What Makes A Good Game of Rugby?

If you love Otago or just watching tries, you were in heaven on Friday night, as Otago and Manawatu put on a try-scoring pot luck under the roof.

It is probably a sign of the times that Otago - and Southland for that matter - a side that traditionally prides itself on forward-driven rugby with the few odd backs or two of genuine class (even then guys like Wilson, Alatini, etc. came to Dunedin for uni so aren't really bred in Otago land), are pretty much the Warriors of New Zealand rugby.

With the dominance they had up in the front row now gone, Otago have reverted to developing their backs, of which they have probably never been better blessed. It probably helps that the coach is Tony Brown, a former All Black first five.

The cavalier style of rugby Otago plays is breathtaking to watch at times when they have the ball in hand but pretty frustrating to watch when they don't as they can't seem to stop teams that love to give the ball air, as was evident tonight against Manawatu who always love to stretch the field of play and pulled themselves back into the game so many times that it was a bit of a shame they only got 1 bonus point for scoring 4 tries or more rather than the 2 - the extra for finishing within 7 of Otago.

Whether it can guide Otago back into the Premiership remains to be seen.

There were only 15 points in the 2011 RWC Final but you wouldn't have called it a dire game of rugby

The question is, what constitutes a good game of rugby? Is it a game with a lot of tries, or a low scoring game yet intense game of defence and offence?

Naturally, the answer is a bit of both. While games like tonight's are entertaining, it can be frustrating to watch from a defence point of view - it's a bit like what football managers think of a 7-5 game, or the bowlers of a game where both sides score 400 plus in 50 overs. It's also debatable if it is really a true advert for rugby - one remembers the days when Super Rugby racked up the aggregate scores while neglecting scrums, set-piece and defence to the point that one commentator called it Polynesian basketball.

What about that Lions v Chiefs game from 3 seasons ago - the highest-scoring Super Rugby game in history?

Perhaps if you saw a 90 point game between the top ten teams of international rugby, you would say it was a good game of rugby - those are pretty rare anyway given the supposed quality of defenses. Indeed, night rugby has probably reduced the chances of seeing a 90 point game between let's say the Boks and ABs.

Of course, the ABs and Boks' last afternoon game in New Zealand had a 90 point aggregate and is still widely regarded as one of the more memorable games of rugby. And then there's that match from heaven at the Olympic Stadium in Sydney in 2000 - probably regarded as the best game of rugby ever played.

I guess if you were a back, you'd tend to prefer high scoring try fests. If you were a forward, you'd enjoy watching the scraps between the forwards at breakdowns and scrums and don't mind if it is 3-0.

Miss this?

The fact is, a game with a scoreline like 6-3 or 3-0 often suggests a rather poor game of rugby depending on what level of rugby you're watching - the worst game of rugby I've probably watched was the Highlanders v Crusaders game at Carisbrook - 6-0, it was as dire yet tense as it could get.

Oh well, as they say, one's meat is another men's poison.