A look at the importance of the Bonus Point system

By Loobs
April 13 2003

There have been many debates about the merits or otherwise of the bonus points system in the Zurich Premiership. They are to be awarded at RWC2003 for the first time. Here, we take a look at the effect they have had on the teams at the bottom of the table had there been no Bonus Points awarded

The Zurich Premiership relegation battle continues with the late, late resurgence of Gloucester to scrape a win at Kingsholm (you don’t hear that too often) over bottom placed Newcastle. Yet another game decided deep in injury time. I expect that to be a talking point among certain managers in the off season, but more of that anon.

Taking the teams in the bottom half, we see the amount of bonus points as follows; I haven’t differentiated between Try Bonus and Losing bonus. I have also listed them in their ‘League Points only’ position.

Please excuse the spacing, I don't do HTML as it always ends up being too difficult for certain browsers to read.

Team Bonus Points League Points only

NEC Harlequins 8 28

Bath Rugby 4 28

London Irish 5 26

Bristol Shoguns 5 26

Saracens 8 24

Newcastle 7 24


An altogether different table at this stage illustrating the importance of securing the Bonus Point in any game. Of the BP’s secured, Quins and Newcastle both have 5 Losing Bonus Points in their totals; Irish and Bath both have 4 LBP in their totals with Saracens having an even mix of 4 LBP and 4 TBP. By virtue of having games in hand over all of the fellow lower half residents, Bristol hold the key to the relegation battle. They also have the ability to secure an extra BP.

The top half of the table would only see Tigers and Leeds reverse their 4th and 5th placings if BP were not being awarded.

There’s no getting away from it, the Bonus Point is to be chased at every opportunity, whichever one it may be. Firmly established and a vitally important feature of our game now, it will be interesting to see how the experiment will work for the RWC.