Football Vs Rugby? Is It Boys Vs Men??

And don't get me started on the scum. What a bizarre forced formation that is. If they got rid of it rugby union would be much better. Inevitably they will have to be reset 3 times before proceeding.

One of the worse cases of violence I've seen was the rugby player punching his opponent in the face (he plays for England and is brown skinned, that's all I know of him)

The only reason footballers 'fall to ground easily' is so they can gain an unfair advantage. I fail to see how this has anything to do with toughness or manliness.

It means that typically they're not willing to assert dominance, which is not particularly manly. A similar thing happens in basketball (which I understand far more than football), where many players 'flop' but some don't as they find it's better to assert dominance.

To be honest, I quite agree with this guy. I played football for the Liverpool youth team until I was 12 and seriously damaged my knee. My teacher then asked if I'd like to try rugby as our (state) school was trying to set up a rugby team. Within 2 years I was playing for Lancashire and one other from my school followed this path. I was then offered professional terms but my body just couldn't hold up.

So whilst really enjoying rugby and appreciating the abilities and skill sets of the players, it is much more about being an 'athlete' than football. This is especially true when you consider that a lot of wingers are now 6ft '3+ and centres are 16 stone+.

(Oh and the reason I was asked to play rugby is because at the age of 12 I was 6ft '2 and could run the 100m in around 11.5 seconds. I had neither the aggression nor the mindset required for rugby before I actually played it.)

Assert dominance over what? and hows that going to benefit your team as opposed to say, winning a penalty?

The same footballers who dive about can be strong - they just choose not to sometimes in order to gain an advantage. I've seen it on numerous occasions, for example look at Drogba's goal against Spurs in the FA cup semi final when defender was right behind him and yet he still managed to turn round him and take a shot. And then a few days later when Chelsea were playing Barcelona, he was diving all over the place, pretending to be injured nearly everytime he went to ground.

If you show that you can be clattered and carry on it'll have an effect on defenders, making them know it's hard to tackle you and one-upping them mentally, as well as possibly hurting them a bit and making them less willing to go after you. Would you rather you did a cracking tackle on someone and they carried with the ball on using skill and strength, showing that they can overcome you, or that they fell over and got themselves a free-kick?

Players like Drogba have the skill and/or strength to overcome pretty much any defender but they don't, and look for the cheap way out.

Versus



I think the answer is clear.