The Rugby Union Thread

My problem is we were forced to play it.

It’s not a sport that’s pick up and play.

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Next Saturday is now huge.

I must remind myself how they judge the situation where you have teams on equal points.

That said bonus points might sort it.

Pretty sure there will be a lot of Fijian Wales fans next Saturday.

Pretty sure there’s a rule against that. Once you catch your own forward throw you’d be pinged. I remember BOD passing sideways to himself once though

what’s the difference between Rugby and Aussie Rules ?

Rugby is organised chaos. Aussie rules is chaotic chaos

He did you’re right but I think it went backwards. However, you are allowed to catch a ball you’ve knocked forward accidentally.

You’re probably right on the forward lob though.

I think the limitation of the theoretical forward lob is you are viewed as still having the ball in hand until it touches the floor or someone else so you can be tackled preventing you ever getting on the end of it.

I dont recall the details but there was a weird edge case involving this in a Wales game a few years ago. I seem to recall it being George North, but not sure. I think maybe the last world cup.

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There are massive differences. One of the most obvious is the sheer size of the pitch. Aussie Rules was designed to make a mess of cricket pitches, where rugby was designed to tear up association football pitches.

You are not allowed to throw the ball in any direction, but can handtap it or fist-bump it in any direction. That alone is a massive difference, rugby’s entire visual appearance is fundamentally because you must be holding or kicking the ball in order to advance it. It makes the flows in Aussie rules look much more like soccer, basketball, or hockey. Also, a player can only carry the ball for 15 steps (meters? yards? don’t know) before it must be bounced off the ground.

There are undoubtedly nuances, most of what I know of the game was from watching Saturday night broadcasts of Sunday matches on TSN in Canada in the late 80s. But overall, the game is a lot more like football than it is rugby. It clearly has a close evolutionary connection to Gaelic football.

I think it’s about the shorts.

In rugby shorts are normal. Aussie rules is played and watched by Australians who like really really tight and very short shorts.

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I dont recall that. I’m guessing there must be a rule against it or someone would have tried it, The likes of Campese, Cooper (to name two Australians who were a bit off piste) for example.

They look perfectly normal - I have no idea what rubbish you’re dribbling on about

They do offer good mobility if you dont mind a bit of pressure on the nethernayer

What a career. I dont know how he managed to keep playing footie while fronting Kajagoogoo

I’m not saying it was specifically a case of purposefully trying to throw it over someone’s head and catch it, only that Wales benefited from weird edge case about the knock on rule that relates to whether you’d be able to do it.

I just asked a mate and he said it involved LRZ and Williams where LRZ spilled it forward, but in lunging to regain control of it knocked it backwards with his leg before it hit the floor. The ball popped up to Williams and he ran it in and no one was quite sure whether it should have stood or not.

I was going say the shorts.

An ex of mine got hooked after asking me what was this garbage I was watching one morning.

AH I do have a vague memory of that one yes.

So is Gaelic football, which supports @Arminius point about it’s evolution