It’s difficult to say there’s anything ho-hum about the news that Ireland is likely to win its first Six Nations ever this Saturday (technically speaking, because they last won the tournament in 1985 when it was the “Five Nations” tournament), but the fact that Ireland can lose to Wales by 12 points this weekend and still win the tournament takes some intensity out of the “deciding” match.
So far, Ireland has won all four of their Six Nations matches so far and scored 46 more points than their opponents in those matches, while Wales has won three of the four matches and scored 21 more points than their opponents. If Ireland loses this weekend, the tournament is decided by total points difference throughout the tournament. For example, if Wales wins by 12 this weekend, both sides will have won four of five matches, and Ireland will have a points difference of 34 points, while Wales will have a points difference of 33 points. In that case, a beaten Ireland walks off the ground with the tournament trophy.
Awkward…
A similar situation happened last season, when Wales beat France on the last weekend of the Six Nations for an unbeaten “Grand Slam” tournament victory, but Wales had only needed to lose by less than 20 points to win the tournament.
Of course, one could argue that this setup is fine, as Wales can still control their fate by putting a 13-point (or more) beating on Ireland (just as Ireland can render the issue moot by beating Wales), but it’s a little bit strange to walk out on the ground with the scoreboard effectively reading “Ireland 13, Wales 0″ as far the Six Nations tournament stakes are concerned. Also, the general practice of points differential as a tie-breaker might encourage teams to pour on the points against weaker opponents when a match have already been decided. That seems to be against the spirit of the sport.
Why not make head-to-head matches the first tiebreaker instead? In other words, if two teams each win four of the five matches (or some similar, but less likely combination of equal win-loss records at the top of the table), the first tiebreaker could be head-to-head results–namely which team won when they played one another. Points differential could be the next tiebreaker, such as if three teams all went 4-1 in the tournament and each had beaten only one of the other two teams (for example, if France beat Ireland, Ireland beat Wales, and Wales beat France, but all three sides had won their other matches). Making head-to-head results the primary tiebreaker wouldn’t make score differential unimportant, but it would make it a lot harder to lose a match to a team, then walk off with the tournament trophy while your victorious opponent claims the runners-up crown.
Of course, Armchair Playmaker won’t advocate tipping the scales against Ireland on a day when even the fountains at the U.S. White House are dyed green, but head-to-head might be the way to go as a general practice.
That said, we have a sneaking suspicion that the Six Nations organizers are looking to Armchair Playmaker for insight on how to run their operation. So let’s look at some Irish rugby highlights from recents years to commemorate their likely Six Nations win:
