Why does the UK not play sport as the UK?.

Twas in the Windy City
The year two-oh-one-six
The Boys in Green in the Field of Dreams
Shot down the great All Blix.

“The most difficult adjustment in the sport was learning positional play — knowing where to be at the right time and the most advantageous position to receive the ball.” –Manfred Moore, Oakland Raiders running back who in 1977 left the NFL to play rugby league with Australia’s Newtown Jets.

“I think the more violent game is American football, and the more physically challenging is rugby. The advantage in American football is that you get seven months to prepare for a four-month season. In rugby, it seems like you get two weeks to prepare for an 11-month season.” –Richard Tardits, who played rugby with France’s national youth team before moving to the US and picking up football. Tardits would go on to play linebacker for the New England Patriots and Arizona Cardinals before returning to rugby as a member of the US national team.

If soccer is a gentleman's game played by thugs, Rugby Union is a thug's game played by gentlemen, and Rugby League is a thug's game played by thugs, what is American football?

A thug's game played by millionaires.

A great day alright.
Hopefully wont be too long before we do it again.


A grand little poem Imur, would you be writing one about last Saturday too or would just a simple Ouch do.

It's odd.

Football in America is more popular than baseball. Yet American football is played extensively in only one other country-Canada-who actually developed the game along with us. We didn't export it.

Baseball has been exported to and picked up in a big way in Asia and Latin America. Yet at home, football is king.

Ouch is right. Blitzed they were in the first half by the Welsh.

Good to see you back on these boards.

Thank you kindly.

Yeah it was brutal, wasn't a total surprise I thought Scarlets had a good chance after taking care of Leinster But I didn't see that result coming.

Anyway, on we go.

the Canadian version is slightly different

Yes, I remember reading up on football's history in North America decades ago. In the early 20th century, college sports were not organized into conferences and leagues. Teams made arrangements to play each other on their own. Things at this stage were so informal that when the two teams met, before the game they agreed on the ground rules-number of downs, (3, 4, 5?), length of the field, etc. Northern USA colleges frequently played Canadian colleges at this stage.

As the game caught on, more colleges started playing and also started conferences, so the inter-country play stopped. Each country's conferences and leagues codified their rules by their respective ruling bodies, and no effort was to made to standardize the rules between the countries. With no money in it back then, there was no compelling reason to do this. So the rules these days are slightly different, but the game developed in both countries at the same time.

It's not just us that do it anyway, (yes I am still going on about this,) the Danes do it too.

In certain sports where the US is dominant (e.g. basketball) this would be to our advantage but there just isn't enough American soccer talent to field more than one elite national team.

The rest of the world dominates soccer because they are not defusing the talent of their population's athletes in multiple sports.

Having said this we've been doing remarkably well in international football of late and particularly as respects our women.

Imagine though if all of our incredibly talented athletes playing baseball and football had no choice but soccer.

I'm not sure why it should be the case but every Olympics proves the US is the athletic powerhouse of the world.