Rugby

The sport of rugby is on a level with football when it comes to physical strength, prowess and the resulting injuries, but the equipment is somewhat more "manly", if you will. For example, no plastic, rubber or other padding is allowed. Rugby is a sport more commonly played, and obsessed over, in New Zealand, England and Scotland, though it is fast becoming much more popular here in the U.S. As is true of any sport, coming to love the sport means that you have to have at least a rudimentary understanding of it. The rugby playing field is called a 'pitch'. Pitch should be 100 meters long by 69 meters wide, The sidelines are called the 'touchlines' and the goal areas are designated by a 'tryline' at the front and a 'dead ball line' at the back. Incredibly, there are also three different versions of the game, named according to the number of players on the field for each team. There is a fifteen-man version called "Fifteens", which is the most common, and then a game called "Sevens" and a game called "Tens" Fifteens is composed of two 40-minute halves while Sevens is played over two 7-minute halves. Tens is rarely played at all.

Rugby is often thought to be more dangerous than American football, as it is a full-contact sport in which much less padding and protection is worn. It certainly sounds rough, with terms like scrum, ruck, and maul. It does sound as if a person could get hurt badly. In practice, however, many claim that while bumps and bruises are plentiful, life-threatening injuries are fewer than in American football.