Fuss about nothing

There's been a huge amount of flak heading the way of the ERC this week after the Heineken Cup semi final between Leicester and Cardiff was decided by a penalty shoot out.

The words "unfair," "lottery," "humiliating" and "cruel" have been bandied about as commentators have jumped on the bandwagon to condemn this means of settling matches where teams cannot be separated after extra time.

The argument appears to be that it's unreasonable to expect a game to be decided by players having to perform a skill that is alien to many of them and that it's particularly unfair to expect forwards to convert a kick from 22 metres out in front of the posts.

Do me a favour! Anyone with a modicum of co-ordination should surely be able to make a decent fist (or foot) of taking a straightforward kick at goal. And we all know anyway that forwards all like to think they can kick a bit and love to have a sneaky practice in training.

All a shoot-out does is test whether players can handle a pressure situation and, ultimately, someone has to miss. There has been an enormous outpouring of sympathy for Cardiff's Martyn Williams who missed the crucial kick and, while I'm not entirely unsympathetic to his plight, he's a big boy who I'm sure will get over it. Who knows, he may even land himself a pizza ad as a result. If anything, it was disappointing that we didn't get to see Gethin Jenkins take on Julian White in a head-to- head Prop Idol kicking duel.

Of course, the whole argument is pretty much academic as how often have we seen major matches finish level at full time, let alone after extra time. OK, a couple of World Cup Finals have come close, admittedly, but the scoring system in rugby means that it's highly unlikely that we're going to see this happen on a regular basis.

And if we do, I say bring on the props!