Originally Posted by
blackout
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.
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.
Did you know that football came from rugby because in the late 1890s/early 1900s too many people were dying during rugby games. They built football around it to make it "safer". If you want to see what it's like to play rugby, go to YouTube and search for rugby hits.
As far as the skill positions....the person that plays "quarterback" in rugby, called the flyhalf, has to make the same decisions that a normal quarterback does except he has to do it at speed with no blockers and every other position on the rugby field (15 per side) has to make those same decisons at some point in the game since we all have to handle the ball
I welcome you to come out to a game (there's one on the 22nd;
http://www.bluesrugby.org/ncbrfc/bluschf.html) and check it out.