Rugby for wimps in armour....

tallaghtoutlaws

Rented Mule wrote: »

Probably the most intelligent thing stated on either side of the arguement.

I think we should second his motion. I like the cut of his jib. the dominator for leader.

musky

I'm a big fan of both sports, here are my observations.

AF is perceived as being 'softer' than RU because of three things.

1. Padding, Helmets etc.
2. Split teams, offence/defence/special teams and the ability to substitute at will.
3. The rest breaks.

RU,

1. Has limited padding (shoulder pads, which are trivial compared to the AF version)
2. All players are able to play offence and defence.
3. 1 real rest break, half time, (ok there are pauses for line outs scrums penalties etc.)

Now as a lot of posters have said they are different games so they can't truly be compared (I don't rate RL, it's quite bland and skill-less imo).

I think that AF have fantastic athletes, great impacts and the best TV production (which makes dull games interesting).

As a self professed maths lover (not in the biblical sense), it uses statistics for players, positions, skills, achievements, teams, divisions, and conferences in a very informatative and exciting way, builkding a genuine interest between a spectator such as my self and players that I will never see in real life.
To elaborate, i find my self (for example) wanting to see if farve keeps up his passer rating against Green Bay at lambeau, or does he throw a handful of picks and send the Vikes to 6 and 2, will crabtree win over the fans by having a 100 yard game and can he justify his contract or is he just another talented kid who misguidedly believes he is the next Jerry Rice.

RU has more rounded athletes who are still coming to terms with professionalism, don't (for the most part) have the egos (or salaries) of AF players. RU is still intrinsically a community game, it has yet to fully shake its foundations and transmorph itself into the money making, territory crunching, player grinding, media circus, frakenstein's monster franchises that AF in all its wonder brings, at least not yet.

With RU however my interest takes on a much different form, it's attraction meanders (at least for me) from the epoch of the RWC and the eternal struggle against choking on the big stage that grasps the all blacks on a four year cycle to the unbridled enthuasim of 5 to 11 years old emulating there heroes on the drizzly sundays while there parents wring hands and pray for there little lomu to survive the weekly ruck.

In short I truly enjoy each sport and have to say that each brings its own merits to the table.

Lothaar

musky wrote: »

[*]All players are able to play offence and defence.

Good post, with some sensible points well made.

Not meaning to nitpick, but there seems to be a common enough misconception that AF players CAN'T play O and D. They can... but they don't. Most of the guys in the NFL are freakish athletes who played multiple positions on O and D throughout high school and often college. In the NFL, and college to a slightly lesser extent, everyone specialises in a position so that they can excel at that position. They can only achieve true excellence among a field of excellent players by focusing 100% on their position.

markod4600

my fav thing about AF is the great quotes its people have given us.

e.g 'The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work'
vince lombardi.

Eire-Dearg

I must admit at the beginning, at a time when the NFL was just appearing on Sky I thought it was just a pile of softies running around and doing nothing. But I have got so into it recently I now find myself watching every game on Sky. I love the tactical side of it, and the statistics. It takes time to get into it, but now I'm loving it. And nothing beats seeing a pinpoint TD pass.

twerg_85

Eire-Dearg wrote: »

And nothing beats seeing a pinpoint TD pass.

Look at clips of Barry Sanders (or AP/LT) or big linebacker hits. Much better fun.

Gisty

twerg_85 wrote: »

Look at clips of Barry Sanders (or AP/LT) or big linebacker hits. Much better fun.

Spoken like a true TE

The hits are the best fun. Catch a pass, line up a little CB and stick your head down and watch the ****er fly.

Or drill a Qb in the back so hard you force all the air out of him. The noise they make when that happens is just so fun

Paul91

not sure if this has been mentioned, don't really have the patience to read all the posts on this thread, but

the reason american footballers wear helmets is because of a number of deaths and severe injuries in the sport

remember - one major difference in the sports is the tackling:

in rugby you are taught to keep your head out of the way i.e. tackle with your head away from your opponents direction of travel, so head to side or back of opponent and in an essence "drag" down, i know there are face to face tackles, but these are rare and not the "taught" way to tackle in rugby due to the injuries to the tacklee - how many times have you seen a guy try to tackle someone head on in rugby only to be mushed into the ground with either a concussion or broken collar bone, now as rugby is about possesion of the ball, unless your on the try line a "drag" down tackle is as good as head on.

in american football it's about yards, so you are taught to put your head into the opponents chest in order to stop him dead in his tracks, for this you need to protect your head, unless you only want to play a single game, face to face is the best, especially with a guy of similar size/strength - who's had the double blow out? that's where the hit is that hard both nostrels blow again the shoulder pads where developed to stop the breaking of collar bones, there is a metal strap which covers the collar bone, the rest of the pad was originally developed to protect other players from that strap, once you had this "hard" padding you then needed the soft padding for the thighs, knees, hips and tail bone

of course it's interesting to note the similarity of today's rugby padding to that of the 1900's in American football

FYI - I played both sports, American Football to the highest standard in the UK, and rugby to a reasonable level one thing i have been known for is the strength of my tackling, i put this down to combining the technique from both sports in the tackle situation, got a fair few black eyes from Rugby for tackling head on, not from the tackle, but from the punch after when they get up

tallaghtoutlaws

This Video is an interesting addition to this argument except his summery at the end. US sports science show and it truly shows that both sports are up there together as both hard hitting sports.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7tGY-VDx3o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7tGY-VDx3o

Lothaar

Interesting video. Pretty much sums up what I already knew.

I noticed that they didn't actually compare like with like. When Jammer tackled the dummy, it wasn't moving, whereas the two rugby players were moving towards each other. If Jammer tackled somebody coming at him head-on, the force of the impact would have been much higher.

amacachi

That Rugby tackle wasn't that big a tackle IMO. At a League training session I was holding the pads for tackle practice and despite never having played I could tell straightaway who had played League before and who hadn't. The classic Union tackle around the legs-hip is more annoying that anything else, whereas the league tackles from waist-chest are way more impactful. Low tackles in League are totally pointless.

In terms of out-and-out power there's no doubt it goes AF>RL>RU.

I don't mind American Football, I'll watch it because I love all sports. What takes away from it for me is that for a long time it's been pro and everything is well-oiled and well tuned. It's like Formula 1 in that way, F1 has the best cars but overtaking is impossible. Look at something like Touring Cars and there's overtaking the whole time. Rugby Union is now going down the same road, with professionalism and tactics leading to kicking games and taking away from the spectacle. Rugby League on the other hand has perfected the rules over a number of years to keep the spectacle there.

In all sports the fitness of the players at the top is brilliant. Obviously the type of fitness someone repects most is the one they would like most and for me personally it's Rugby League. Ball is in play 65+ minutes and very few holdups, unlike Union. In most positions AF players would be more like weightlifters, massive explosive power but much less endurance.

I did despair reading some of the old posts in this thread, someone described League as skilless, but when it comes to ball-handling skills and on-the-fly tactics and playmaking it's basically unrivalled IMO.