Should Rugby Union Use NFL-Style Goalposts?

This article is in response to some comments on Aaron Smith's try versus the Stormers yesterday (below). You will see it is an incredibly intelligent try and Aaron Smith, arguably the world's best scrum-half, uses his knowledge of the rules to his advantage and scores a fantastic try.

We all know the rule, when the ball is touched at the base of the post it is awarded as a try. But isn't this rule a bit old-fashioned? Yes, it seems a fair enough rule as you make it to the line and would have scored if it wasn't for the post, but that isn't the case nowadays. In the modern game the padding surrounding the posts is so thick that, as the commentator said, there was nothing that the defence could do. The rule was introduced when the padding was so thin the area between the line and the pad was negligible, however now, as is seen clearly in this video, the ball can be well short of the line and still count as a try. Adopting NFL-style posts, that have the base starting off the pitch and the posts remaining above the try line could eliminate the problem of this out-dated rule, whilst also adding another positive.

The posts obstruct play, whether it is a maul driving towards the line or just a player, the posts can often halt attacking play and disrupt the offensive flow. James Haskell would be delighted to see American Football posts in rugby as it would mean players wouldn't be blocked by the posts when running for the line, and you never know how crucial 7 points can be in a tournament...

Now, we're not actually advocating this change, it is just food for thought, the negatives are that it would be very difficult to implement at grass roots level and would take a lot of time to implement, I'm not sure how stable the posts would actually be and it breaks the tradition of rugby posts, these glorious pillars upon which the sport was founded. Some are calling for the rule to be looked at and changed in order to stop tries such as Aaron Smith's occurring, however we thought it was truly brilliant, and as it doesn't occur very often in this manner, we don't feel the need for any changes right now.

What Would You Change?