Your Views: Abusing the advantage law

Editor

Friday's inbox features your thoughts on defences getting away with more than they should under the advantage law.

Keep those thoughts coming to readersviews@planetrugby.com to make the next edition.

I watched with dismay last weekend as Exeter attacked the Saracens try line, to be awarded an advantage for a Saracens infringement.

Play continued, with Exeter hammering away at the line, only for the referee to call out ‘penalty, new advantage’ FOUR times before an eventual try was scored.

Many teams when defending are guilty of this (probably none more famous than the #1 team in the world), but I think it encourages such negative play from a team as they can illegally stop tries seemingly without risk, or at the very least delay a try being scored for another 2-20 phases and thus running the clock down.

I would propose that if another infringement occurs during an advantage period that it become an automatic yellow card, with play then restarting from the latest infringement.

This would allow teams a better chance to actually use the ‘advantage’ given to them to score points, as well as speed up the game.

Tomas Castka