Rennie slams Sanzar

Chiefs coach Dave Rennie says he was shocked to hear of Super Rugby’s new bonus-point system.

Sanzar is set to announce that teams will now need to score three tries more than the opposition to a secure a bonus point.

Rennie was annoyed that none of the coaches were consulted regarding the changes to the bonus-point system, but rather were informed of the decision via email.

'There was supposed to be a conference in November with all the coaches going to it, and then they cancelled it. It was a chance for coaches and referees to sit in one room and discuss a lot of things, so we've really missed an opportunity there.’

Rennie, also a member of World Rugby’s law committee, added that this point system had previously been raised by the committee, but that it had been dismissed for reasons he stills holds to.

‘It was brought up a couple of years ago as an idea adopted from France and we squashed it pretty quickly,’ he said. ‘For us, of all the things that we could change in our game that would make it better and easier to watch, the bonus-point system wasn't one of them.

‘The trouble with this is Sanzar is trying to make changes that will force us to play a certain way but, realistically, teams will play the way they want to play,’ he added.

‘They think that if you score four tries and the opposition has scored two, you've got to keep playing and it's got to make the game better. But realistically, if a team, let's say we're up by four tries with 20 to go, we may say, “Oh, we're going to close shop” because the only way the opposition are going to score is by us making mistakes. So you end up slowing the game down and playing less.’

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