Originally Posted by
blah
Whoa now, you're hitting close to home with that one. My father played rugby for ~15 years including 3 years on the US team and I have no problem saying that 53 year old man could beat me in pretty much any athletic event.
And yes, he was on the football team in high school.
i knew i'd ruffle some feathers with that comment. truth be told, i really don't know jack shit about rugby, it's just asinine to me for people to say it's a 'real man's sport' compared to football, yet football is the most popular sport in the us.
Originally Posted by
NFCstang
Really? Then I'll ask you to come out to practice and see how many "big, slow meatheads with little to no hand-eye coordination who couldn't make the football team in high school" there are out there. Most of the guys I play with are in the 5'10-6'2 range and somewhere between 180-220. There are a lot of pure athletes that play rugby....it's just we don't get the recognition and rugby is just starting to make inroads in high school. As a matter of fact Haloti Ngata, one of the Ravens linemen played rugby in HS.
I daresay it takes a lot more coordination and athletic ability to play rugby then it ever will to play football. Game is 80 minutes long. Average length of time that I will spend per play (between whistle stoppages) is around 1 min 30 seconds. How long does the avg. football play last? 15 seconds on the long side? During that 90 seconds I might have to sprint upwards of 100+ meters up and down the field and about the same laterally while making 2 or 3 tackles (without pads) while pushing as much if not more then a offensive lineman. I might also have to run with the ball as well, lift someone 12 feet in the air and take about 3000lbs of pressure on my back in a scrum.
I'm 6'3 and about 285 and I can run most football players into the ground
Here's a prime example of the uncoordination of rugby players....ever see a fumble in a football game and one of the linemen jumps on it? How many times have you see that ball squirt out again and again.
Most rugby players can pick that ball off the ground at a dead run without missing a step.
isn't the ball more round than an american football?
that's fine and good, perhaps you need more stamina and resistance to injury in rugby, but i would still venture to say that from the skill positions at least, football requires more athletic ability and skill. i realize my opinion doesn't count for much due to the aforementioned admittance of a lack of knowledge and personal experience playing the sport, but still a 'play a real man's sport' comment for no apparent reason could not go unnoticed.