MARK REASON, writing on stuff.co.nz, says the value of a penalty goal should be reduced.

Reason believes this would prevent referees from deciding the outcome of matches.

'It is ludicrous that scrummage penalties decide games, when most refs are guessing. The breakdown is another constant contradiction of interpretation. So let's reduce the value of the penalty in order to reduce the influence of the ref. Let's neuter Steve Walsh.

'Under the new points system the Hurricanes would have beaten the Stormers 16-15 at the weekend. The positive Cheetahs would have beaten the dull Brumbies in last year's Super Rugby play-off qualifier and would have beaten the Lions earlier this season, a match they lost despite scoring two tries to nil.

'The IRB has already trialled a similar system in South Africa's 2012 Varsity Cup competition and many of the results were encouraging.'

Reason admits that making a penalty two points could result in teams infringing more, but that this could be prevented by sending players to the sin bin for 20 minutes instead of 10.

Read the full column on stuff.co.nz

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