American Football vs Rugby..Which Sport Is More Brutal????

TideMan09

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I belong to a Crimson Tide Facebook page, and we had some Rugby Fans come to the page, arguing that Rugby is the more brutal sport between the two..Since it's the off-season & slow right now, I wanted y'alls opinions, so I hope the Mods doesn't mind me making this post..Here's a video they posted & said that proved Rugby was the more brutal sport of the two, to an extent, I agree that it is more brutal, just cause they wear no protection or pads..But..I do think American Football has the more brutal hits of the two, cause wearing helmets & pads, it allows for the most brutal hits of any sport on the planet..And wearing protection allows players to hit running full steam without slowing down(full speed impact I guess is what I'm saying)..I noticed in the video it looks like Rugby players lower their heads, when they make a hit, that looks dangerous & foolish to me, cause we've seen to many of our players crippled, when they lowered their heads to make a vicious hit..

Which sport do you y'all think is more brutal of the two???..I think it's a close call between two extremely brutal sports, I think American Football is the most brutal on the planet, I must say I wish Rugby was on TV more here in the US during our off-season, cause it would be a good alternate in the off-season, as we wait for College Football to start up again..It's a sport I honestly think us College Football Fans, could get into & respect as a sport, if it was played during the off-season of College Football..To me it's a way more entertaining than soccer & baseball(I love playing baseball, but, can not sit watching a game on TV)..Is there any Rugby Fans here on TideFans????..

 

Zaiva

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Meh, it's about the same, but I would say Rugby is slightly more "brutal". American Football just looks more vicious because they are wearing pads and helmets, so they are willing to endanger themselves more.
 

bamaslammer

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I played both, I played Rugby at Alabama, Rugby is definitely more brutal. The only place where football has a brutality point is the helmet which is hard and can hurt a great bit on impact. but in Rugby they do full on contact with no pads or helmet. I got seriously hurt several times, as in requiring facial reconstruction surgery hurt. And I saw worse happen to others. Another thing about rugby is you do NOT have free substitution. If you have to leave the field your team might have to play short depending on what was agreed to before the game. The only time you can freely substitute is at the half.

We had guys who were formerly on the football team come to play with us, they all quit, said we were crazy.
 

TideMan09

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Sounds like a really rough sport then..Which did you enjoy playing more..It looks like a sport I would love to watch & keep up with if it came on TV more..
I played both, I played Rugby at Alabama, Rugby is definitely more brutal. The only place where football has a brutality point is the helmet which is hard and can hurt a great bit on impact. but in Rugby they do full on contact with no pads or helmet. I got seriously hurt several times, as in requiring facial reconstruction surgery hurt. And I saw worse happen to others. Another thing about rugby is you do NOT have free substitution. If you have to leave the field your team might have to play short depending on what was agreed to before the game. The only time you can freely substitute is at the half.

We had guys who were formerly on the football team come to play with us, they all quit, said we were crazy.
 

pigsinspace

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I wish that I understood the rules of rugby more. Whenever I watch it, I can't figure out what is going on, even though the objectives of football and rugby are the same, that is, get the ball across the goal line.
 

TideMan09

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Yup..And the way they kick the ball for points and stuff is really confusing to me..Just cause I have no idea what the rules to rugby is.."Drop Goal" or whatever it's called..
I wish that I understood the rules of rugby more. Whenever I watch it, I can't figure out what is going on, even though objectives of football and rugby are the same, that is, get the ball across the goal line.
 

selmaborntidefan

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Rugby and its not even close. I lived I the UK in the 70s and it was insane. A friend of mine - a girl - is at Ga Tech and got a concussion in a game two years ago at the intramural level. She has still not recovered.
 

TideMan09

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I would love to see a Rugby Game live, cause the couple times I've seen a game on ESPN, their fans looks like they get pretty rowdy & have lots of fun..They kept chanting something I never could figure out what they were saying..And it looked like they had as many fans at their games as the NFL does..I haven't seen a Ladies Rugby game..Sounds like they go at it as hard as the guys do..

Rugby and its not even close. I lived I the UK in the 70s and it was insane. A friend of mine - a girl - is at Ga Tech and got a concussion in a game two years ago at the intramural level. She has still not recovered.
 
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TitleWave

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Methinks those commenting in this thread ain't been up close and personal - that is, playing at - both these sports at highest levels. Rugby may be "brutal" in appearance but football is far more dangerous in the big hit department. Rugby is contact, football is collision. Rugby tackles are essentially taking a runner down by stopping his progress, football tackles are lights out.

The Brits have a saying, Rugby is a game for hooligans played by gentlemen. Football (soccer) is a game for gentleman played by hooligans. Be that as it may, rugger has changed dramatically in the last 25 years; it was amateur til then, and equipment like shoulder pads and body vest protection (and leather helmets) were unheard of. Not anymore, with personal protection at stake. Now there's big money at stake and a growing global following, and players have professional careers rather than working during the week as a sheep farmer or "bobby" until Saturday's match. But no heavyweight rugby player I know of - from the Six Nations or rugby World Cup - has ever transitioned to American football and the NFL for bigger money.

UGa had a Frenchman named Richard Tardits 20 years ago who played rugby then became something of a sack specialist as an edge rusher in Athens - believe he lasted a season or so with the Patriots in their darkest period purely as a special teams player. Rugby may be brutal in appearance but trust me it ain't 1/10th the jolting you get and live with in the aftermath pf having played American football.

And if you don't grow up with "football bones" and acclimated to getting stopped in your tracks (or stopping your opponent in his). just jumping into the fray from rugby at 20-21-22 years old is asking for a permanent hurtin'. I know at least two of rugby's all-time greats - Dean Richards, the No. 8 from Leicester, and Jonah Lomu, the All-Blacks' best back ever - who said thanks but no thanks to NFL overtures.

You want to talk brutal, try Aussie Rules Football or Rugby League, which is a different code than regular rugby union - and separates the hard men from the gentlemen...
 
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bamaslammer

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Sounds like a really rough sport then..Which did you enjoy playing more..It looks like a sport I would love to watch & keep up with if it came on TV more..
Football was more fun to play. It's more dramatic with the way it stops and goes.

Rugby is similar to football with a few differences.
The ball is the line of scrimmage moving or not, the line moves with the ball.
offensively you do not block, offensive players are supposed to be behind this moving line of scrimmage
all passing is lateral or backwards
once tackled you have to let go of the ball, the best you can do is let it go, flip your body over it blocking the other team from getting it
the reason this works is because if there are more than one person there you can't pick it up with your hands, you have to rake it backwards with your feet.
the scrum forms over the ball in these cases. there is a guy in front who will try to control the ball with his feet while the big guys try to push the other team back. both teams are trying to do this at the same time.
once one team pushes over the ball someone in the back can grab it and toss it out and the game continues.

players can wear steel cleats.
many refs carry a file and checks the cleats for having been sharpened to a point.
obviously this means this is a common tactic, when your trying to rake the ball if someones face is down there. tough crap.

I got numerous injuries playing it for Bama in the late 80's. we were very good then, won the SEC title one year. That year a guy from the Birmingham club (who shall go unnamed, if you're reading this you know who you are) socked me in the face when I was not looking. that's not an official part of the game but it happens, The impact shattered my eye socket and blew parts of it into my nasal cavity. My eye socket is a mixture of bone and wire today. The surgeon said it was the worst orbital injury he had ever seen. I was lucky to keep the eye. Like I said, I saw worse injuries than mine. The injury forced my retirement from the game as another blow to the eye and I would lose it.
 
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bamaslammer

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Methinks those commenting in this thread ain't been up close and personal - that is, playing at - both these sports at highest levels. Rugby may be "brutal" in appearance but football is far more dangerous in the big hit department. Rugby is contact, football is collision. Rugby tackles are essentially taking a runner down by stopping his progress, football tackles are lights out.
I have been up and close to football at the college and pro level. football does have more high velocity impacts. But if you think rugby tackling is just about taking the man down you haven't seen it the way we played it. I can't speak for the Europeans, but the American rugby players are as violent as putting 15 MMA fighters on the field full of red bull.
 

TitleWave

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I can't speak for the Europeans, but the American rugby players are as violent as putting 15 MMA fighters on the field full of red bull.
American rugby players who've played American football are more violent, I'm sure.

But as for Euro play, Ireland v. France a couple of weeks ago at Stade de France ought've been notable for the Irish winning the Six Nations for the first time in five years and winning in Paris for only the second time in 40 years. But the Irish laurels were secondary; more pundits went on to acknowledge the fierce intensity - and yes, the unusual violence - of the match.Oddly enough, among those Six Nations (which used to be Five Nations before Italy got "enfranchised"), France (France!) has often been the most physica sidel. The "croak monsieur" in the video at the top of this thread - Sebastian Chabal - was amongst the fiercest.
 

theshow4jsu_13

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I would think that overall violence would go to rugby, but the big hits in American football are more violent. To me the speed and size of most NFL players today just make for more bone jarring hits than you see in rugby. And to those in the know, what are the differences between rugby and Australian rules football?

And I also recall several schools bringing in rugby players for punters, IIRC, Hawaii had one when we played them, had an absolute cannon for a leg.
 

BigBama76

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I've never played rugby. However, for some stupid reason we used to have pick-up tackle football games in the middle of peanut patches where a lot of idiots got badly hurt back home.
 

mooblybama

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I played rugby for 10 years. I played football for six (prior to rugby). I've had five orthopedic surgeries... all but one from playing rugby. I agree that the high-speed/high-impact collisions are more violent in football, but the helmets and padding makes one less fearful to do that. But rugby is a "constant banging" type of game, and aside from a mouthpiece, you aren't wearing any pads. You'd better be fit. And yes, per an earlier comment, rugby league is BRUTAL. (We play rugby union here in the U.S., as is the case in most countries.) I'll say this about rugby - it's a rush. I wish I were young again and playing. Some of the most enjoyable years of my life.
 

TitleWave

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Interesting if ironic takeaway from the NFL v. Rugby video atop this thread. Most of the football hits featured were legalized mayhem once but many of them today would get "the deliverer" fined and possibly suspended for targetting. The rugby blows - many of those indeed were blows and outside rugby etiquette, many of them would have their deliverer bringing the game into disrepute and drawing a red card for dismissal. But the "honest tackling" of the two sports does seem to be converging.

And rugby certainly has taken its own bigger, faster, better slant from 20 years ago. Still, a very civilized sport for all its brutality and generally played by the most civilized people. Remember an old mate and fellow UK rugby club member visiting, and going to his first baseball game at Fenway. He was utterly appalled that a manager could get in the face of the umpire with impunity over something so picayune as a close call at first base...In his eyes that brought the game into disrepute every bit as much as dropping the loosehead prop opposite you in the front row with an uppercut.
 

bamaslaw

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I would love to see a Rugby Game live, cause the couple times I've seen a game on ESPN, their fans looks like they get pretty rowdy & have lots of fun..They kept chanting something I never could figure out what they were saying..And it looked like they had as many fans at their games as the NFL does..I haven't seen a Ladies Rugby game..Sounds like they go at it as hard as the guys do..
The US Men's Rugby Team has a Rugby World Cup qualifier vs. Uruguay at Kennesaw State this Saturday. It's probably the most important game of the cycle for the US for qualifying for the 2015 RWC. It won't be the same atmosphere, obviously, but it's probably as close as you will get to seeing high level rugby played in the US.
 

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