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Stormrider wrote:Having played both sports, American Football is much more violent than rugby. The speed of the game is the killer.
I disagree with this as well. Rugby, in general, is a more physical game with a significantly quicker pace at all but the lowest levels; where the number of infractions often slows the game to a crawl. Football is all about set plays. The hits are harder, but generally less painful due to the pads, and often fail to land at all due to the present obsession with hitting hard at the expense of proper tackling; especially at the NFL level.
Part of the issue is that the majority of people that can make direct comparisons tend to be comparing a game they've practiced for at least 4 years (football) to one they probably just picked up in college (rugby). The latter seems slower simply because everyone is unfamiliar with the protocol of play. It would be like playing a football game in which a flag was thrown after every play.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Stormrider wrote:
Indeed, slick fields wind up pulling more groins and hamstrings than anything else. I pulled my quad on slick field turf, not fun.
At the end of my college career I was playing strong inside linebacker in a rain game on a turf field. There was nothing I hated more than having to break on the run out of zone coverage, except taking on guards that had 70-80 lbs on me.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2010/12/21 01:27:43
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
I played Football and Rugby, too. Football in High School and Rugby in college. My college team was really good, 3rd in the nation and our Hooker went on to play for the Eagles. We never could beat Cal though, those guys were crazy good. Airforce kicked most peoples' asses, too.
Football definitely is the more painful sport, no question. Rugby was more bumps and bruises with the occasional big injury. Football was far more big injuries.
The reason why was in Football you hit SO much harder than you do in Rugby. You simply can't drop a shoulder running at 4.5 forty speed into another guy going the same speed in Rugby and walk away from it. You would kill each other. Rugby was more about form tackles, although it was a plenty violent sport and after every match I looked like I got in a street fight.
The pads in Football are weapons, too which a lot of my buddies from other countries don't get. The helmet and facemask are deadly.
But, all that said, Rugby was more fun, IMO. It was more about improvisation and reaction than performing set plays. It was about the team working as a group and adapting to changing conditions and flowing into and out of plays. Whereas in football you performed your role as told with little deviation unless you were a Quarterback or Free Safety.
Rubgy is a great game, as is Football, I loved playing both. Nothing better in Rugby though than seeing a big man get the ball and run some fools over! The linemen in football did the grunt work and got no glory, which was a shame. IN Rugby everyone gets to run the ball which I think is good fun.
Reecius wrote:The reason why was in Football you hit SO much harder than you do in Rugby. You simply can't drop a shoulder running at 4.5 forty speed into another guy going the same speed in Rugby and walk away from it. You would kill each other. Rugby was more about form tackles, although it was a plenty violent sport and after every match I looked like I got in a street fight.
Yeah, in rugby the focus is more on grappling in the tackle, as opposed to grid iron where you're looking for the impact hit as much as the tackle.
In the geek world of 'violent is cooler' this somehow makes grid iron the better game, but it is actually something the game needs to look at, and is looking at with the current helmets. All those hard surfaces make players believe they're invincible, and the result is a lot more broken bones and head injuries than you really need. Pulling that back, shifting to soft shell helmets and the like won't make the game any poorer, but it will help the best players play longer careers, and have fewer medical issues in later life.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Basically Rugby players have to have a lot more respect for each other becasue they cannot just slam into each other. It hurts to hit people - unless you got some pads.
It's like boxing. Boxing gloves are not there to protect the other guy's head. They're there to protect your hand so you can hit the other guy in the head harder.
300 pound 6'4" man running 71 yards, american football defies logic.
Stupid 2nd string quarterback not knowing time management, we could've won. He did a fantastic job though seeing as though I was expecting a total blowout in favor of the Patriots.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2010/12/21 03:58:02
Wasn't that awesome to see the big man going to the house? I was hoping he'd score! But it sucks that that is so rare that when it happens it makes the highlight reel! In rugby the big dudes run the ball frequently.
@Sebster
Yeah, no doubt. You still knock the gak out of guys in Rugby but like you said, you just can't have the collisions as in Football as it would break bones every time.
@KamikazeCannuck
It's funny that you make the comparison between boxing and football as the same thing happens in both sports: the pads meant to keep you safer actually makes the sport more dangerous.
Boxers get destroyed, they get hit in the head so many more times than bare knuckle or MMA glove fights and it ends up rattling their brains and giving them long term brain injuries, just like in football. Players use the pads as weapons and they are so big and fast that they end up hurting each other more than if they had not been wearing pads in the first place.
Stormrider wrote:What school did you play at dogma? Weber St?
I played D3 at Macalester College. One of the worst D3 teams in the nation my first two years there, and one of the worst mediocre D3 teams in the nation my last two.
Stormrider wrote:
BTW, I was one of those Guards LB's hated dogding (HS of course, too short to make it in D-1 college)
Yeah, I had a similar problem.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
Ditto in hockey. There has been more and more concussions the bigger the pads get. They have these hard elbow and shoulder pads that are really just weapons. Hitting somebody at high speeds on skates is risky for the hitter and the hittie but with the pads to can just obliterate people with your shoulder "protection" without fear. Protection my ass.
Reecius wrote:
Football definitely is the more painful sport, no question. Rugby was more bumps and bruises with the occasional big injury. Football was far more big injuries.
No question that there are more big injuries in football, but after a football game I could usually walk to my car and drive home without much difficulty. After most rugby games I was lucky to be able to turn the key with one hand, let alone actually keep my eyes straight ahead without pronounced effort, or walk without a pronounced limp.
Though I played short flanker and fly half , so I took and dished out tons of hits every game; mainly because our scrum had no concept of when it was a bad idea to send the ball down the line. I also may have a bad read on the matter since I only ever suffered one severe injury in football.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
Reecius wrote:I played Football and Rugby, too. Football in High School and Rugby in college. My college team was really good, 3rd in the nation and our Hooker went on to play for the Eagles. We never could beat Cal though, those guys were crazy good. Airforce kicked most peoples' asses, too.
Football definitely is the more painful sport, no question. Rugby was more bumps and bruises with the occasional big injury. Football was far more big injuries.
The reason why was in Football you hit SO much harder than you do in Rugby. You simply can't drop a shoulder running at 4.5 forty speed into another guy going the same speed in Rugby and walk away from it. You would kill each other. Rugby was more about form tackles, although it was a plenty violent sport and after every match I looked like I got in a street fight.
The pads in Football are weapons, too which a lot of my buddies from other countries don't get. The helmet and facemask are deadly.
But, all that said, Rugby was more fun, IMO. It was more about improvisation and reaction than performing set plays. It was about the team working as a group and adapting to changing conditions and flowing into and out of plays. Whereas in football you performed your role as told with little deviation unless you were a Quarterback or Free Safety.
Rubgy is a great game, as is Football, I loved playing both. Nothing better in Rugby though than seeing a big man get the ball and run some fools over! The linemen in football did the grunt work and got no glory, which was a shame. IN Rugby everyone gets to run the ball which I think is good fun.
This may in fact be the best comparison of the two I've ever seen.
Reecius wrote:
Football definitely is the more painful sport, no question. Rugby was more bumps and bruises with the occasional big injury. Football was far more big injuries.
No question that there are more big injuries in football, but after a football game I could usually walk to my car and drive home without much difficulty. After most rugby games I was lucky to be able to turn the key with one hand, let alone actually keep my eyes straight ahead without pronounced effort, or walk without a pronounced limp.
Though I played short flanker and fly half , so I took and dished out tons of hits every game; mainly because our scrum had no concept of when it was a bad idea to send the ball down the line. I also may have a bad read on the matter since I only ever suffered one severe injury in football.
I have to agree with this.
I've played American Football a few times (our school was trying it out for an extra sport for a little while), and I was generally fine whilst playing it. People could get more injuries, but fewer pains.
In Rugby, I damaged my knee so badly, I haven't been able to play sports in years.
Mannahnin wrote: Darthdiggler's point about how hardcore American football FANS are is also well taken. Rugby and soccer fans don't (as a rule) have the tolerance for snow and cold that a fair number of Americans take for granted.
So two years ago I was in Pittsburgh for the divisional round playoff game against the Chargers. The temp at game time was between 10-15 degrees, IIRC. Since it was a night game, we didn't even get any sun on our faces. But we just bundled up properly (layers!) and we were fine. Heck, my wife even came along on that one and she was fine. Then again, she comes from strong Korean stock and doesn't mind the cold much. On a side note, 10 degree weather keeps your beer amazingly cold.
The funny thing is that our hotel happened to be where the Chargers were staying. The night before the game, my wife and I got into the elevator after walking back from dinner. It was probably a balmy 25-30 degrees at that point. The elevator stops one floor up, where all the conference rooms are. On the elevator steps a big guy...obviously one of the Chargers. He said hello, then asked how cold it was outside. After we got off the elevator, I told my wife we had the game in the bag already if the SoCal boys were worried about a little cold.
And the Steelers indeed crushed them. Good times.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2010/12/21 14:33:05
Albatross wrote:I'm not sure I understand this whole 'yeah? Well in (sport x) people get really badly injured!' - like that's a good thing?
People get terribly injured in car-crashes too. Doesn't look like much fun.
Car Crashes? Now thats a real sport! I drive in New Jersey all the time it seems some of the drivers with the best padding (semi truck/ SUV) are some of the worst drivers
Rugby and Football are both appropriately violent. I think we can all agree that it's baseball players who are wimps. They cancel games if there's a chance of light rain.
As is proper, the Bears beat the Vikings last night, which means I shall get another opportunity to sit in sub-freezing temperatures for four hours like a true fan when we host a playoff game!
Albatross wrote:I'm not sure I understand this whole 'yeah? Well in (sport x) people get really badly injured!' - like that's a good thing?
People get terribly injured in car-crashes too. Doesn't look like much fun.
Car Crashes? Now thats a real sport! I drive in New Jersey all the time it seems some of the drivers with the best padding (semi truck/ SUV) are some of the worst drivers
Can we call cigarettes a competitive sport then?
DR:70+S+G-MB-I+Pwmhd05#+D++A+++/aWD100R++T(S)DM+++ Get your own Dakka Code!
"...he could never understand the sense of a contest in which the two adversaries agreed upon the rules." Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
On the further positive. Saw a portion of this on a new HDTV. All I can say is Wow.
Then viewing was followed by a NatGeo on what turns out to be the largest cave in the world, in Vietnam also in HDTV. Again all I can say is...wow.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
Albatross wrote:I'm not sure I understand this whole 'yeah? Well in (sport x) people get really badly injured!' - like that's a good thing?
People get terribly injured in car-crashes too. Doesn't look like much fun.
Car Crashes? Now thats a real sport! I drive in New Jersey all the time it seems some of the drivers with the best padding (semi truck/ SUV) are some of the worst drivers
Jersey driving doesn't qualify as a sport because there are no real *rules*. Or at least the rules are so arcane, a la 43-man Squamish, that they're largely irrelevant.
@dogma
I separated my shoulder, had a few concussions in football, but like you said, most games afterwords I felt pretty much OK.
After Rugby it was pain all over, not injury pain, but beat up and exhausted pain (Rugby is FAR more cardiovascularly demanding than Football).
Ha, the one time my Mom watched a match, I got kicked in the face getting up from a ruck and blood sprayed everywhere! She never came to another match! She loves Football though which is funny. I think that as the pads cover the evidence of the violence, it makes it seem less scary to the spectators.
I played Loose Forward. God damn, I have never run so much in my life! For those who don't know the game, it is like a strong safety/Free Safety and running back. Good fun because you get the ball a lot and get a lot of tackles, but you literally sprint almost the entire game.
@Owain
Thanks, I am glad my explanation seemed cogent.
@Albatross
You are not alone, a lot of people can't understand why some guys (and girls) like violent sports. It is the raw competition of it I think. There is no bs, it feels like pure competition and a little bit of animal aggression. Some people need that outlet, some think it is stupid. I can understand both sides of it, but know where I stand.
Give me my MMA, Football, Boxing, Rugby, Muay Thai all day!
Strangely I also like watching Track and Field, Cycling and Triathlons, which are much more civilized! And, you can do those sports even as you get older, which is clutch. Can't play Football for that long, really.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2010/12/21 23:44:14
Reecius wrote:@Albatross
You are not alone, a lot of people can't understand why some guys (and girls) like violent sports. It is the raw competition of it I think. There is no bs, it feels like pure competition and a little bit of animal aggression. Some people need that outlet, some think it is stupid. I can understand both sides of it, but know where I stand.
Give me my MMA, Football, Boxing, Rugby, Muay Thai all day!
Strangely I also like watching Track and Field, Cycling and Triathlons, which are much more civilized! And, you can do those sports even as you get older, which is clutch. Can't play Football for that long, really.
I think he's refereeing more to the dumb idea that one sport is better than the other because more people get injured.
I have tried watching American football and it's like watching a film where the dvd is so scratched up it keeps skipping every ten seconds. It seems as if the rules which exists in British sports (football, rugby league, cricket etc) made to encourage and enforce continuous play just don't exist in American football and the whole nature of the game is designed to let you see as little actual play as possible. 60 minutes play over a 3 hour period? Crazy (and yeh I know you get a bit more with your "timeouts").
Why couldn't it have snowed in perth Australia last weekend.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2010/12/22 12:15:47
whatwhat wrote:It seems as if the rules which exists in British sports (football, rugby league, cricket etc) made to encourage and enforce continuous play just don't exist in American football...
Excellent perception, as they do not.
whatwhat wrote:
...and the whole nature of the game is designed to let you see as little actual sport as possible. 60 minutes play over a 3 hour period? Crazy (and yeh I know you get a bit more with your "timeouts").
Sport only involves that which players do during 'play'? I would have though that anything occurring during a sporting event, on the part of sanctioned parties, might be considered to be sport.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
Reecius wrote:@Albatross
You are not alone, a lot of people can't understand why some guys (and girls) like violent sports. It is the raw competition of it I think. There is no bs, it feels like pure competition and a little bit of animal aggression. Some people need that outlet, some think it is stupid. I can understand both sides of it, but know where I stand.
Give me my MMA, Football, Boxing, Rugby, Muay Thai all day!
Strangely I also like watching Track and Field, Cycling and Triathlons, which are much more civilized! And, you can do those sports even as you get older, which is clutch. Can't play Football for that long, really.
I think he's refereeing more to the dumb idea that one sport is better than the other because more people get injured.
That I am. I don't have a problem with robust physical exchanges in sport, but the competition is more important to me than than the number of injuries the sides rack up. Unless it's Argentina vs Italy or something, in which case I will happily sit watching them kick lumps out of each other all day.
dogma wrote:Sport only involves that which players do during 'play'? I would have though that anything occurring during a sporting event, on the part of sanctioned parties, might be considered to be sport.
Ok so the people standing round in-between play is sport then. Certainly isn't worth watching from what I can see. My point really had nothing to do with what is and what isn't sport.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2010/12/22 12:11:51
Albatross wrote:
That I am. I don't have a problem with robust physical exchanges in sport, but the competition is more important to me than than the number of injuries the sides rack up. Unless it's Argentina vs Italy or something, in which case I will happily sit watching them kick lumps out of each other all day.
Whilst sipping sherry.
The trick is to say, to your your French opponent, that you are a savage...in Latin.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2010/12/22 12:22:58
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
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Catachan LIX "Lords Of Destruction" 
