Rugby was not meant to be defined by slide-rule pedantry

Rigid application of so many rules is frustrating players, officials and fans as sport gets in a pickle over tangled logic

Three away wins on the opening weekend of the Six Nations, three home wins in round two. And yet, for all that, the 2024 championship a consistent theme. Five teams already has struggling for sustained rhythm and a fizzing Ireland on another level entirely, demonstrating to the rest of the field how it could and should be done.

Even the brilliant young Irish anthem singer was a cut above in comparison to the two games on Saturday, both of them modest in terms of overall quality. Scotland really should have put away a sluggish - again - France, and England could not have complained too loudly had a callow Wales hung on at Twickenham. The abiding memory will be the slimness of the final margins rather than the superlative standard of play.

Increasingly this does not feel wholly coincidental. Because rugby union has got itself into a pickle over precisely what type of spectacle it wants to be. It was never designed to be a sport defined by slide-rule pedantry.

Too often, unfortunately, that is now becoming its default setting as further underlined at the weekend by the wince-inducing, unsatisfactory finish to the game at Murrayfield.

No wonder Gregor Townsend was so aggrieved afterwards.

To listen to the referee, Nic Berry, eventually being talked out of making a visibly accurate decision in the name of flawed protocol was both dispiriting and concerning. If it was good news for France - chapeau to the quick-witted colleague who coined the nickname Nic Beret the tangled logic was exactly what rugby did not need as it battles to entice new audiences.