never saw it before - Rugby is great

[CTrefugee]

I am enjoying it much more than football.

Thanks Olympics !

 

[Intpseeker]

Wait until you experience the third half of a rugby match.

 

[Samanthabrown3]

Rugby looks like football to me, with a few variations.

 

[UcMiami]

I played just a wee bit of it in HS and it is perhaps the toughest team sport out there - it actually includes more running than soccer because the whole team needs to constantly be 'behind the ball' and spaced across the field, but it also includes the physical impact of american football. The stamina and strength requirements are really really hard.
The one saving grace in terms of the physicality is that you do not have blocking (though scrums are a bit similar in brute strength) which means you do not generally have the high speed impacts of football, and the rules about tackling are much stricter so the impacts tend to be more controlled.

 

[meyers7]

Sevens are ok. But I much prefer Union. But you'd never get in the games with Union. Sevens can be done fairly quickly. Great sport.

it actually includes more running than soccer because the whole team needs to constantly be 'behind the ball' and spaced across the field,

Actually not. Rugby Union averages around 7-8 km. 80 min match. Soccer players average around 10-14 km. 90+ min match.

 

[msf22b]

Lived in NZed for two years...

You like to watch sports...you have a problem:

The girls play a silly, dumb game called netball...sounds like nit-ball when they discuss it; unwatchable.

In the summer, they play a very, very slow-motion version of baseball that goes on for days and sometimes no one wins.
Actually not bad

But, Rugby...now that's a game. A pre-historic version of football; the ball can't be moved forward, only back and then the mayhem and skill follows...and no big, huge, ineffective helmets either. So concussions are far less.

I have great memories, soaking in the Wairakei Hot Springs outdoor tub, with the monster TV at one end displaying the All-Blacks as they trounced their latest victim

Bliss

 

[UcMiami]

Sevens are ok. But I much prefer Union. But you'd never get in the games with Union. Sevens can be done fairly quickly. Great sport.


Actually not. Rugby Union averages around 7-8 km. 80 min match. Soccer players average around 10-14 km. 90+ min match.

Interesting stat - but I wonder about it in regard to 'pace' about 50 % of a soccer players movement is jogging back into position or adjusting on defense as the ball moves back and forth across the pitch, with short segments of sprinting on long diagonals or balls over the top.

 

[Orangutan]

Sevens are ok. But I much prefer Union. But you'd never get in the games with Union. Sevens can be done fairly quickly. Great sport.

Yup, I also prefer League to Sevens. Watching sevens is like watching flag football or 3x3 basketball for me. Still beats the hell out of most sports.

 

[JordyG]

Yup, I also prefer League to Sevens. Watching sevens is like watching flag football or 3x3 basketball for me. Still beats the hell out of most sports.

I've had a few debates over the years (mainly with fellow American's) about the differences between these sports and their attendant athletes. One of those differences is that the NFL is more of an anaerobic sport, requiring development of strength, quickness, speed and power is short spurts. Whereas rugby is more of an aerobic sport since, yes, up to 50% of the time players are jogging or walking into position. Yet with equivalent strength, power, speed, and quickness. Something that really doesn't occur in the NFL. Nevertheless both anaerobic and aerobic training is required for both sports. However don't be fooled by the use or non use of pads in these sports as are some rugby adherents, because both have their strengths and weaknesses. Neither should one be fooled, as many of my fellow American's have felt, into believing the NFL brand of athlete is superior. They are equivalent. The NFL is a league of specialists such as in war, each position has its own tasks and requirements. Rugby is more a game of generalists that also has its specialists (and some rough, tough SOB's). There are few if any OL's in the NFL that would make it in rugby if just for a few minutes. Yet as Jarryd Hayne showed, even the best rugby athletes will find cracking an NFL lineup ain't easy. Although these sports share some common elements, they are two wildly different and equivalently great sports that I love. The rugby pool in this country is being eaten by college and the NFL, but I would LOVE to see more women in this country play this tactically and physically tough sport.

 

[UcMiami]

One of the interesting factors with all the NFL padding and helmets is that they create their own issues - they become weapons in their own right and more padding is required to deal with the 'weaponized' opponent. The other thing is things like shoulder separations and broken clavicles are less likely to happen so players are less worried about injuring themselves and hit harder.
The thing that you are beginning to see in football is the rules against high hits, in rugby the 'hitting area' is restricted to shoulder through thigh - low and high are penalties.

 

[Intpseeker]

The point of a hit is to bring the runner to the ground,as you have to release the ball as soon as you hit the turf. Both the runner and tackler are suppossed to immediately move away to allow a ruck to form over the ball to fight for posession by moving over the ball, leaving it for your team to start the next play. I mention this not to geek about the game, but to observe that while hits can be hard, they are higher, and often concentrate on rapping up the runner to prevent passing the ball whilst bringing the runner down.

When I began playing, I asked about the rules, and was told that there is only one: don't get caught. With only a single official, there is a great deal of play that goes unnoticed.

And on a cold, rainy/snowy day in December or February, happiness really is a warm scrum.

 

[Geew1992]

My daughter watched it the other day. Now she wants her school to get a team

 

[Sargassoc]

My daughter watched it the other day. Now she wants her school to get a team

I played women's rugby in college for maybe three weeks. That was it for me-- and I'm not a baby.

 

[meyers7]

Interesting stat - but I wonder about it in regard to 'pace' about 50 % of a soccer players movement is jogging back into position or adjusting on defense as the ball moves back and forth across the pitch, with short segments of sprinting on long diagonals or balls over the top.

Well similar for Rugby. Lot's of jogging into position. Rucks, scrums and line-outs too. Just like soccer has freekicks, corners, throw-ins.

 

[meyers7]

I am enjoying it much more than football.

Thanks Olympics !

If you liked that you may want to take a look at Australian Rules Football. (another Football code - Association, American, Canadian, Australian, Gaelic)