at least restrict it to the winning team. Scoring four tries and losing is meaningless. Well it should be, at least.

While we're at it, give me a good reason why, when you're nine points down and time is almost up, dropping a goal or kicking a penalty should give you any reward. A captain ordering a shot at goal when time is nearly up and the team has no chance of winning is one of the grubbier sights in sport.

There is only one concept worth pursuing in professional rugby - winning.

If that doesn't happen you lose, except on the rare occasions when the teams cannot be separated on the scoreboard.

So what is wrong with four points for a win, two for a draw and zero, that's right, nothing, for a loss? Not gimmicky enough, perhaps?

Well, if we want the Sanzar competitions to be more gimmicky, here are a few suggestions which are less damaging:

Give the New Zealand teams home-and-away kits that pretend to pay homage to the unions that make up the franchise but actually scream out 'hey suckers, we're after even more of your discretionary dollars' (what do you mean they've already thought of that?);

Dress the most successful and up-until-now dignified franchise up to look like like a strange cult of Disco-Christians who are just a pair of denim shorts away from free tickets to the Mardi Gras (what, they've thought of that, too?);

Have your best players, in one case one of the great loosehead props of our generation, starting from the bench (don't tell me somebody has gone and pinched that idea, too?)

Start a franchise in Perth (that's one idea that will never take off);

Invite David Beckham and his mates over for a match against the Blues (don't worry, someone's bound to be working on it as we speak).

Rugby used to unashamedly be a man's game.

You played hard, you won, you celebrated appropriately. You played hard, you lost, you commiserated briefly. Sometimes you drew and nobody was really happy. When did it all become so blurred?