Where do you rank "Winning Ugly"?

[Timbo]

With the results and style of winning during the TN, there has been many comments about how people would like to see the game played.

I have no doubt that I would prefer to see my team "winning pretty" ie by running in the most tries after a great set of forward and back play. But after that it gets a little less clear....

I would love people's reaction to the following:

If I had to rank the following:
Winning Pretty, Winning Ugly, Losing Pretty & Losing Ugly......?
what would it be 1-4?

For me:
Easy No 1: Winning Pretty

Less easy No 2: Winning Ugly (so maybe for once I agree with PDV)

I struggle with whether I would then prefer to Lose Ugly ('cos at least I was prepared to do that rather than lose) or Lose Pretty (on the basis that the reputation of the Game deserves more than playing Ugly)

Love to see peoples views......

[James]

I spose it depends on what pretty and ugly mean.

I'd rather win by 1, 2 or 3 points and see 6 tries scored then win but 10, 20, 30 and have a stoppy starty game with only one or two. Does ugly mean playing unattractively or playing badly? I've seen a few games where Australia has won played badly/unattractively (the last couple of games in Italy as a good example) which have left me feeling like it was a waste of two hours. I don't want to complicate things too much but Perhaps it would go:

1. Winning pretty against anyone.
2. Winning ugly against a team better than you.
3. Losing pretty against a team better than you.
4. Losing pretty against a team equal or below you.
5. Winning ugly against a team equal or below you.
6. Losing ugly against anyone.

[palitu]

i think i would go

1. Winning pretty,
2. Losing pretty (but only by a little bit)
3. winning ugly

thats about it.

[Happy]

I'll take a win at any stage - but reserve my right to complain about it

[AndyS]

Sorry, but for mine all forms of winning will always trump any form of losing. And Timbo is right, it is probably inverted. The worst of all things for the players is to lose pretty - it produces an endless stream of "Should've knuckled down/earned the right to go wide/hardened up/done the hard yards/muscled up in the forwards/etc etc" from the armchair coaches, and players lose their jobs.

[mudskipper]

Where do you rank "Winning Ugly"?

4 points above loosing.... who wrote this trash...?

[pieter blackie]

Winning !!! how you win is not up for Discussion first win and if it looked pretty it is a bonus

[mudskipper]

Mr Black, I've never seen pretty from the Boks only some hard rugby... SA is the best country for under using its talent...

[pieter blackie]

If you can bear to watch a winning team for 5 minutes



---------- Post added at 20:59 ---------- Previous post was at 20:56 ----------

OOe sorry that is ugly rugby

[mudskipper]

Blackie your pulling up pas... or way past highlights here... give me something from this weekends match on Sunday...

cheers not impressed...

[pieter blackie]

we will have to wait and see
it will be a hard match

[normie]

Pretty is in the eye of the beer holder.

Objectively, winning is in it's own right pretty.
Subjectively, winning with a display of skilled error-free play, devoid of referring errors in your favour, lucky bounces etc is sublime, but I've never seen that.

Even the most 'prettiest' wins I've seen in any sport have an element of luck, contentious decisions by umpires or absurdly stupid play by the opposition.

Saying that, if Matt Giteau had kicked the ugliest mongrel upside-down reverse inside out helicopter in-off the woodwork drop-goal last Saturday, I'd be pretty ecstatic.

[zimeric]

muddie have to agree with you ther... when last did you see Habana get the ball out wide from a sweeping move, cut through 6 players and score?
Last world cup?

yeah hes scored a few since then but usually from intercepts or broken play.

not impressed.

[James]

This year Force vs Cheetahs and Force vs Blues. We lost ugly and we won ugly. And both made me feel a lot of negative emotions and took little out of it. But by god the year before when we ran the Crusaders to the wire at Subiaco Oval (had to get up at 5am to watch it in the UK) was an awesome game. That was losing pretty. Even though we lost if you asked me to pick one of those three to watch a second time it would definitely be the Crusaders game.

[AndyS]

So, the ball was run a lot etc - what would people call that one and how did it feel?