Inside The Numbers Week 12: Bonus Points

This week Inside The Numbers takes a look at the bonus points system and how alternate proposals would affect the table as it currently stands. Steve Tew, CEO of NZRU, was asked about the bonus points system in a radio interview last week. “The table would look a lot different this year if we didn’t have them,” was his response, but crunching the numbers has led me to a different conclusion.

First, here’s the table as it stands.

Now here’s the table with no bonus points

Spot the difference? There isn’t much of one. The top four remain the top four, the bottom five remain the bottom five and those in the middle only move up or down one place. Even the Blues with their massive 11 bonus points taken away only drop a single place.

But what if we took away those nabby pamby bonus points for losing by less than seven points. Surely these politically correct, reward teams for almost winning points are an abomination and need to go. That will shake the table up!

Would you look at that? The only effect it has on the table is the Brumbies leap up two places into fifth and push the teams ahead of them down one place. This is due to the fact the Brumbies haven’t scored a single close loss bonus point, but other than that the table remains unchanged.

Perhaps we should adopt a more radical approach. Radio Sport’s Nigel Yalden proposed that we do away with bonus points entirely, instead giving teams two points for a home win, three points for a road win and a point for a draw. Yalden added the caveat that this can only work in Super 15 when teams will play seven home and seven road games. Here’s what this table would look like:

Wow! Even the radical rethinking has little effect on the table. Again the top four remain the top four, the bottom five remain the bottom five and those in the middle move up or down a single spot.

It would seem no matter how many points are given to teams for wins and whether a league awards bonus points for scoring more tries or suffering a close loss, the table doesn’t actually change that much. Largely because the most important thing in sports is winning. If a team racks up enough wins, they move up the table, not enough, they move down.

And at the end of the day, the points system is there to sort out who are the top four teams that will play in the semi finals. In the case of all four systems here, it’s the same teams who occupy those spots.

Finally, here’s all four tables side by side for comparison:

Similar Posts:

• Power Rankings: Who will make the top four?
• Inside The Numbers Week 13: Attack and Defence
• Power Rankings: The road to the semis
• Power Ranking Super 14 Semi finals predictions
• Inside The Numbers: Week 5

The Inside The Numbers Week 12: Bonus Points by Hamish McBrearty, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.