I almost said this earlier but didn’t because I wasn’t sure: my sense is that generally speaking, football positions are, in general, more more specialized – that is, there’s a much bigger difference between a DT and WR, say, than between a Winger and a Prop. If so, ISTM, the switch to rugby would be easier rather than the other way around. True?
Also, I submit Doug Flutie and Wes Welker as potentially great fly halfs in their day: fast, smart, and could kick.
If the question were only “Does the USA have enough great athletes to put together a world class rugby team,” the answer is, obviously, yes. But rugby is so low on the totem pole in the USA that I just can’t imagine any circumstances at all under which it would be attractive to the best young American athletes.
COULD I imagine American football being banned due to the injuries and brain damage it can cause? Yes, I suppose I could. What I CAN’T imagine is a young, ambitious high school running back in Alabama going into rugby, if football vanished. This kid has dreams of being a rich, professional sports star. Rugby can’t offer him that now- it may not EVER be able to offer him that.
I don’t know if any other sport could ever become as big in America as pro football is today… but rugby stands no chance.
i don’t know about that. I think there is an equally big difference between Backs and Forwards in Rugby as between backs and Linemen in football but I think there is a smaller difference in the conditioning in rugby as opposed to football. I think it would take more of the middle field people (linebackers & tight ends) to play Rugby and a lot of the ends of the football spectrum would drop off. The 300 pound plus guys will drop out but guys like Jadeveon Clowney who is 6’6" 275 will stick around since they can also run. They may get smaller and he might play rugby at 250 due to needing to be more of an endurance athlete.
Let’s hope so. The different forms of Rugby and Australian Rules Football (and Gaelic/Irish Football, also) are much safer, saner, and seem like more fun for all involved.
Let’s compare these players with the current All Blacks squad. I’ll stick to just height and weight for ease of comparison.
Full Back: Jones is two inches shorter and 25 pounds lighter than Israel Dagg as well as being five years older.
Wings: Johnson and Goodwin are similarly shorter and lighter than Ben Smithand Julian Savea.
Centres: Luck and Kaepernick are about the same size as Sonny Bill Williams, and much bigger than Conrad Smith.
Fly Half: Rodgers is about the same height as Beauden Barrett, and 20 pounds heavier.
Scrum Half: Wilson dwarfs Aaron Smith (4 inches taller and 20 pounds heavier).
Backs overall - Size is pretty much a wash here, this team certainly won’t be bullying the All Blacks backline. On to the forwards.
No 8: Sherman is an inch shorter and 50 pounds lighter than Kieran Read
Flankers: Richie McCaw is roughly the same size as Willis (a little taller, a little lighter) Watt is 30 pounds heavier, but the same height as Jerome Kaino.
Locks: Brodie Retallick is 2 inches taller and 16 pounds heavier than Barnidge. Patrick Tuipulotu is the same size as Hoomanwanui.
Props: Suh is the same height, but 50 pounds heavier than Wyatt Crockett Kelce is 2 inches taller and 15 pounds heavier than Charlie Faumuina.
Hooker: Dumervil is the same height and weight as Keven Mealamu
Forwards: Overall the pack weights are surprisingly close (the American pack is 29 pounds heavier). Height in the lineout is similarly close. I don’t see this squad as being able to out muscle the All Blacks up front at all.
I think there’s a tendency to overestimate the NFL’s players physical attributes based on their enormous pay rates. At the end of the day they are but men after all.
If an eccentric billionaire were to field a team like Oredigger77’s in the next Rugby World Cup I think they’d probably make the quarter finals but I can’t see them going any further than that.
Oh, yeah, I definitely figured that; no place on the pitch for a nose tackle. I was thinking more along the lines of whether or not rucks and scrums are as heavy on technique as football lineplay, or if it’s more about pure strength.
I’m not sure just looking at height and weight tells a whole lot. I mean, there a lot of guys on their sofa that are 230 lbs…
I disagree, both sets of players are professionals playing impact sports, not your average sports fan. We can’t really compare skill levels, as the games are too different and relative skill levels are pretty subjective anyway, so at least height and weight give some sort of objective measures of comparison.
ETA: Oh and see post #15 about technique in the forwards. Yes it matters, a lot.
Closer to league, which doesn’t have the incessant kicking and scrums.
I’m speaking from experience, too! I quit playing rugby four years ago, and the last position I played was loosehead prop. When I was playing, I weighed about 280lbs and there were older guys lighter than me who could move me any way they wanted because they’d been playing in the position for twenty years.
A lot of these posts are fairly fanciful and seem to be focussing on just the physical aspect of the game, ignoring the fact that a modern international rugby player isn’t just a big, muscular individual, with a high level of endurance and physical fitness, but also has to be able to play rugby. You are not going to put together a team that can take on players that have been playing the game since childhood, with continuous coaching from that time forward and selection into elite teams from quite a young age, just by giving a few individuals with high levels of fitness a session on a scrum machine and then dumping them out on the pitch. Modern sports are about instinct and skill as much as fitness levels and size. A typical professional these days, making their debut at the age of 18, has been playing variations of the game since the age of 5 and I think that American Football and Rugby (both codes) are sufficiently different games that skill levels in one game don’t necessarily transfer over to the other.
I think a decade is a reasonable time frame for players to start coming through who have been playing for long enough to really start challenging the big established teams.
There is tons of technique in scrums easily as much as in football and there has to be a lot more coordination between members of the pack. I wasn’t playing at a high level but I always had to be careful not to spin the scrum since I was so much stronger then everyone out on the field.
For my hypothetical team I was trying to pick players that had skill sets that are already similar to rugby so I wasnt looking for a gap plugging run stopper I was trying to find the athletic open field tackler. I actually chose smaller players if it came to a tie in my mind since if figured the conversion to an endurance athlete would be easier on them. I was also trying to pick players who had reputations for being smarter so that could pick up the game faster. Initially the US would be fielding based on athleticism and we’ve seen in a lot of other sports that if you are a good enough athlete you can make up for a lack of skill.
This is the opposite of our men’s soccer problem. We’ve vot decades of soccer going into our team and we’re hiring good international coaches but we have our C list athletes playing soccer so we aren’t competitive on the world stage. With football going away all of our non basketball A list talent with the exception of a few hockey and baseball guys plus Olympians would be freed up to find something else to do. Do the the way we have fostered their athleticism at a hindrance to their academics most of the ones young enough to retrain are going to find a new sport because while Rugby may not pay much initially it’ll still pay more then their black history degree from UNC that they’re still a semester from completing. There is nothing the US loves more then being the best in international compitition and I don’t think it would take more then a year and ESPN trying to fill the gaping hole in their programming line-up for the money to pour in to NRL.
As for how long it takes to learn technique to become a master it would be decades but its not every team is full of the greatest who every played their position so all we’d really need is 3-4 superstars and guys with enough natural ability to be competitive. We’ve seen with football the occasional crasy basketball player who just shows up one day with a coach who can think up ways to use his talent immediately becoming some of the best in the game. I don’t see why Rugby would be different. There are roughly 1,700 guys in the NFL right now plus another 70 college kids who are good enough to play with them. It seems unreasonable to believe that the top 0.2% of the NFL couldn’t be in the top 5% of world rugby, which should get us our stars.
I wasn’t knocking your team selection at all. You certainly know far more about American football than I do and having played both codes are in a good position to put up some names for consideration. My initial point was to compare how such a team would match up in raw size against a top rugby side.
I still think the alleged athletics advantage is a dubious claim. Yes nfl players are great athletes, but so are top rugby players. Take Sonny Bill for example. Aside from winning world cups in league and rugby he took up pro boxing as well and became national champion pretty much as a lark. There’s no denying his athletic ability. The Jarryd Hayne situation should give us a good data point. He would walk into the Wallabies and it’ll be fascinating to see if he gets an nfl start. Lack of skill and game knowledge means he probably won’t though.
All in all i agree with the Cap above. It’d take a decade for the US to win the rugby world cup if the nfl stopped tomorrow.
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I suspect US Rugby would try to hybridize with US football: they would put in a legal variant of a forward pass based on the soccer offside rule (you can throw the ball in any direction, as long as the guy you are throwing it to is unmistakably onside when you throw it).