Tom have you ever sat down and watched a full game of American football? I doubt it is if you had you'd know you're talking out of your arse. the tcakles are a lot harder, a lot less necessary (guys getting taken out for their position rather than if they've got the ball) and they're allowed to 'get away with' (read: it's in the rules to...) a lot more physical contact, and where on the body to tackle. Hence the padding.
The worst that could happen in rugby is you get a high tackle or studded during a ruck, in A.F. anthing can happen, mostly within the rules.
Never seen a game of Aussie rules, all I know is it's a circular pitch, it gets passed by fist and they all wear tank tops
It's inevitable that some Brit 'pipes up' with this arguement and it's equally inevitable that they are uninformed and talking sh!t.
The only thing I have against American Football is that it's a very 'American' sport (before you
read on
), meaning that to gain X amount of territory is enough, they bring in specilist players for that situation from the never ending bench of subs and they get more ground, roll the players and go again. This makes it a very jerky and strange sport to watch, especially from a Europeans point of view (used to more continous play where breaks are avoided if possible) and it seems a bit of a cop out to have a squad of XXX amount that can be changed if and when people get tired, the dynamic of the game switches or whatever.
In some respects this is better, people have very specific jobs within the team (blockers and tackles? I think is a good example) and they train specifically for that: on a cricket team you can have the same people batting as are bowling and fielding 30 minutes later, meaning the training has to be broadened as their roles are wider.
All this to say: think before you type and don't reenforce the stereotype ffs.
