I disagree with Eternal’s assessment of rugby, but I’m not at all surprised if in EA Rugby 2004 England should kick everybody’s ass. This is a fair reflection of recent history, in which England won the Six Nations in 2003 (that’s England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales) and kicked all their asses in doing so, then went on a short pre-World Cup tour and played South Africa, Australia and New Zealand - who are by far the three best Southern Hemisphere rugby-playing nations - and kicked their asses, and then went to the World Cup and kicked ass there to, returning home with the World Cup after kicking Australia’s ass in the final, although not to the extent they would have liked.
It wasn’t always thus. In the Seventies when I was growing up, England regularly got their ass kicked in the Five Nations (as it was before 2000 - no Italy) and could generally hope only to beat Scotland and Ireland, and not always them. Wales kicked the other home nations’ asses year in year out, with few exceptions, and the Five Nations was usually down to which out of France and Wales kicked the other’s ass. And from 1963 to 1991, England got their ass kicked every time they went to Cardiff. (That’s the Welsh home turf.) Part of the reason for this was that, in the days when Rugby Union was amateur, a lot of Welsh players were steelworkers or coal-miners, and so naturally superior ass-kickers; whereas England’s industrial base adopted Rugby League (a professional sport) as a pastime and this siphoned off players who might otherwise have kicked major ass.
New Zealand, South Africa and Australia have almost always kicked ass on the rugby field. In NZ it’s the national sport and anecdotal evidence has it that the average Kiwi granny can discuss the sport with a fluency and breadth of knowledge that many a Northern Hemisphere sports commentator would envy. The All Blacks, NZ’s national team, were generally credited with an extremely professional attitude to the game even in the days when it was amateur; they thought hard about the game, trained hard and viewed defeat as a national disgrace. South Africans lived a hardy outdoor life, ate a massively high-protein diet and played their sport on fields baked hard by the sub-equatorial sun. Consequently they were all enormous and practically impervious to pain. And Australians are Australian. Rugby Union isn’t even their second-favourite football code - Rules and League are the biggies - but the opportunity to kick Pommie ass is never let slip and they don’t take any shit from the guys across the Tasman Sea either.
Rugby’s taken off to some extent in other corners of the world. Japan can’t cut it physically on the world stage but they regularly kick Asian ass and have the unusual distinction of having played internationals in which, on different occasions, they’ve both suffered and inflicted hundred-point ass-kickings. Argentina can kick the ass of anyone else in the New World, with Canada their nearest rivals. Fiji don’t quite cut it in the fifteen-a-side game, though they nearly kicked Scotland’s ass in the World Cup and they routinely kick ass in the seven-a-side tournaments in which it’s a huge asset to be enormous, rangy, natural ball-handlers. Western Samoa, now Samoa, have kicked Welsh ass in the World Cup before now and nearly kicked England’s ass before we got our shit together. The USA, despite being current undefeated Olympic champions, get their ass kicked when they try to mix it with the big boys, but could give a fair game to, say, Italy, Canada, Romania or some of the African nations other than South Africa.
MeanJoe, imagine American football with the following changes: No forward passes, only laterals. No stoppage after the tackle: the scrimmage isn’t set but is strictly a first-up affair, unless it gets hopelessly stuck, and anyone within reach of the ball can try to play it, not just the center in possession. No interference. An “aerial scrimmage” to restart when the ball goes out of play, with the ball thrown down the line of scrimmage above head-height and anyone allowed to grab it. All field-goals to be drop-kicked. Minimal time-outs, and only for injuries; a game scheduled to run for 80 minutes will not take more than about 85 plus the half-time interval. That’s something of an over-simplification, but it gives you the idea. IMHO, the game kicks ass.
