....and we do it all in shorts and t-shirts.....none of this 'wrapped in cotton wool' stuff......

I personally.....was very impressed with the mascot catching it..... in all that garb....        

yeah, I suppose your right

GO JAGS !!!

Not like those nancy boy with hard helmets, face grills, ball protectors and padding everywhere.

In rugby league the contact is just as ferocious, yet you don't see our boys dressed up to the nines in protective gear.

What do they call that big girls blouse game again?   Grid what???

Well, nobody claimed you Aussies were smart...

So wot yer sayin' then, is that a footballer's gotta be a nancy boy to be smart?

If the Bears had to lose then it's good the colts lost too. Bears vs. Colts again in the Super Bowl. NWI would love it.

Personally I think the majority of athletes get a free ride in college because of the blood sucking that goes on with the Alumni. They don't have to be smart. They have to play well or they end up working in a car wash.

Natas2... heads up: Start with Syd, and you're cruisin' for a bruisin'. *Put on lots of protective gear...not that it'll help much.

... and they are wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy over paid too.

Not so with players in my fave rugby league team, the Brisbane Broncos.  One guy is a qualified physiotherapist, another is a barrister, another owns his own real estate agency, another is training to be a criminal forensic scientist, and another is a high school teacher.  And none of this was attained by any college free rides, these guys achieved what they have off their own backs.

What's more, they're not nancy boys who pad up, helmet up or get upset when they break a nail.

I dare say i may the only one here to have actually played Rugby and American football.

I have also watched both my entire life, and in my opinion, the NFL is just as, if not more brutal than Rugby, or Aussie footy.

The dynamics of the all three games are different, for example, even with helmets, concussions are commonplace in the NFL, as are are broken limbs, torn ligaments, blown out knees and ankles etc, the list goes on and on.

Ive seen far more 'serious' injuries in the NFL than I ever did watching Rugby growing up ..

Go Wigan Warriors ! 

I never broke a nail playing football but the helmet was murder on my long golden locks.

Bunch of cissies

Thing is, are you talking about rugby union or rugby league here?  The reason I ask is that union was probably always the softer sport of the two and rugby league is the far more robust, contact heavy. 

Also, the Aussie league players tend to play a more rugged game than their English counterparts and probably suffer a greater number of injuries due to being more physical.  For example, popped knees, ankles, shoulders and elbows are fairly common, as is a concussion here and there, and broken limbs do occur occasionally also.  In fact, two players in recent times suffered broken necks, though fortunately their spinal cords weren't severed and they're not quadriplegics.

I recall when Hulk Hogan was here in Oz and appeared on our footy show.  He commented on how tough our players are to go into battle without all the protections of NFL and said something to the effect that he thought grid iron players were tough, "but these rugby leaguers are crazy tough."

You are right however, each code has its own dynamics and issues, and players from each may find difficulty adapting to another.  I could well imagine a NFL player finding it tough to adapt to rugby league, and a rugby league player finding it tough to adapt to grid iron because of the differences. 

I won't include that Aussie Rules stuff we call aerial ping pong in this, though... cos that truly is a nancy boys game.

Yup, they're the team I follow in the UK.  We get the English Super League on TV here, so I can keep up with proceedings over there as well.  Oz is hosting the 4 nations tournament later this month with Australia, England, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea vying for the title... looking forward to that, now our regular season is over 'til Feb next year.

I'm taking it you didn't always have the spit and polish job you have now, then. 

So, was it the humidity under the helmet that made your hair fall out, or was it doing too many U-turns between the sheets

ya just cant keep a good Farrah-doo with that hardware on top.

Was Rugby League of course

Nope, not even with hair-gel.... cos the helmet slips around more, causing internal combustion, and suddenly those golden locks are stubble.

The only way to go... it's the superior of the two... league and union, that is.

I played a bit of union at school but never liked it.   Even back then I preferred league, as did most other students, but the phys-ed teacher wouldn't change because he was a die-hard, having played for England in union.  Oh well!