Olympic Rugby

[PBRME]

Glad to see it make it back to the Olympics. Never watched it before but it's really entertaining.

I do have a question. How come we didn't cherry pick a group of guys not quite good enough to make an NFL roster and steamroll everyone? The transition doesn't look like it would be that difficult to grasp.

 

[MaroonNation]

I've watched 2 US matches so far and still don't know what the 17 is going on in Rugby. I did figure out a score is worth 5 points

 

[rugbdawg]

It's a try, not a score. It took me 2 years to become comfortable. Not as easy of a transition as you think. Especially mentally. There is lot of kicking involved and a lot of positioning/formation type stuff that's fairly complex. It's also an endurance sport. We had ex-football players come out often...the conditioning is completely different and you can't go all out all the time like football. It's controlled bursts of speed/power followed by CONSTANT jogging.

One more thing. The entire team actually moves as a unit where spacing is EXTREMELY important. It's important offensively but VITAL defensively. If your front defensive line does not remain flat and attack and retreat together, you are 100% screwed all the time. The team with the best fly half (think QB) usually wins. He calls the plays/shifts and decides when to "punt".

 

[PBRME]

I know I'm oversimplifying it. The basics of it looks like special team lane assignment mixed with man coverage on defense. The offense looks like read option. I understand it's more complicated than that with formations and plays. It just seems like the basics of the game would be easy to transition to.

 

[LesterFreeman]

Nate ebner who plays safety for the patriots is on the sevens rugby team. NFL teams have tried to lure some rugby players to the USA to play over the years.

 

[LesterFreeman]

If the NFL wants to make the extra point more interesting or tougher I have said for years they should use the same rules as rugby for where to spot the ball.

 

[PBRME]

There's a few guys on the Fiji team that have the size and speed of NFL. I knew when they lined up facing Great Britian it would be ugly.

 

[UpTheMiddlex3Punt]

The title made me think this thread was going to be about how much Phelps sucks and wouldn't be able to win another gold.

 

[DesotoCountyDawg]

Jarryd Hayne plays for Fiji. He played RB for the 49ers last year but he didn't do too good and decided to go back to rugby.