So, I've played American Football all my life and after having no recruiting help I managed to not land any scholarship offers from any colleges, so I decided to pursue a different sport in college, rugby.
Any current or former rugby players have any tips before move-in day?
(Already on the University's Rugby team)
Find out what position you're playing asap. Then watch professional matches while paying attention to what your man is doing and why he's doing it.
Also, rugby is basically one of the funnest things on earth, so enjoy it.
Learn how to tackle rugby-style. If you form tackle, you're gonna break your nose and loose some teeth.
I'm on my uni's team too OP
Thanks man I appreciate it
How do you like it?
It's pretty fun, great camaraderie. I'm a prop
What region is your school in? I'm PAC-12
Oh and just a heads up, lots of gay dudes join the rugby team for some reason
>its another high schooler on Sup Forums thread
Expect to drink a lot and get a lot of really slutty girls hanging around with the team
For someone just starting with rugby you'll pick it up as you play more and more, obviously study for what position you'll be playing and the sport in general
>after having no recruitment help i managed not to land any scholarship offers
I don't think you didn't land a offer because of no help, I think you just suck at the sport bud
More respect for you OP. You are actually playing a sport that requires more than just being morbidly Obese.
but then how can he use that as an excuse?
>and get a lot of really slutty girls hanging around with the team
your sisters went to school with you?
You kinda sound like my cousin, except he was good at football, but tried to get a basketball scholarship. He hasn't gained any interest so now he plays rugby through his high school, he is a senior this year and he wants to play pro now, he already won state (div 2 ohio) and is getting interest from colleges with rugby teams.
>I'm a prop
FAT
It's interesting how America has so many registered Rugby players (twice as many as New Zealand for example) and yet is still so pathetically useless at the sport
America is as relevant in Rugby as Andorra is in Soccer
It's generally seen as a sport for losers who couldn't hack it in football (like OP)
we have 70x the population of New Zealand; whereas the better athletes in NZ tend toward rugby, the better ones here tend toward football or some other sport. Don't see how the irrelevance is that shocking.
SMELLY
I am American...
At my uni rugby was a club sport and not a varsity sport so they accepted pretty much anybody. That said, it was great fun.
PROP
99.9 percent of those players are probably weekend hobbyists.
The flaw in your logic is that you imply the USA and New Zealand have the same depth of talent. New Zealand has 4(four) million people. There are what, 330 million in the United States? Even if as you say the cream of the talent goes to gridiron, there should be more than enough left over to form a competitive team given how many registered players there are at college level.
New Zealand is literally the only (real) country on the planet where Rugby Union is the most popular sport. So that phenomenon you described is not unique to the USA. In Australia, Rugby Union is the fourth(!) most popular code of football behind AFL, Rugby League and Soccer. It literally isn't even the dominant code of Rugby. Australia has around 80,000 registered Rugby players to the USA's ~250,000. So how is it that Australia is a gorillion times better than the USA?
USA is full of fatties m8
Because these are people who pick it up at age 18 and don't take it seriously because no one cares
Half the people on my uni's rugby team are just there as an excuse to touch other men and the others just want to get drunk. I've met very few kids who care about the sport
good man op
have a big curry before each game to give you spurts of explosive energy!
Also the other popular sports in Australia with the exception of cricket at least involve similar skills to poonion, none of the popular ones here do. World not be shocked if rugby isn't even a top eight sport in popularity, and even then sevens would be the most popular format
American football is way more similar to Union than AFL, cricket, or soccer.
nah. these 'registered rugby players' play twice a month if they remember to. quit obsessing over americans, it only makes your clear insecurity about your country worse
Speaking as someone who has played both, I disagree. Poonion has no passing game, the tackling is way different and the overall requirements are different
In any event since you guys have clearly made up your minds on this topic I'm going to bed
The flaw in your logic is that you can't just simply draw a conclusion from a registered players statistic without knowing what kind of players are registered, meaning knowing what their level of skill, dedication,and experience with the game is.
The sport has zero presence here. Hardly any youth leagues or programs in high school.
It's played for a laugh by past their prime high school football players or something looking for something to do on weekends.
See pic
You haven't played AFL or probably even watched it before so how would you know? It's completely different. And so is soccer, obviously.
Union and Gridiron are played on similar sized and shaped pitches, they both have very similar goals and objectives, touch downs/tries, etc. Gridiron actually evolved from rugby, AFL did not.
We're not as fat as you, but we're still fat that's true. Which makes it even funnier that you have almost 3 times as many registered Union players than us and you are completely irrelevant on the international level. As the other Aussie said, Union is also an irrelevant sport here, and despite that we're one of the best nations in the world at it. So you can't use that excuse.
I dunno there's probably about as much similarity between Rugby and AFL as there is between Rugby and gridiron in terms of transferable skills.
Karmichael Hunt (and maybe even Izzy) did better at AFL than Hayne (not a Poonion player, but close enough) did at NFL.
Oh my god shut the fuck up, we get it, you "don't care".
Have you studied the positions and what you're likely to be? Definitely best to have some clue before you show up.
Also make sure you're fit, tons of running involved with not much pause for rest.
That's probably because AFL has a much smaller talent pool, so it's easier for professional athletes of other codes to make the transfer. We have plenty of ex basketball, rugby, and gaelic football players. With NFL it's much more competitive as they have ~320 million people just in their country to draw talent from, and many have been training their entire lives.
Objectively, Gridiron and Rugby are much more similar than either are to AFL. Consider the pitch size and dimensions, goals and objectives of the games, methods of scoring, rules, flow of play etc.
Difference Union is still a top 5 sport in your country.
It would've crack the top 40 here.
If you want to use the "registered players" logic, then you really should be better at soccer. Over 400K registered players, the most popular participation sport in Australia, and you're losing to the likes of fuckin' Jordan and are completely irrelevant on the international level, ranking behind dozens of smaller populated countries.
So what's your argument now?
>We don't care about soccer!
Exactly.
>It would've c
*It wouldn't
Fair deuce, I suppose soccer is mostly kids who's parents don't want them getting hurt playing football.
Hey aussies and nz, Im 6'0, 86 kgs fit who is trying to get in rugby, what position should i play?
Exactly. Same here.
And with Union here, it's basically weekend hobbyists/35 year old ex-high school football players looking for a "football like" sport to play without having to invest in all the pads and gear.
Destroyed, ACBs will literally never recover from this
as a general rule, forwards are the taller, stronger guys, backs are the faster and more agile guys
Then it really depends on your tackling/kicking/passing ability as to which particular one you play
Australia on pooicide watch
>Objectively, Gridiron and Rugby are much more similar than either are to AFL.
No, I disagree
>Consider the pitch size and dimensions
Superficial if not completely irrelevant
>goals and objectives of the games, methods of scoring, rules
Ibid
>flow of play
And this is where you are completely, utterly and critically wrong. The NFL is a static game like cricket in a way with clearly defined passages of play that are often very short and spaced apart. NFL athletes are power athletes as opposed to Rugby and AFL which are much more endurance based sports. Moreover the NFL has very large rosters so individual players are only involved in the match for short periods of time as opposed to AFL & Rugby where most players are involved for the entire match.
Hayne tried to comeback and play Rugby 7's and failed abysmally because he was tanking after 5 minutes because he wasn't fit to play Rugby.
The reason guys like Hunt and Folau tried to have a crack at AFL is because a number of skills (particularly playing under the high-ball and kicking) are directly transferable between Rugby & AFL.
That's what you have to look at, transferable skills, not superficial shit like the pitch size. There basically is nothing transferable between Gridiron and Rugby other than kicking and punt returning (which is all Hayne could do anyway).
Infact, there are more AFL players in the NFL than there are Rugby.
Thanks mate. I think I will do great tackling because I have wrestling experience. Also Im considered tall in this manlet country and only the french/aussies here tower me on the field.
>running away from rugby because it always seemed brutal to me even tought I have practiced a lot of combat sports
>qt argentinian invites me to play
>went to see her today, she got ko on a tackle, spend like 30 minutes laying on the ground
Am I gonna die playing this game?
>and you're losing to the likes of fuckin' Jordan
And the USA lost to Guatemala. Soccer is a flukey sport. Australia are the champions of Asia and qualify for every World Cup now. We are good enough at the sport for our size and per capita better than >you at it.
Here's the difference and why your point doesn't stand up: Australia is roughly as good in soccer as we should be (and have been better in the past). The USA is worse at Rugby than the likes of Georgia who >do it for free.
If you want to use the Soccer comparison, Australia is ranked roughly on par with Serbia and Cameroon in Soccer. The USA in Rugby is more on par with those Pacific Island nations Australia used to routinely pump 20-0 back in the OFC days.
Have you ever played a contact sport aside from wrestling? It's very different, requires a different sort of fitness and more endurance.
Mate you're retarded, even though rugby may only be 5th in Australia you still have people playing it from a young age who are able to develop their technique for a far longer period than an American who starts playing aftee high school. And union is a far more technical sport than people give it credit for.
A lot of American rugby national side players are probably better natural athletes than aus professionals who are far better rugby players than them. They don't have anywhere near the technique or experience.
Its also worth pointing out that there is far more money in aus rugby than there is in Us rugby, which gives them access to far better coaches and training facilities.
>And union is a far more technical sport than people give it credit for
it really isn't lmao
As far as skill gradients go, Rugby has one of the lowest amongst any sport I can think of. Why do you think its so popular with Pacific Islanders and New Zealanders?
Seriously. Name a sport with a lower skill gap than Rugby (League doesn't count, it isn't even a sport)
Compared to that piss-poor rugby variant you cunts play it is pretty damn technical tbf
>Australia is roughly as good in soccer as we should be
No you shouldn't.
If we're going by your iron clad "registered players" logic, you should be a top 25 ranked country.
You're 59thin the world, behind Paraguay, Egypt, Albania, Panama, Congo, etc, etc.
So you're either shit or these "registered players" just don't take it seriously.
Mate I shit on props all the time but they require significant technical skill.
I was just talking about the tackle part, and I have played football (soccer) that would be the closest. Still, trust me, I know about the endurance that you need to have to play this. Oh and Im starting playing rugby 7 and rugby 10
>American who starts playing aftee high school.
And he's under the dumb assumption that this player will be a "serious player" looking to make the national team or be a pro somewhere.
He can't get it through his thick skull that 99.9999999999% of Rugby players in the US are hobbyists looking for a new sport to try or for something to play with friends on the weekends.
Best of luck mate. I've never played rugby myself, but I used play AFL until I injured myself really badly. Might start playing soccer some day, I miss competitive sport.
Thank you man. Thats one of the reasons, i miss the competitive part of sports. Can someone answer me, whats the deal between union and league. I have watched union because of Sup Forums telling me, here they always shit on league and I believed union was more popular but apparently thats not true, have I been memed by the contrarian way of thinking of Sup Forums?
There are people who leave high school football and intend to take a genuine crack at playing high level rugby, but even if there were far more of them they wouldn't have a chance outside of a few positions. Like how is an American high school athlete meant to become a quality first five, he would probably have had to have been a quarterback for the leadership and organisational skills, but would also have to be a good runner with the ball and have better catching and lateral passing skills than others.
He'd have to be a good at punting and place kicking as well as learning how to take a drop kick.
All of this is just on offence as well.
No matter how good an athlete this kid is, how is he meant to compete with kids from New Zealand who've been training these skills for their entire life.
Union is more popular globally, but in Australia league is more popular, but it is irrelevant in every other country aside from Papua New Guinea.
League has impressive athletes and some are really talented. But at the same time the sport feels really really repetitive, like if you could be guaranteed that the first 3 plays on every set of downs in American football was going to be a power run up the middle. Its also has far less variation in the skillsets of the individual players.
I read a lot of salty british claiming that league was better actually. Good to know.
I play league (straya) but I've dabbed in Union, pretty similar, just run hard, tackle well, dont be afraid to dive at their legs but don't be stupid about it, work on timing so you can drop your shoulder on someone, always keep your eye on the guys next to you and the person who occupies the same position as you on the other team. Enjoy the comradery, rugby no matter the code is fucking great
whats the best way to tackle to ensure that your head is always in a safe position