Rugby observation.

the ferry

Love my bike and all that goes with it as in training, racing and fiddling with bits etc.

Can't help but have huge respect for the rugby blokes though.
I mean how do they get up?

They are huge anyway and then clash into each other full on, time and time again.
an awesome sight but can't believe there not crippled more often.

Hotblack Desiato

It's nowhere near as bad as it looks.

.

redddraggon

It's easy really, it's all about the technique, if you take the contact or make the contact correctly you won't get hurt.

It's also a team sport, and if you don't get up, your teammates will be down a player as the play goes on, giving away a possible overlap.

I'm far better than at rugby, than I ever will be at cycling, banging into some one is far easier than climbing a long steep hill, but I am a front row forward.

Tourist Tony

So was I...

alfablue

Nevertheless, it is a relatively dangerous sport, with around 3 times the injury rate of football.

HungryCol

Which makes me scoff even more at the acrobatic diving in football.

I like what Rocky said in Rocky V "It's not how hard you hit that matters, it's how hard you get hit and still move forward" HOOHAA.

alfablue

HungryCol wrote:

Which makes me scoff even more at the acrobatic diving in football..

AGREED!!!

redddraggon

alfablue wrote:

Nevertheless, it is a relatively dangerous sport, with around 3 times the injury rate of football.

Football isn't really a contact sport anymore is it? I don't get what's wrong with pulling shirts, if they don't like it they should wear a tighter shirt.

alfablue

But footballers have to withstand thorough beatings from the fans!


(Dida, AC Milan v Celtic)

the ferry

i enjoy watching it but still struggle with the rules.
did you just pick them up through playing or does it have to be studied at some point.
....front row forward hey dragon, sounds impressive.
could you walk freely day after match?
any bad injuries?
love to get the lad into it but it's all footy round here, i've heard you have to learn to tackle properly from a young age or it could be dangerous.

redddraggon

the ferry wrote:

i enjoy watching it but still struggle with the rules.
did you just pick them up through playing or does it have to be studied at some point.
....front row forward hey dragon, sounds impressive.
could you walk freely day after match?
any bad injuries?
love to get the lad into it but it's all footy round here, i've heard you have to learn to tackle properly from a young age or it could be dangerous.

On rules, tackling, and using the ball, front rowers generally no little of these 3. I'm a hooker rather than a prop, so I get to play with the ball a bit more. The rules aren't that hard really, the offside rule is far more complicated in football than rugby, there's loads of rules to do with kicking the ball ie where it goes out, where it was kicked from. You get used to the rules after a while, I've never read the rules, but you can get them off the IRB website, just playing the game is the best way to learn them. The ref normally gives hints through the game - but he can't be seemed to be the coaching the players. If you see Tony Spreadbury refeering an international, he'll be talking to the players throughout (conversation like), explaining his decisions, but he takes no lip, football referees seem to just blow whistles and take the lip.

Learning to tackle from a young age is a good idea, when you are with 8yr olds and they all weigh 6stone and are relatively slow, if a tackle goes wrong it's not as serious as it might be when players are 14+stone, more aggresive and are running flat out.

I've got seriously injured just the once, I tackle a small winger, and try and steal the ball away, but I take too long and get cleared out by the opposition pack. Knocked out, knackered shoulder and neck, out from rugby for 6months. I lost all my fitness and still haven't got back playing at the same level as I was, I've decided the take the year out regain fitness on the bike before throwing myself back into the fray. Serious injuries are not that common really, more common are the likes of dead legs and sore wrists. Most people are sore after a match, but after a pint it's soon forgotten and you're back to normal the next day.

Tourist Tony

Me? Broke an ankle. Twice.
I was a prop and played either side, though I preferred loose.
The simplest way of explaining the basics of the rules is to think that you are offside if you are in front of a team mate who has just played the ball. You must not only take no part in the game when offside, but you must retire at least 10 metres from an opposition player with the ball. You are put back onside either by an onside team mate running past you, or the opposition player with the ball either running 5 metres or passing or kicking it.
The sting is that you MUST retire the full 10 metres before taking part in the game; you can't just hover near them till they play you on.
Lineouts and scrums have their own extra offside laws.

With rucks and mauls (a scrum is a formal ruck) the difference is simple. If the ball is on the ground, it is a ruck and it can only be played with the feet. If it is held up, it is a maul. Players can only join rucks and mauls from the back, and players not involved must stay behind the back foot or they are offside.
Any player off his feet is out of the game and must not interfere with play. Anyone tackled must IMMEDIATELY play or release the ball. "Tackled" means held by an opponent and with at least one knee brought to the ground. The tackler must roll away from the tackled player after the tackle. Players may not be tackled when off the ground.

The rest of the laws are more technical, such as kicking to touch, engagement of scrums, binding of props, lifting of line jumpers, accidental offside and so on.

So, France beat NZ "because" there was a forward pass for their winning try. France should STILL have beaten the Blacks because in a NZ try the player was tackled (held, knee to ground) and crawled forward to ground the ball.

top_bhoy

alfablue wrote:

But footballers have to withstand thorough beatings from the fans!


(Dida, AC Milan v Celtic)

But did you see the 'beating' he took from the single 'fan'? That was no more than a 'Welcome to Glasgow' friendly pat on the shoulde!!. Brazilain footballers just aren't made strong enough these days.

jpembroke

Rugby only exists because a posh kid couldn't play football

redddraggon

jpembroke wrote:

Rugby only exists because a posh kid couldn't play football

Soccer only exists because people began to get too wimpy for the contact - just look at it now. Football in the middle ages was more like rugby than soccer. And don't pick me up on calling it soccer, because rugby (both codes) is football, yank football is football, association football is just one of many.

jpembroke

Can I just get this straight: the only game here that doesn't deserve to be called football is the one that is played with the feet? And why do you need contact? There's no contact in cricket, or bike racing, or golf, or motor racing (sort of), or athletics, or horse racing, or tennis, or swimming, or climbing, or, well, just about any sport outside of martial arts/boxing and sports involving the oval ball. I admire Rugby players for their strength, fitness, and team ethics (i.e. not playing for themselves) but I fail to see why lack of contact in anyway demeans a sport. The same attitude could be applied to, say, the Tour de France. I mean, it's a great deal more 'wimpy' than it was 100 years ago isn't it?

redddraggon

jpembroke wrote:

Can I just get this straight: the only game here that doesn't deserve to be called football is the one that is played with the feet? And why do you need contact? There's no contact in cricket, or bike racing, or golf, or motor racing (sort of), or athletics, or horse racing, or tennis, or swimming, or climbing, or, well, just about any sport outside of martial arts/boxing and sports involving the oval ball. I admire Rugby players for their strength, fitness, and team ethics (i.e. not playing for themselves) but I fail to see why lack of contact in anyway demeans a sport. The same attitude could be applied to, say, the Tour de France. I mean, it's a great deal more 'wimpy' than it was 100 years ago isn't it?

Football (soccer) is a contact sport, but contact is frowned upon, but it wasn't when my dad played it. All the other sports you mention are non contact and thats the nature of the game, but football is a contact sport, but the rules have been changed to favour weaker (largely foreign) players. I do not look down on a sport because it's a non contact sport, I look down on contact sports that contact is increasingly often penalised.

I'm more than happy watching cycling, cricket, F1, tennis, but I don't like contact for contact's sake, I find boxing boring.

jpembroke

Fair enough. Good answer.

Does Roy Keane count as a foreign player by the way? And of course, there was Cantona. Cantona is french for contact.

redddraggon

jpembroke wrote:

Fair enough. Good answer.

Does Roy Keane count as a foreign player by the way? And of course, there was Cantona. Cantona is french for contact.

Roy Keane is one of the players that I respect (if I ignore his MUFC connection) his aggression improved the quality of games he played in. When I talk about contact, I don't mean foul play - going out to intentionally hurt someone is not on, which Roy Keane unfortunately did.

When I talk about foreigners I'm talking about the likes of Drogba who have the size to play the other type of footballs, but still struggle to stay on their feet. It's not just foreigners that are doing the diving, Gerrard seems to do a lot of it.

From my stance you might think I'm football hater, but I watch quite a bit of it, probably more than Rugby really.

When ever I see Peter Crouch playing he gets repeatedly penalised for nothing - as far as I can see. Competition in the air seems to be penalised too much.