Most Aggressive Sport

Dan, my comment was meant to encourage our guys to ulease a little of that T on the bastards that deserve it. And to everyone claiming that rugby is more violent and/or aggessive than football, I disagree. Now please don’t think I’m disrespecting rugby or rugby players, as I respect ALL athletes. Yes, rugby is a VERY violent game. It is most certainly a very aggessive pursuit. However, in my opinion, NOTHING compares to porfessional/college American football in terms of violence and aggression. Pro 'ballers are the biggest, fastest, toughest athletes in the world. The degrees and rates of injuries bear this out. It’s simple physics. Compare the velocity at which a typical rugby collision occurs with the velocity of a typical NFL hit. The reason those guys wear pads? They aren’t wimps. They HAVE to. Without those pads, they would DIE (or end up incapacitated) after a few short seasons. Now yes, rugby players are tough, mean SOB’s. I won’t dispute that. But to say that rugby is just like pro, even college football, without the pads, is off the mark. It’s a different game, a different style of hitting, and a higher level of violence. I’m reminded of my friend Tony who went to Belfast for a college semester and watched an Irish rugby team become enamored of American footballers there on exhibition. They couldn’t believe the size, speed, strength, and agility of our boys. Is football BETTER than rugby? Only a child would try to make an argument either way. Is it more violent? I believe so. If I see convincing evidence, however, I will reconsider (and heaven forbid, I MIGHT actually change my mind). Perhaps Coach Davies has an opinion?

THANKS NATHAN! that is true, and the NFL has made more than one effort to recruit Lomu - and others. the average rugby player would never play football, the damn sport is too slow! a 60 minute clock time game should not take 3.5 hours to play! rugby - 2 40 minute halves, very few subs, no special teams, if you’re not bleeding stay on the field, if you are bleeding go stop the blood and get back out here. those ‘rules’ (and that attitude) are the SAME for amature and pro players. generally rugby players are not the type to whine about a sprained finger, or a bad bruise…unlike many american pro athletes (oh ouch, i have a hangnail take me out of the game!!! whatEVER) sorry, football just doesn’t cut it for me.

laugh here i am!! hey, go watch a women’s game or two … you’ll find what you’re looking for!

People also need to realize speed and strength doesn’t necesarily mean someone is a hard hitter in football. It’s definately a bonus and can put some added ooomph into the hit. But the number one factor is technique. However in the pros it’s just the biggest, strongest, fastest with the best technique. Heh.

you’re correct, there is a HUGE difference between a football tackle and a rugby tackle. rugby players do not have the protection of armor so we have to pay attention to how we hit and how we land. every football game has someone getting flipped over onto their head, rugby players do that without the benefit of a helmet and a big roll on their shoulders to protect their neck. football tackles would break bones, not because they are hard hits, but because often times they are stupid hits. slamming into someone carelessly with pads on is VERY differnt than slamming into someone without protection. players switching from football to rugby often do not last a season because they break themselves… poorly exicuted tackles often injure both parties involved. most of my rugby career has been spent as a fullback, i am the LAST line of defense before a ‘try’ is scored. which means the woman running at me full tilt has to get past me to score, and my only job is to stop her. she wants to get past me as much as i want to stop her, she has no blockers clearing the way for her so it’s me, her, the ball and the try line. we may be smaller than the ‘average’ football player, but you can not tell me that our collision is any less aggressive or violent than one in a football game. at 5’1" 135 i have stopped break aways made by players 8 inches taller and 30 pounds heavier than me. Pads or no pads, the impact force would have been the EXACT SAME, however with pads i could be sloppy and get away with it. without pads one of us could end up broken. yes, i am talking about women’s rugby here, but change the height and weight factors and it directly translates to men’s games. rugby is just as brutal as football, and we don’t have the benefit of being upright armadillos… don’t agree? go watch a few games and then try it out … lemme know how you feel AFTER you’ve been on the pitch (rugby field).

Rugby cannot hold football’s jockstrap. Rugby can’t play as intensly as football players and not break their bones or just wear out. Rugby must be kept at a pace that allows it be played for 40 continuous minutes. That pace is slower/less intense than football. QED.

colin - have you ever actually played rugby? just curious… you assume that the players are not in good enough shape to play hard for 80 minutes? perhaps they are in such good shape that they can play with high intensity for that long? check out the fitness stats of the pros, they in NO way lag behind the stats of pro football players.

I would have to say rugby. FOOSBALL IS FOR THE DEVIL! for the shear lack of pads. and football is too damn slow. you sit half the time, and there is a 2 minute rest between any kind of action. that isnt intensity, that isnt aggressiveness.
thats my 2cents.

michelle- I have to agree with aikigreg- a woman who grins about a bruise... oh yeah, thats a keeper.

And I agree with DaMan. Fooseball is DEFINATELY for the devil. My pastor talks about the evils of the little men on sticks…

At the time I thought he was talking about Marijuana, but now I know. :slight_smile:

Wow! Thanks for all the suggestions :slight_smile: Rugby looks promising!

Football players must pay just as much attention to how they hit and how they land. Necks (even the 22 inch variety) break very easily when enough force is applied. Don’t think so? Ask Jack Tatum. He’s had to live with the crippling hit he put on Daryl Stingley for over 20 years. Sorry, but rugby is NOT as brutal as football. It’s a great game, but let’s keep things in perspective here. Here’s a hypothetical situation. Let’s take a team of rugby players, put them in pads, and let them play American footballers. Take that same team of footballers and remove their pads. Put them on the pitch against the rugby players (assuming any can still walk). What do you think will happen? Well, to be sure, you’l have a lot of winded linemen, but the sheer size, speed, power and technique (thank you Jake) of the average footballer is going to overwhelm the rugby boys. Will they win the game? Probably not. But guess which team will walk away with more injuries? Sorry, Michelle, while your sport may be brutal, I don’t think your people even have a glimpse of what would happen should they put on an “armadillo suit” and square off against 250 pounds of explosive muscle.

I don’t know which is more “aggressive” rugby or football but the hits in football are harder no doubt. Why??? Because they use the pading to hammer the shit out of each other. Lets see a nice hard helmet with 250 lbs. behind it going very fast into your chest. Or a equally hard shoulder pad doing the same thing. I think the injuries are different. More leg breaking and concusions in football more pokes in the eyes and blood in rugby. Both are athletes supreme though. :slight_smile:

Keago

War.

having a decent idea about how aggressive rugby is (I’m in my 12th year of playing, 23 years old), I would say that it is the most abusive in terms of the duration of the conflicts on the field. If you took the 3 to 5-second plays of a football game and averaged them out over total game time, you would have a relatively low level of “conflict time”. If you did the same with rugby, you would see that the conflicts, although slightly less intense in nature, are much more extended than in football. I believe that this requires rugby players to be mentally very strong, as well as extremely physically fit and tough. That being said, the nature of the game of football is short periods of very high-intensity action that prizes individuals with extreme amounts of power, mass, and speed. Thus, the average confrontation is more aggressive in football than in rugby. I will say that there is a very large amount of “extracurricular” activity in rugby (I don’t know too much about football…maybe in a fumble recovery), that brings the toughness element up just that little bit further. Either sport you play, it pays to have a little bit of T coursing through your veins!!

This is kind of like the argument about which is better, rugby league or rugby union, they are 2 different games, both played by exceptional athletes, who now more often than not wear padding also.

here’s a RARE one. football fans and rugby fans are equally rabid and will defend ‘their’ sport endlessly. no one will ever sway my opinion here…many many have tried. you have to remember, many of you are defending football after playing in high school and are just fans now. admittedly, i never played football, but i DO play rugby at international tournaments, with members of the US Eagles (no i am not one.) this ‘rugby chick’ is dropping her end of the arguement, not in defeat but in concession that the arguement will never be won by either the armadillos or the ruggers. later boys!!

“ARMADILLOS”…I love it.

Yall can have all the rugby and football you want. Ill stick with the fine cheerleaders on the sidelines and show everybody how strong i am by holding a one arm heal stretch. Seriously i would have to go with football. But if you wanna gage it by injuries you gotta give it to cheerleading. I played football for 7 years and only got hurt 3 times. Ive been seriously hurt 4 times already in cheerleading(only 7 months).

Yorkshire Amateur Rugby League

I have played football and rugby, 3 and 4 down and both 7 a side and normal rugby. No one is in good enough shape to do something “hard” for a “long” period of time. How long can you sprint for, 400 meters? You can jog for ten times that easily, and you could walk all day. Even the non-contact plays in foot ball (WR running a fly and not getting thrown to) can’t be done continuously, by anyone. Rugby made be rough and rugged, but it is no were near as AGGRESSIVE as football, because it cannot be.