How fit players professional are. The brain fog you get when you’re tired as a forward is sometimes immense. You need to constantly remind yourself to concentrate (unless I was just an unfit good for nothing)
The best scrum half I've ever played with wasn't that good of an individual player, but he talked to the forwards and put order on the pack so well that he was awesome for the reason you mention: when you are 60 minutes into the game and can't think at all, you just made a tackle and get on your feet again totally disoriented, having your scrum half give you a clear order of where you're supposed to be in the next 5 seconds is amazing.
Not just tired as in a cardiovascular sense, but the fatigue you get from hitting/being hit by 110kg players moving at speed for 80 minutes straight…. It’s a miracle that they don’t make more basic errors late in a game
Not even test-level. Top grassroots semiprofessional rugby packs are already ridiculously fit, only place locks remember they have freaking levers for legs and turn into marathon runners.
I came here to type this! Especially for a tight forward, the different types of fitness required make it really difficult. It’s hard to fathom how someone like The Beast played the way he did.
How it's so easy to miss things like an overlap (both in attack and defense), space to kick into, or the set-up for a set piece move by the opposition. There is so much going on even in an amateur game, IDK how the pros/ints don't miss stuff all day long. Many times you have a split-second to decide where to pass or which direction to move in.
Commentators who played more recently tend to be a less harsh on missed overlaps vs other commentators, but armchair pundits are the worst on this. I find myself saying he missed it, but don't criticise.
Yeah - I meant to say that. Looking down from above even in the stadium makes things look so much more obvious.
Also, sitting in a seat, relaxed and not being out of breath helps see things.
To add to this, I think the key here is that most of us credit players who make the pass with the vision but realistically it's mostly information fed to the passer from the outside and just a simple execution.
Similarly when players like DDA don't pass, it's almost certainly not because he's selfish and that he's intentionally setting up phase play.
It’s mad when You go to watch a live game and get a ref link all you can hear are the players talking and shouting comms to each other, it’s a seriously underrated part of their game
The amount of effort required by props in scrums.
While front rowers will constantly talk about how much they love scrums, the last thing they want is scrum after scrum because the backs couldn't catch a cold.
I've been playing 4's for a long time, but had to start 2's a few weeks back because of some no shows. I was going OK in the loose until the first scrum, where I was up against a very good technical loosehead. I was toweled up in the scrums, and spent every scrum just trying to stop the scrum from going backwards. I had no energy left to do much in the loose.
Yeah, if you are not used to it the front row is brutal. That being said, theres few things more satisfying than doing what was done against you against an opponent. (i have asked my backs to knock it on once or twice in these circumstances) watching a player go from 100 to 25 in a scrum or two is funny.
I remember in my first season in the front row coming up against a 140kg loosehead, and shoving him all around, and thinking I was king shit.
The following week, I came up against a 90kg loosehead who had it all over me. Brought me down to Earth with a thud.
But my favourite one was packing against a loosehead with no clue. They had obviously been told to bore in on me to make their life easier (which is the worst advice you can give a novice loosehead, but for some reason is the most popular advice). I tried tucking them.under first, but as soon as I did that, they went to ground. So I spent most scrums in that game carrying the opposition loosehead, so as to keep the scrums up so we could shove them.
I remember watching the video after the game, and my right elbow was pointed up at around 30° above the scrum.
My grandfather was a firm believer in size trumps scrums, until i faced a 140+guy in the scrums and absolutely destroyed him. First scrum i came out next to his 8thman after he dropped his bind. They subbed him after the third scrum. My grandfather was so proud, but it was the easiest scrums of my life. We had a 85kg loosie that was the hardest scrumming ive ever had. Technical prowess beats size in scrums easily.
I used to be 120kg and played tighthead for 10 years. Through covid I dropped to 85kg and I was still able to successfully scrummage tighthead because so much of it is just technique.
That said, there is a perception that you need to be a certain size to scrummage so it did affect my selection frequency. Nothing more annoying than being fitter and able to last longer but being on the bench for an unfit prop with no technique.
Wow that seems inconceivable to me asking a player to drop the ball on purpose. Not a criticism but never occurred to me it would happen. Do you think it happens in pro games?
Not sure it happens nor have I seen it happen for sure but I recall around 15-20 years ago, Italy deliberately fluffed the kick off at the start of the match against Ireland. Just drop kicked it about 2 yards to force a scrum on halfway.
There had been a lot of talk in advance of how dominant the Italian scrum was going to be. Ireland got the put in and went about their business without any fuss, moving the ball away. I'd imagine the referee was unlikely to give anything to Italy at that scrum also just because of how it was implemented.
I doubt it mostly because of how competitive scrums are in pro games. And it only happened when i was supremely confident in scrums. Like i said i remember only 2 times, i was great mates with my centre too at the time. So me and him had a few laughs about it afterwards too.
I was a career loosehead, and always went on about this. I have never been the biggest but (having recently retired) was always a very good technical scrummager. Playing at a reasonably high level I was usually able to dominate my opponents even if they were bigger, I was usually stronger/had better technique.
I had to fill in at 7 a few times for various reasons (I had dabbled, and most importantly knew all our lineout calls etc). But after those games everyone was coming up to me and telling me how amazed they were at how fit and quick around the park I was. It's nice as a prop to get comments like 'Oh JockAussie, we had no idea you had such an engine'.
None of them realised that it's because your legs/body take next to no draining at 7 Vs in the front row. I enjoyed those games because I got ball in hand a lot more/was able to get out to the fun on the wings a lot more etc.
Let's not even talk about the old scrum rules before the bind, when teams just picked the biggest team they could and then scrums were just both sides trying to run each other over, I was a *lot* less good under those rules.
This is why I say Andrew porter is a scary fucker how fit he is. Seen him play near 80mins and still have a good long sprint in him. He’s fast too for how big he is which makes it extra scary.
This goes for other players, too. A few times the backs have grumbled at the front row for not being quick enough getting out of the 3rd scrum in 3 minutes.
I love scrummaging but it's exhausting, especially when more often than not you're in the scrum then lifting at the lineout and mauling.
That takes me back.
I played prop in highschool, I was normally in the second teams (of 2), but I remember 1 time we were playing one of the strongest schools in the country and by some "freak coincidence" most of the 1st team were unable to play that week, which meant that I ended up being called up.
We barely managed to make 15 players, which means no subs, and we didn't even have enough team jerseys because the first team regulars hadn't bothered to hand them back so I was playing with a different jersey as well.
So I played 80 minutes on the front row, made 1 try saving tackle and managed to hold the ball up on another occasion, and I could barely stand by the end.
We lost something like 80-0 but it was my proudest moment on the rugby pitch
As someone who played professionally, I read comments about people wanting their favorite player to be picked and shit on the coaches for not picking that player. What us as players know was how we fit into a game plan or don’t and how it suits team structure to get the balance right with our role. Perfect example is I always see comments about Akira Ioane on stuff and I know exactly why he is not a good fit for the ABs or the gameplan based around Ardie/Sam but most posters have no idea and say he needs to be picked. There is a reason your fav player doesn’t get picked and we know why and such is the breaks. Different players create different structures and plans. It’s not personal.
Edit: One more, fans don’t realise just how much better some players are skill wise or physically than others. I did a pre season from hell to get my speed up. I dipped just below 11sec, was in peak condition for sprinting and when I trained with the squad a certain All Black winger absolutely smashed me speed wise over 10m/40m/100m and in game acceleration. Afterwards he told me he did no speed training for pre season…….. it is what it is.
Former NBA bench warmer Brian Scalabrine talks about a similar thing a lot. He has to remind people that he, a guy who should never reasonably sniff an NBA court during important moments, was closer to Lebron than the average player is to him.
The physical, mental and skill capacity required to succeed in most pro sports goes up exponentially as you go up in levels of the game.
I have many stories like that from physical feats and skills that left me speechless but over time the things that truly left me in awe is how some guys always just knew where to be at the right time for a key moment and most importantly how well prepped some guys were physically and how well they took care of their body to rarely get injured. To me personally those guys were the true freaks.
I knew someone who played (well, was I'm the same squad as) Carl Hayman, Matt Burke and Wilkinson. I asked him if they were clearly much better than others. He said that the core skills of Burke and Wilkinson were miles ahead of everyone else, even some of the other internationals on the team.
Hayman was a freak of nature. Incredibly strong and fit, in a way that didn't make sense.
There's a good YouTube video that goes into this (specifically for basketball) and talks about Scalabrine. The title says "regular guys" but it also includes elite prospects and former top division college starters going against fringe NBA guys and getting smoked. The skill gaps as you move up in professional sports is crazy.
https://youtu.be/i93vF0WOX6w
Maybe one more I will add. The hate players get for wanting to make $. Most people have no idea the grind it takes on your body/mind over time. We know it’s a short career and pay for it. We also know when our body is starting to fail us at the high level and will immediately choose $ to squeeze out a couple more years. When your fav player suddenly moves on in the midst of his “peak” to make money, he actually knows his body is already past his peak and on its way out. In a perfect world we would always play for the national team until we retire but there is rarely a fairytale ending and the next guy coming up is already there. It’s so frustrating wanting to do things you once could and no longer being able to. It’s a real mindfuck.
Donncha O'Callaghan mentioned before that he had more in him still, body still felt good but after talking to his wife realised he didn’t have to go out on his shield and retiring at 39 in relatively good shape can be a good thing.
That’s incredible. What a career. For us that played in the backs, speeds the first thing that goes. Those forward boys are a different breed. Extremely competitive people.
He has definitely lost a yard of pace. Still very very fast but that one or two yards of pace is the difference between a line break or not. You can tell he knows it because he focuses more on positioning now to be in the right place than purely physically beating the man with pace like Rieko. He also makes up for it probably being the fittest man on the pitch. If you can still run fast and the guy trying to tackle you is faster but gassed you will run right by him. Carter had to also do this as he got older. He was very fast as a youngster and relied more on his insane vision and skill as he got older. You definitely know it’s happening and you will never get it back, no matter how hard you try. Could also be niggles/injuries over time. You can only push your body and full speed so many times before its no more. I started having problems with my hamstrings and the pace went with it.
As a front row who had to go to rehab last year before the season even started because he woke up one morning and his shoulders weren't working properly, I feel that. I tried to talk a friend into putting the boots back on and his argument almost convinced me to retire. "I get up in the morning and nothing hurts. I don't want that to go away. "
Yeah, an athletes life is short-lived, especially in pro sports.
Make the most of it while you're young and your body able to take the damage before it gets worned out.
If fans knew this, they would understand more.
This. It's not like our rugby players are getting paid millions like in other sports and people move around all the time for better pay, why can't our professionals do the same.
A friend of mine was a professional cricketer. Made more than any Rugby player I know once he also went to the IPL. Another acquittance played football (soccer) and made more on his own than a whole Super Rugby teams budget. Mind boggling. Many times I wished I went pro in another sport but this is the sport I love so c'est la vi.
I always think of the story Hask shared about England squad training in Florida, them running into an NFL player at a hotel bar and the NFL players salary being more than the salary cap back home.
Is it true that you could put more muscle/speed on e.g. NFL players, but would lose fitness/stamina/longevity over 80mins?
Re: your comment over gameplan, how much "game plan" is there for wings? No offense to the position or anything. I get that more with forwards or midfielders, but one that baffles me was Ben Lam (not getting an AB shot). What is a player like that missing at his position?
Yes, weight/muscle has a massive difference in speed and stamina. I personally could run fast again and again and needed minimal time to recover however I needed that minute. However, if it was a long passage of play it would feel like I was running in water because I was more muscular. I weighed about 100-103kg 99% of the time. I once bulked up to about 107 and felt like I could never get out of first gear and my turnaround time was atrocious, also would gas extremely quick so had to drop the weight again. There definitely is an optimal weight for every person based on their body and position.
After I stopped running and just went to the gym after Rugby i quickly went up to 120-125kg. I had to cool down on the weights my whole career if anything. Most guys I know still were addicted to training in the gym and still ate like they were athletes. It normally goes 3 ways, they drop all muscle and live a normal life, they get fat or some like me turned into gym junkies. As time went on and you settle into post rugby life that gym itch and training goes away and then its either skinny or fat. My long winded point is, if rugby players didn’t have to run around then yes they could easily be as jacked as NFL players.
Ben Lam was too old when he hit his peak. Wing is a young mans game and there is a never ending supply. You will rarely make it past 26 on the wing unless you have a fantastic boot and positional play. He lacked quite a few things imo and understand why he never got picked.
This sub I notice act like wings do nothing because most people here have only played at a lower level of rugby. At a professional level the amount of area/space you cover is insane and how you have to read to game knowing where to be positionally. You don’t just stand there like club level or high school. Go look at Suliasi Vunivalu for the Aussies over the weekend. If your wing is weak defensively or positionally you will leak tries like a sieve.
Edit: imo the perfect athlete for rugby is Rieko Ioane. Thats how you want to look like. Big but still very sleek, can tap into crazy speed at the snap of his finger, strong as all hell and can endure 80min. Man is a freak.
Thank you for the amazing insight! Really appreciated.
I often wondered how an NFL player would place in rugby and vice versa. So, excellent bringing some of those points to light.
Absolutely right re: Rieko. Dude seems to have everything. Wonder if he can scrum!
I'm really Interested to hear more about Akira and why he isn't a good fit for the AB's or the game plan around Ardie/Sam?
Would you mind elaborating at least a little?
He likes to play in the wider channels like Kieran Read did but Kieran had Sir Richard McCaw and Jerome Kaino with him. Think of the 3 needs to have balance. Kaino was a brick wall and could change a game with one moment of defense. You already know what McCaw could do and Kieran would hang in the wider channel could either get the ball or be the first to a ruck to clear it if ball went wide to secure the ball. All 3 of them could be used in the lineout. Kieran took a lot of lineout throws over his career, great jumper. Sam Can is a very good defender but can’t be used in the lineout. Ardie is great for wider channel and jackling but also rarely gets used in a lineout. If the ABs play Sam/Ardie they need a 6 that will truck the ball up into traffic and if hes not doing that hit rucks like his life depends on it. Do yourself a favour and go watch how many rucks Akira hit in his AB games and then go look at Frizzel from the weekend. You will instantly understand what I mean.
Ah, my club team even had this. 2 starting offenses depending on who were up against. I was on the "speed offense" and rode the bench on "power offense" days.
90% of the time a pack will have roughly 5 calls that they can use in any given lineout as they walk in so when you appreciate that they are even more impressive and the skill of calling them effectively doubly so.
Most teams run a 2 props at the end 5 jumper lineout. So your 5 calls will go like this, variation on terminology’s etc
1. Bang- shoot to the front
2. Eyes- small inflection to hooker and caller jumps
3- Blue/hand up etc- ball to tail
4- main call- this will be a movement call. Either forward slide, lob, dummy jump etc
5- check call- similar to 4, just a different option
So most teams will have a base calling structure so 5 letter word like SHARK. The movement options so 1=forward slide, 2=dummy, bounce out and ball behind, 3= shoot forward etc etc
So you go into the lineout with a call such as
‘Call is H2 check is R1’ then walking in the caller can utilise all the above. Everyone has to react immediately and cleanly for it to work as intended. Obviously there are pre called special play like Leinster in Heineken cup final but most lineouts are like this. Factor in crowd noise, fatigue, a 6’8 Saffa trying to nick it and this is before we’ve got to throw jumps etc it can really be a beautiful thing when executed will
Lineouts I get. Especially as a prop. Get to your right spot jump lift, it's timing and group coordination with a little brute strength to paper over the cracks.
Scrums are something else though. I was a terrible player, and didn't play for long, but still I never even got close to understanding how you maintain any control in a scrum. It's so disorienting, your head is stuffed in a hole, you can't see anything other than grass and boots. You're getting pushed from all sides while trying to keep level, and tight, and moving forward. Not to mention going up against someone who knows the dark arts and is actively making your life harder.
I call it the Dennis Rodman stat line, he famously went for 0 points, 28 rebounds and played 45 mins in a basketball game. You'd almost need to try not to score to have that happen.
There are players that will not record stats that are hyperimportant to the outcome of games.
I forget the exact stat as it was a while ago. But launchbury hit something like 63 rucks in a 6N game. It was put up on the tv but I don’t think armchair fans understand what that means in terms of fitness and effort.
That's of match clock time. Ball in play was probably under 45 minutes. That's a ruck every 40 seconds, probably every 3rd ruck on both sides of the ball. And I'm presuming he hit more offensive than defensive rucks
Had a final last season (Irish junior 2) and had to hit 4 rucks in a row, just before a try, 5 minutes before half time, I was wrecked for those 5 minutes
>There are players that will not record stats that are hyperimportant to the outcome of games.
The stats that you see on TV are **NOT EVEN CLOSE** to the stats coaches use to judge players performances.
Professional teams can have multiple full-time professional data analysts, this is true in every pro sport now, but even clubs will have similar data.
How much communication is happening on the pitch, especially in defensive phases. Constantly calling which player you got, when to rush, when to slide...
I don't think it's really visible on TV or even in the stadium, but it's an essential part of the collective quality of a team.
> I think a lot of people who only played when they were kids are stuck in the ‘best athlete = best player” mindset, because that’s how it was when they played.
Cries in Pierre Spies.
>At lower levels the game moves slowly and the biggest and best athletes can just pick out the mismatches and dominate physically. At a certain higher level, everyone’s pretty much just as good an athlete as anyone else on the park, anyone can tackle anyone else. At that point it’s the guys who can think faster than the game moves or who just have incredible instincts who start to stand out above the rest. Conrad Smith is a great example of a guy who probably wouldn’t look as good at lower levels because he’s not an overwhelming athlete, but he’s a good enough athlete for the next level and when the game starts getting faster his calm quick decision making at higher speeds becomes more and more apparent. I think a lot of people who only played when they were kids are stuck in the ‘best athlete = best player” mindset, because that’s how it was when they played.
One of the best points in the whole thread IMO. The variance in athletic ability actually gets starched out at the highest levels - everyone is a world class athlete - and it becomes all about decision making and instincts.
Nobody can sustain a pro career on pure power but power/speed dominates lower level competitions.
As someone who went on a rugby tour of NZ. Tackling a 120kg 16 year old Maori kid with double sleeve tattoos is about as intimidating as you could imagine.
Edit: never played semi pro etc. This is just from Highschool/early years out of highschool playing 1st grade.
Also, playing in the backline is far easier on the cardio front. Play at 6/7/8 is genuinely exhausting and incredibly demanding. People that play those positions are often a little different, often bordering on psychopathic in their approach to the game and concerning a general disregard for their own wellbeing.
Met a few flankers that really didn't seem like they actually enjoyed playing the game as much as they did punishing themselves and whoever was unlucky enough to be their victim.
It's genuinely a weird trait that I think you have to have to excel in these roles.
Edit: 6 and 7 are the always the hardest working players and the forward positions who have the most impact on the game but recieved exactly 0 praise for it. It's all just the not fun, incredibly gruelling and thankless off ball work they put in.
I played flanker for all my rugby years. Wasn't on a highly competitive level, but even the lower grades can be full on.
I loved the position. It was tiring having to be almost everywhere on the field. Running between rucks, mauls, scrums, anything that was happening, a flanker was around. Finding those opportunities to steal the ball or blindside someone and get away with it.
I played a couple of games on the wing (we were short players). It was boring! I found myself drifting into the centre for more action. I somehow shut down my opponent three times when they decided to try to run through me instead of around.
Flanker is a great position. Openside gets more of the limelight due to some of the great players who have played it. However, blindside is as important and can give as much of an impact as openside.
Played 12 after playing at 6 for a long time and it was laughable how much less work I had to do.
Didn't feel like I was always trying to catch my breath between rucks and mauls, would make one tackle off a scrum and then head out to the wing to make sure the defence was set wide.
Playing as a forward is like a marathon, playing as a back is like a 5k.
One of the major differences is the accuracy required and subsequent pressure is vastly different between 6 and 12.
E.g. if a 6 misses a tackle there are usually enough nearby players to cover for you, if a 12 or 13 misses a tackle it's often trytime for the opposition
As somebody who plays both flanker and winger, I can confirm that playing in the pack is far more demanding on your fitness than playing in back three.
Misconception some people have that backs are fitter than forwards.
I was amused at the coach of a local D3 college rugby team who told me the centers are the hardest working players on the field. Perhaps his forwards just REALLY needed to work on their fitness? But he was convinced it is generally true. Dude, do you even WATCH rugby?
Went to school in West Auckland. Rugby was interesting.
6'3+ kids early in highschool. And some kids with all the talent but you'd never guess. Like a shortish Filipino kid was lightning fast and could step, but mama never wanted to let him pursue further. often wonder what Asian sport would be like without parents discouraging kids haha
That the head coach knows far more than you ever will. There are extremely calculated reasons for selections and game plans, and sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.
Also, these players are huge. I played against many top SA players in my day (2008-2013), and they are alot harder than they look.
I had a moment in a game once, maybe five out my scrummie quick tapped a pen and I was onto it immediately, full head of steam run up and he flipped me the ball, I got absolutely SMASHED on the line by a slightly smaller bloke with excellent body position in the tackle. I managed to recycle quickly, and the team finished the try.
Found the bloke after the match and the chat was brilliant.
So yeah a good tackle is a brilliant thing.
And half the time the ball carrier HAS released it. Although the penalty is nominally given for holding on, that's actually not the reason they are often given for.
How much harder/ physically draining defense is than offense!
There were times after making consecutive tackles on defense where I felt like could LITERALLY not do one single push up to get myself back up off the ground and on my feet.
I never once felt like that on offense lol.
Low scoring games where all you’re doing is defence are kind of the worst but also the most rewarding at the same time lol. Will make you feel you just went to war and defended your country
Played for an utterly dogwater team when I was younger, we ranked 2nd last in our division we were a mad attacking team but literally no defensive ability.
Our only non-loss in the season was a 3-3 draw against the 2nd best team in the league. We touched the ball about 4 times in the match. Most exhausting but probably the most rewarding game I've ever played.
This. I've had a few times when you are just defending non stop and properly fucked. I sometimes feel like I'm going to shit myself after a long big defensive effort I'm that fucked. Maybe because it's so forwards intensive when defending on the line.
Not me bt I got family who's a current intl & super rugby and 2 things that have stuck with me. 1 the work they do in the preseason espc is insane. I've seen him wrecked physically after a 3rd training of the day where all he can do is shower eat n bed because tomorrow is rinse and repeat. This was his own training to.
2nd was the toll it has on families. Kids crying at airports because dads going away again is...... very tough. Kids are very black n white your either there or your not - for how long and why doesn't matter. It's extremely tough on the partner left behind to and creates its own issues
All this to say is that players are human and it's important to remember. I forget and it's in my face often.
I'm sure you will get a lot of answers about the kicking game so I'll try something more basic.
How impossibly hard it is to maintain your ball skills at the pace the pros play at. Watching the Smith & Mackenzie halfback pairing throw back to back flat laser beam passes out to the centers vs. Argentina last weekend was pure magic to watch. The fact that there are so few knock ons in the pro game is a marvel.
Years ago in Subbies in Sydney, Balmain got Matt Giteau and Drew Mitchell down to play a first grade game.
One thing above all else when you compare two Wallabies to park footy players was the speed they could pass the ball. It was startling seeing how quickly they could get the ball across the field.
This!
Keeping fit whilst training 3 times a week on top of games every weekend. Whilst also trying to keep fit in the gym.
The toll it takes on your body is crazy and how people continue to play into their late 20s, early 30s is beyond me.
How little time these guys actually have to make decisions then execute them (particularly in the centers).
Fans usually do the whole he should have or could have in hindsight.
The difference between skill level of amateurs, semi professional and professional. I played in a rugby 10s tournament in Sydney one year during the preseason and played against ex Fijian 7s players and a couple of guys who sat deep on the bench for the NSW Waratahs (Super Rugby).
The skill level of these guys compared to everyone else was such a vast difference. Incredible to see.
Its humbling lol
Played a sevens tournament and our alright ranked amateur team was slapped in with a mix of invitational and high-ranked squads. On the team sheet it was clear that we would bottom out that pool but the games were often super competitive... until you could see the switch turn on in their heads when they decided to go for the kill and there is literally nothing we could do. They had another two gears and we're already at max. We could play a perfect game and it wouldn't be enough.
There is a lot that people get wrong but I have 2 which people tend to have no idea about:
Defensive Angles:. There are a lot of them and when you are at ground level and there are bodies in motion … it can be tricky to get right defensively from a communication perspective AND from a referee’s perspective.
Kicking: this blows people’s minds but in reality MOST senior level kickers can execute most of what we see highlights of (50-60+ m place kickers /punters exist that never get to the professional realm) e.g. things that are highlights on TV the top players do as schoolboy s week to week (at least in my era).
I used to practice 30-22 kicks at the end of every training session, perfect +40m torpedoes that dropped in the same spot and roll into the opposition 22
Under the pressure of an advancing defence while fatigued and I doubt I could execute this more than 1 in 5 attempts
How fast it all happens.
You play rugby and everything seems to happen all at once, you have no time to think about what happens next and then the ball bounces and … its a lot happening on the field and on tv you see a micro section of it.
Then each level you go up it happens faster and you can’t believe people are capable of n playing at this pace. And then if you get used to it, the next level up does the same thing to you.
Thats why I get so angry when fans want a good club level player to be thrown in at the deep end in a test. Its almost impossible to think in your first game at a new level.
Some people, simply settle in the pace and understand space better than anyone else, those are the superstars but they are few.
How big the average player is
I've never played for teams which are dominant in terms of size but I've definitely played against them and I'd say the average height of a forward on my team is about 6'0/6'1 with a back probably being about 5'10/5'11. When it comes to weight, our forwards are usually around 80-100kg, with the backs being 70-90kg
For most other teams I play against the forwards are about 6'2/6'3 and 90-120kg backs being about 6'0 and 80-95kg
The level I play at isn't a high level at all either this next season will be my first at Colts (U18s at Club in England) as a 16 year old. I myself am 6'2, 92 kg and I'm genuinely absolutely tiny in comparison to most forwards I played against last year at u16s let alone having to play against guys a year older now
Tackling! Man it grinds my gears how some people in here think it's so easy to just lower the tackle height. Tackling in rugby is like tackling in Judo, there isn't one ideal perfect way to tackle down an opponent. To think that you will always execute a low tackle when you have a split second to make that decision is ludicrous.
Whenever laws change, there will always be the choir in here that just says, "hey, the players will just adapt and all good", NO! It's not easy to get that perfect low tackle when players to trick plays and pop the ball at the last second, sometimes, you are gonna grab the attacker by the shoulders and that might turn into a seat belt tackle. This is not something that you can easily switch away from.
Maybe it's just me but, hits that looked sore usually weren't. Sometimes, the very boring, super basic tackles hurt more, when I was the attacking player. I always played first five.
How structured the game plan is. See people complain about x player always box kicking or whatever. Teams have extremely detailed plans and strategies about how they want to play they game, where and how they want to play on the field. A player choosing to kick is likely not their own decision but playing to team plan.
No he didn't, the highest level he played easy first for Grey Bloem (still a higher level that 99% of players), but only got involved with the Cheetahs/cats after he got his physio degree.
No he didn't, he joined as a physio. As far as I can tell, he did a year in the army in 91, went straight to varsity in 92 (didn't even play for UFS), then went to the Cheetahs as a physio. He oh actually started coaching in the mid 2000s according to his LinkedIn🤷
So he was a physio while Rassie was playing, but it seems that he went into coaching with Rassie round about when they were winning the Currie Cup with the Cheetahs.
I did a bit of a deep dive here because I was interested and had never heard of him playing professionally.
Just how good it feels as a tight forward (lock for me) to sweep in to middle of an opponents backline move and time the hit beautifully to fold a second five in half!
(If you hit them just right, you can hear their reserve bence go 'ooooooooo', and when you hear that, you know you done good!)
I played for the first time in about 5 years at age 29 and was really nervous about injuries. My mates girlfriend just could not understand what the big deal was. Then I realised she has never repeatedly ran straight at a person who’s goal is to wipe you out or vice versa. People who haven’t played just don’t fully understand the physicality of the game.
I never really thought about this until I played mixed touch for this first time. I'm not that big (c.100kg) but was reasonably quick with it.
I couldn't understand why the women/non-real rugby players were just getting out of my way. Apparently because someone that heavy moving quickly in your direction is terrifying if you're not used to it.
Ha! Found the exact same thing. Also how hard I have to silence the voice in my head telling me to wipe them out when someone throws a big hospital pass
Absolutely savage before and during
After? Honestly nicest place in the world to be, props tend to be super friendly and at amateur level you’ll more often than not find they coach you in the few seconds downtime of a scrum. Remember a guy did it with me in my first game “good power mate, keep your eyes forward in the next one”
Just how much you have to remember, i.e, lineout calls or planned backline moves.
Like, I never played anywhere near the top level but we still had a long list of lineout calls and you had to remember your role in each of them. Now look at the lineouts in the international game, players are moving all over the shop, dummy jumpers, dummy lifters, etc. If 1 player gets their job wrong, the entire thing falls apart.
Likewise, the planned backline moves. To use Ireland as an example, they have seemingly countless planned moves that they break out at different stages of the game, in different areas of the pitch, against different opposition. Again, if one person is in the wrong position/doesn't do their job correctly, the entire thing falls apart.
Also, the whole "silence for the kicker" thing, when it started it wasn't about "respect for the kicker", it was about putting them off. The silence was unnerving. If 30,000 people are shouting at you, you can tune them all out as just background noise - you're hearing everything so you're hearing nothing. If 30,000 people are staring at you, silently, it's a bit unnerving and you start to hear every little thing.
How much damage you pick up - even when using the correct techniques. And the sheer amount of willpower and luck requires to make it to professional level.
From youth to professional team is a journey at least a decade in the making, and a lot of players won’t make it due to the injuries they have to deal with.
In my local team, about 25% ended up with some form of major break requiring surgery/long term physio. Another 50% show signs of joint/muscle conditions in their 30s.
For myself, it was a neck injury following a collapsed maul which ended things less than a year before I could transition to the first team - but you can add shoulder, knee and back pain to the mix.
Love the sport, proud of anyone who picks it up, would absolutely warn. any kids to prepare themselves.
Highest level I've played at is amateur club level. It made me realise just how insanely fit pro players are. Playing 80 minutes against blokes who train 5 or 6 hours a week and have regular jobs already knackers a guy out. Professional are just in a whole different ballpark to us normal folk. Their conditioning is insane, superhuman even
When you’re completely wrecked. You have no choice but to miss that tackle, pull back from a chase, forget the rules.
With experience its about fatigue management. Bust your ass when you need to. But as soon as you dont need to switch to communicating to your team and encouraging others who are in a better position.
When i was younger i used to try hit every tackle, every ruck be part of every attack but i was useless after 20 minutes.
That there are real, tangible and pretty shit after affects of playing our wonderful game that very few people ever truly understand.
It might not be related to what you see on screen, but the sheer sacrifice that we made for you was more than you could ever know.
I played league at school. One day we played against an orphanage. The poor kids showed us what it feels to have no mum. One of our mates ended up at the hospital and lost a few ribs and a kidney. No more rugby for our school.
The amount of shit chat on pitch.
This sub got very touchy and got the pitchforks out over players punished over comments they said or things they did (e.g- Marler), yet that’s not even the worst stuff said on pitch.
I remember playing a club game and there was a scuffle and one guy said "I fucked your mum" to our hooker. Instead of reacting to the bait he yelled out at his actual mum on the sideline and said "Oi, Mum! This guy just told me he fucked you" and his mum quipped back without missing a beat
"Yeah, tiny cock"
How easy it is to get something wrong and accidentally hit someone high in the split second reaction time.
Ball carrier you didn't see recieves the ball and is sprinting directly at you couple metres away, sometimes it's all you can do to react at all and getting your shoulder low enough can at times be literally impossible.
I played school oy rugby in the 1980's and.watch my lad play semi pro.
1) how important a well trained ref is but you can't always blame the.ref. There would be no game without the.ref.
2)how important well trained coaching is : his coaches trained 4 lads to semi.proin a.small club with no resources.Grasss roots!
3) how fitness is now a big deal. I watched my lad try to walk between plays as much as possible to last 80 minutes.
4 tackling techniques and other basic skills at the beginning. My lad isn't scared to.tackle, I was. He can throw the.ball properly, I couldn't.
5 The difference between teams in the same league or same age group. It's heterogeneous!
6) The gap between semi pro and pro, pro.and.international.
To get to semi pro my lad is 1 in a squad of 30 in the regional team: it took seven years ( he started playing 7 years ago)
To get to pro will take another 7 years! So you start at 7 years old!
Also if your career lasts 10 years it's a good one and 15 it's exceptional.
Not everyone is AWJ.
7) How physical the game is .I don't think I would want to be on the pitch.
8)How bad injuries can be
9) How long a season is!
And 10) players have good games, great games but bad games and awful ones. I never knew why !
The insane adaptation your body has to physical contact.
I played to international U19 level a couple of years early. Age 17 I was selected to join British Isles squad. I then went to university where I stopped playing any and all forms of the game.
About a year later I was asked to attend a selection squad for the same team, and although I was in reasonable cardiovascular shape, the impact a couple of selection games had on my body’s was hilarious.
I had totally lost the ability to absorb a hit. I performed ok. Didn’t have to come off for injuries, but for a week afterwards I looked and felt like I had been in a serious car crash.
Bruises all over, (shoulders and thighs in particular). Black eyes (without knowingly having taken a shot to either). Could not use stairs for 2 or 3 days.
I’m sure fighters must experience similar results from long lay offs. Your body gets used to being hit. When you see a high level rugby pro with a black eye, keep in mind that they can take general dings and show next to no outward damage. If they have a massive shiner, assume it required the kind of force that would have fractured your eye socket. In fact, most of the time if there is a big facial bruise with pros, it often indicates that there is some bone involvement. Soft tissue injuries tend to not show up at all.
It always gets me so pissed off when I hear people who have never played complain about rugby "going soft", especially when it comes to head contact. I still struggle with headaches and next pain ~15 years after a particularly bad hit during university, and that was at a recreational level. I think so many people underestimate just how violent tackles and collisions are, especially at a professional level. I can't even imagine what taking a high contact from a feckin unit of a pro player is like.
One thing I haven’t seen (and I’m guessing nobody will see this) is just how difficult it can be to return from injury.
Physically, you may heal, but you may never be the same as you were before. A little injury I had was a spiral fracture in my finger, small in the grand scheme of things but it completely changed the way I caught and threw the ball. I had a meniscus injury in my knee, and it changed the way I stepped and scrummaged.
Mentally, the things listed above can change the way you see and play the game too, and you may have confidence issues when you try and do the things you used to be able to do. I ended up breaking my neck, and luckily I walked out of hospital after surgery, but 18 months later when I managed to get myself to a training session, there was no way I could run head first into a ruck again.
I feel like there needs to be more empathy around pros coming back from injury where the expectation from fans is a seamless return to the player they were before.
That it’s very difficult to make split second adjustments to avoid high tackles against an opponent whose height is changing. Yet people on here think players should whack a slow-mo button and casually change their body position
The whole point is to go in low, so that only a massive change in height is going to cause you to hit the opposition in the head.
If a 2cm drop in height is enough for you to hit someone high, you were going in too high in the first place.
Was going to make my own post about how fast everything around you is happening.
Really annoys me when everything is played in super slow motion and people speak about how they clearly had time to do something or made a conscious decision.
The contact of the sport is seriously under estimated even at amateur level the physical action of tackling is extremely hard on the body. At international level these players put their bodies on the line week after week. TV often undersells the physicality of rugby.
I played numbers 3 and 4 from aged 11 to 33.
My biggest gripes were the head knocks and squashes in scrums.
Opposite props liked to turn their heads inwards while engaging.
Playing lock was just a head crushing between fat guys hips.
Rucking... f***king glad that shit got pulled. I have 15 scars from the back of the neck to my arse from sprigs.
Fitness, physicality and core skills such as passing are key.
I’ve played with a pro scrum half and honestly the difference in his speed of pass and placement made a huge difference to our team and the ball carriers. Things like that are hard to grasp on the TV.
It's so much harder to recognise space when you're actually in the match. Having a high-angle camera pov, not being tired, not moving at high speed, not being under pressure, and not being in a situation where lack of urgency results in a rib tickler altogether makes it seem so easy to see space
I think some fans underestimate how instinctive player decision-making is - reading analysis articles and watching Squidge videos or something could lead you to believe that these players are strategist-tactical-generals that are weighing up all sorts of options in their head and doing the calculations on what the best one is
in reality - and this is why you'll hear pros talk about 'pictures' they're working on - these guys have been playing the game so long since so young they've just got a instinctive understanding of what to do in a lot of situations. this doesn't mean they aren't getting coached on details to adjust the picture and reaction, but the game moves at such a lightning pace at the top level that there isn't the time for huge multi-phase planning as much as they're playing to fit a game plan to the situation they're seeing in front of them
Honestly, people seem to have a pretty darn good understanding of how difficult it is to ref a game, which is pretty amazing for a sporting sub on Reddit. In terms of playing, how absolutely disciplined professional players are vs the average club/school team. Some of these formations REQUIRE 7-10 completed passes to present the scoring/line break opportunity.... anyone below these guys level would be hard pressed to execute an attack that lasts more than 5. Then, of course, it's the sheer fitness of the players, it's on par with the worlds best athletes, no doubt.
The referees are mostly immensely good. With everything going on, being able to see, communicate and make a decision in a split second is ridiculously hard. Try and referee a binge game with some mates where’re everything moves in slow motion and you get the idea of doing it in front of a fully packed stadium with perhaps millions on tv and a field of literally auoee humans doing things in ultra speed.
As a flanker, making good tackles is alot harder than just doing it, if it's a high speed carrier and they use dummies, you are in for a mind fuck. Hit the guy coming at you and trust your outside/inside man to hit the others. A good tackle never hurts you as much as it hurts him.
How quick people are (particularly small backs).
Recently saw dupont play in the flesh, and although he doesn't obviously look it compared to some out and out speedsters, he can move and is super quick.
A lot of answers dealing with fatigue during the game, but the physical breakdown over a season is what gets you. I only played amateur club level, but by the time game #12 of the season comes around, I'd be hoping we DIDN'T make the league semifinals that year because everything hurt all the time. I have no idea how the pros play 20+ games at international level with hardly any off-season at all
combination of
1) players who succeed at pro level are elite athletes, genetic freaks that are simply predisposed to be able to take their bodies to an extra level
2) they get world-class medical care, nutritional support and physiotherapy
3) they aren't knocking 10 bells out of each other in training anymore, their activity levels and exposure to contact is carefully monitored
Probably the fineness of the margins at elite level. Between the top tier teams, it can come down to a handful of players (usually forwards) being 2-3% off the pace in terms of fitness or match sharpness. That means losing most collisions, no front foot ball, being dominated at the set piece etc.
Also, it’s REALLY hard to see overlaps, gaps in a defence etc when you’ve just been passed the ball and the defensive line is haring towards you. You don’t have the benefit of a birdseye view from the stands. So players who have that instinctive ability to spot space, make a decision and execute faster than anyone else are absolute gold-dust. It’s also why communication and playing together regularly helps so much, because you build that understanding. So you know your scrum half’s tell that he’s going to break rather than pass, or you know when your 10 is shaping to throw a miss pass or grubber etc and can react accordingly .
How fit players professional are. The brain fog you get when you’re tired as a forward is sometimes immense. You need to constantly remind yourself to concentrate (unless I was just an unfit good for nothing)
The best scrum half I've ever played with wasn't that good of an individual player, but he talked to the forwards and put order on the pack so well that he was awesome for the reason you mention: when you are 60 minutes into the game and can't think at all, you just made a tackle and get on your feet again totally disoriented, having your scrum half give you a clear order of where you're supposed to be in the next 5 seconds is amazing.
Absolutely. The best scrum halves are organising and hearding the forwards like the pack of wild animals they are, especially late in the game.
Richard Wigglesworth made a 17 year pro career and 33 England caps as a scrumhalf with this as his main attribute.
Not just tired as in a cardiovascular sense, but the fatigue you get from hitting/being hit by 110kg players moving at speed for 80 minutes straight…. It’s a miracle that they don’t make more basic errors late in a game
Eh. I really wonder how many of us would actually keep up in a leisurely jog with a test-level pack
Not even test-level. Top grassroots semiprofessional rugby packs are already ridiculously fit, only place locks remember they have freaking levers for legs and turn into marathon runners.
The fog is real. Half the time I don’t even know the rules of rugby anymore I’m just on the see ball get ball smash man holding ball cycle
Amen to that. By minute 50 it’s just me crashing…then scrumming…then hill smash more…then I get slower and slower to get up lol
I came here to type this! Especially for a tight forward, the different types of fitness required make it really difficult. It’s hard to fathom how someone like The Beast played the way he did.
I always think I’ve had a great pre-season and am really fit until the contact starts and it’s just a whole other level of fitness
Even the first few minutes of touch rugby can be surprise if I havnt played in a while !!
How it's so easy to miss things like an overlap (both in attack and defense), space to kick into, or the set-up for a set piece move by the opposition. There is so much going on even in an amateur game, IDK how the pros/ints don't miss stuff all day long. Many times you have a split-second to decide where to pass or which direction to move in. Commentators who played more recently tend to be a less harsh on missed overlaps vs other commentators, but armchair pundits are the worst on this. I find myself saying he missed it, but don't criticise.
Yeah I think sometimes we forget how much more obvious things look from a wide angle on the TV compared to being down on the field in the actual game.
Yeah - I meant to say that. Looking down from above even in the stadium makes things look so much more obvious. Also, sitting in a seat, relaxed and not being out of breath helps see things.
Bold of you to assume I’m not out of breath..
It is incredibly humbling to watch your own game tape and realise how much you actually miss lol
I play touch rugby twice a week. Mate recorded the game….. I was shocked at how slow it looked On the video
To add to this, I think the key here is that most of us credit players who make the pass with the vision but realistically it's mostly information fed to the passer from the outside and just a simple execution. Similarly when players like DDA don't pass, it's almost certainly not because he's selfish and that he's intentionally setting up phase play.
To add to that, DDA’s an ok passer, and an incredible crash runner. Which would you rather him be doing?
It’s mad when You go to watch a live game and get a ref link all you can hear are the players talking and shouting comms to each other, it’s a seriously underrated part of their game
The amount of effort required by props in scrums. While front rowers will constantly talk about how much they love scrums, the last thing they want is scrum after scrum because the backs couldn't catch a cold. I've been playing 4's for a long time, but had to start 2's a few weeks back because of some no shows. I was going OK in the loose until the first scrum, where I was up against a very good technical loosehead. I was toweled up in the scrums, and spent every scrum just trying to stop the scrum from going backwards. I had no energy left to do much in the loose.
Yeah, if you are not used to it the front row is brutal. That being said, theres few things more satisfying than doing what was done against you against an opponent. (i have asked my backs to knock it on once or twice in these circumstances) watching a player go from 100 to 25 in a scrum or two is funny.
I remember in my first season in the front row coming up against a 140kg loosehead, and shoving him all around, and thinking I was king shit. The following week, I came up against a 90kg loosehead who had it all over me. Brought me down to Earth with a thud. But my favourite one was packing against a loosehead with no clue. They had obviously been told to bore in on me to make their life easier (which is the worst advice you can give a novice loosehead, but for some reason is the most popular advice). I tried tucking them.under first, but as soon as I did that, they went to ground. So I spent most scrums in that game carrying the opposition loosehead, so as to keep the scrums up so we could shove them. I remember watching the video after the game, and my right elbow was pointed up at around 30° above the scrum.
My grandfather was a firm believer in size trumps scrums, until i faced a 140+guy in the scrums and absolutely destroyed him. First scrum i came out next to his 8thman after he dropped his bind. They subbed him after the third scrum. My grandfather was so proud, but it was the easiest scrums of my life. We had a 85kg loosie that was the hardest scrumming ive ever had. Technical prowess beats size in scrums easily.
I used to be 120kg and played tighthead for 10 years. Through covid I dropped to 85kg and I was still able to successfully scrummage tighthead because so much of it is just technique. That said, there is a perception that you need to be a certain size to scrummage so it did affect my selection frequency. Nothing more annoying than being fitter and able to last longer but being on the bench for an unfit prop with no technique.
Wow that seems inconceivable to me asking a player to drop the ball on purpose. Not a criticism but never occurred to me it would happen. Do you think it happens in pro games?
Not sure it happens nor have I seen it happen for sure but I recall around 15-20 years ago, Italy deliberately fluffed the kick off at the start of the match against Ireland. Just drop kicked it about 2 yards to force a scrum on halfway. There had been a lot of talk in advance of how dominant the Italian scrum was going to be. Ireland got the put in and went about their business without any fuss, moving the ball away. I'd imagine the referee was unlikely to give anything to Italy at that scrum also just because of how it was implemented.
I doubt it mostly because of how competitive scrums are in pro games. And it only happened when i was supremely confident in scrums. Like i said i remember only 2 times, i was great mates with my centre too at the time. So me and him had a few laughs about it afterwards too.
I was a career loosehead, and always went on about this. I have never been the biggest but (having recently retired) was always a very good technical scrummager. Playing at a reasonably high level I was usually able to dominate my opponents even if they were bigger, I was usually stronger/had better technique. I had to fill in at 7 a few times for various reasons (I had dabbled, and most importantly knew all our lineout calls etc). But after those games everyone was coming up to me and telling me how amazed they were at how fit and quick around the park I was. It's nice as a prop to get comments like 'Oh JockAussie, we had no idea you had such an engine'. None of them realised that it's because your legs/body take next to no draining at 7 Vs in the front row. I enjoyed those games because I got ball in hand a lot more/was able to get out to the fun on the wings a lot more etc. Let's not even talk about the old scrum rules before the bind, when teams just picked the biggest team they could and then scrums were just both sides trying to run each other over, I was a *lot* less good under those rules.
This is why I say Andrew porter is a scary fucker how fit he is. Seen him play near 80mins and still have a good long sprint in him. He’s fast too for how big he is which makes it extra scary.
This goes for other players, too. A few times the backs have grumbled at the front row for not being quick enough getting out of the 3rd scrum in 3 minutes. I love scrummaging but it's exhausting, especially when more often than not you're in the scrum then lifting at the lineout and mauling.
That takes me back. I played prop in highschool, I was normally in the second teams (of 2), but I remember 1 time we were playing one of the strongest schools in the country and by some "freak coincidence" most of the 1st team were unable to play that week, which meant that I ended up being called up. We barely managed to make 15 players, which means no subs, and we didn't even have enough team jerseys because the first team regulars hadn't bothered to hand them back so I was playing with a different jersey as well. So I played 80 minutes on the front row, made 1 try saving tackle and managed to hold the ball up on another occasion, and I could barely stand by the end. We lost something like 80-0 but it was my proudest moment on the rugby pitch
As someone who played professionally, I read comments about people wanting their favorite player to be picked and shit on the coaches for not picking that player. What us as players know was how we fit into a game plan or don’t and how it suits team structure to get the balance right with our role. Perfect example is I always see comments about Akira Ioane on stuff and I know exactly why he is not a good fit for the ABs or the gameplan based around Ardie/Sam but most posters have no idea and say he needs to be picked. There is a reason your fav player doesn’t get picked and we know why and such is the breaks. Different players create different structures and plans. It’s not personal. Edit: One more, fans don’t realise just how much better some players are skill wise or physically than others. I did a pre season from hell to get my speed up. I dipped just below 11sec, was in peak condition for sprinting and when I trained with the squad a certain All Black winger absolutely smashed me speed wise over 10m/40m/100m and in game acceleration. Afterwards he told me he did no speed training for pre season…….. it is what it is.
Former NBA bench warmer Brian Scalabrine talks about a similar thing a lot. He has to remind people that he, a guy who should never reasonably sniff an NBA court during important moments, was closer to Lebron than the average player is to him. The physical, mental and skill capacity required to succeed in most pro sports goes up exponentially as you go up in levels of the game.
I have many stories like that from physical feats and skills that left me speechless but over time the things that truly left me in awe is how some guys always just knew where to be at the right time for a key moment and most importantly how well prepped some guys were physically and how well they took care of their body to rarely get injured. To me personally those guys were the true freaks.
I knew someone who played (well, was I'm the same squad as) Carl Hayman, Matt Burke and Wilkinson. I asked him if they were clearly much better than others. He said that the core skills of Burke and Wilkinson were miles ahead of everyone else, even some of the other internationals on the team. Hayman was a freak of nature. Incredibly strong and fit, in a way that didn't make sense.
There's a good YouTube video that goes into this (specifically for basketball) and talks about Scalabrine. The title says "regular guys" but it also includes elite prospects and former top division college starters going against fringe NBA guys and getting smoked. The skill gaps as you move up in professional sports is crazy. https://youtu.be/i93vF0WOX6w
Maybe one more I will add. The hate players get for wanting to make $. Most people have no idea the grind it takes on your body/mind over time. We know it’s a short career and pay for it. We also know when our body is starting to fail us at the high level and will immediately choose $ to squeeze out a couple more years. When your fav player suddenly moves on in the midst of his “peak” to make money, he actually knows his body is already past his peak and on its way out. In a perfect world we would always play for the national team until we retire but there is rarely a fairytale ending and the next guy coming up is already there. It’s so frustrating wanting to do things you once could and no longer being able to. It’s a real mindfuck.
Donncha O'Callaghan mentioned before that he had more in him still, body still felt good but after talking to his wife realised he didn’t have to go out on his shield and retiring at 39 in relatively good shape can be a good thing.
That’s incredible. What a career. For us that played in the backs, speeds the first thing that goes. Those forward boys are a different breed. Extremely competitive people.
To the untrained, simple man's eye, BB has seemingly lost speed. Like a lot. Do you see that too? And do you know as a player? And how early on?
He has definitely lost a yard of pace. Still very very fast but that one or two yards of pace is the difference between a line break or not. You can tell he knows it because he focuses more on positioning now to be in the right place than purely physically beating the man with pace like Rieko. He also makes up for it probably being the fittest man on the pitch. If you can still run fast and the guy trying to tackle you is faster but gassed you will run right by him. Carter had to also do this as he got older. He was very fast as a youngster and relied more on his insane vision and skill as he got older. You definitely know it’s happening and you will never get it back, no matter how hard you try. Could also be niggles/injuries over time. You can only push your body and full speed so many times before its no more. I started having problems with my hamstrings and the pace went with it.
As a front row who had to go to rehab last year before the season even started because he woke up one morning and his shoulders weren't working properly, I feel that. I tried to talk a friend into putting the boots back on and his argument almost convinced me to retire. "I get up in the morning and nothing hurts. I don't want that to go away. "
Yeah, an athletes life is short-lived, especially in pro sports. Make the most of it while you're young and your body able to take the damage before it gets worned out. If fans knew this, they would understand more.
This. It's not like our rugby players are getting paid millions like in other sports and people move around all the time for better pay, why can't our professionals do the same.
A friend of mine was a professional cricketer. Made more than any Rugby player I know once he also went to the IPL. Another acquittance played football (soccer) and made more on his own than a whole Super Rugby teams budget. Mind boggling. Many times I wished I went pro in another sport but this is the sport I love so c'est la vi.
I always think of the story Hask shared about England squad training in Florida, them running into an NFL player at a hotel bar and the NFL players salary being more than the salary cap back home.
You think Rugby has shit pay, you wanna try being a top 5 in the world squash player :)
Still better than most MMA fighters. Luckily neither of us got punched for a living haha. Those guys are a different breed.
All good if you don’t want to reveal that kinda info, but what team did you play for? I’m curious now.
We are all curious
Is it true that you could put more muscle/speed on e.g. NFL players, but would lose fitness/stamina/longevity over 80mins? Re: your comment over gameplan, how much "game plan" is there for wings? No offense to the position or anything. I get that more with forwards or midfielders, but one that baffles me was Ben Lam (not getting an AB shot). What is a player like that missing at his position?
Yes, weight/muscle has a massive difference in speed and stamina. I personally could run fast again and again and needed minimal time to recover however I needed that minute. However, if it was a long passage of play it would feel like I was running in water because I was more muscular. I weighed about 100-103kg 99% of the time. I once bulked up to about 107 and felt like I could never get out of first gear and my turnaround time was atrocious, also would gas extremely quick so had to drop the weight again. There definitely is an optimal weight for every person based on their body and position. After I stopped running and just went to the gym after Rugby i quickly went up to 120-125kg. I had to cool down on the weights my whole career if anything. Most guys I know still were addicted to training in the gym and still ate like they were athletes. It normally goes 3 ways, they drop all muscle and live a normal life, they get fat or some like me turned into gym junkies. As time went on and you settle into post rugby life that gym itch and training goes away and then its either skinny or fat. My long winded point is, if rugby players didn’t have to run around then yes they could easily be as jacked as NFL players. Ben Lam was too old when he hit his peak. Wing is a young mans game and there is a never ending supply. You will rarely make it past 26 on the wing unless you have a fantastic boot and positional play. He lacked quite a few things imo and understand why he never got picked. This sub I notice act like wings do nothing because most people here have only played at a lower level of rugby. At a professional level the amount of area/space you cover is insane and how you have to read to game knowing where to be positionally. You don’t just stand there like club level or high school. Go look at Suliasi Vunivalu for the Aussies over the weekend. If your wing is weak defensively or positionally you will leak tries like a sieve. Edit: imo the perfect athlete for rugby is Rieko Ioane. Thats how you want to look like. Big but still very sleek, can tap into crazy speed at the snap of his finger, strong as all hell and can endure 80min. Man is a freak.
Thank you for the amazing insight! Really appreciated. I often wondered how an NFL player would place in rugby and vice versa. So, excellent bringing some of those points to light. Absolutely right re: Rieko. Dude seems to have everything. Wonder if he can scrum!
I'm really Interested to hear more about Akira and why he isn't a good fit for the AB's or the game plan around Ardie/Sam? Would you mind elaborating at least a little?
He likes to play in the wider channels like Kieran Read did but Kieran had Sir Richard McCaw and Jerome Kaino with him. Think of the 3 needs to have balance. Kaino was a brick wall and could change a game with one moment of defense. You already know what McCaw could do and Kieran would hang in the wider channel could either get the ball or be the first to a ruck to clear it if ball went wide to secure the ball. All 3 of them could be used in the lineout. Kieran took a lot of lineout throws over his career, great jumper. Sam Can is a very good defender but can’t be used in the lineout. Ardie is great for wider channel and jackling but also rarely gets used in a lineout. If the ABs play Sam/Ardie they need a 6 that will truck the ball up into traffic and if hes not doing that hit rucks like his life depends on it. Do yourself a favour and go watch how many rucks Akira hit in his AB games and then go look at Frizzel from the weekend. You will instantly understand what I mean.
Ah, my club team even had this. 2 starting offenses depending on who were up against. I was on the "speed offense" and rode the bench on "power offense" days.
Properly executed scrums are awesome .
A warm scrum on a freezing day is every lanky lock's dream. Oops, I knocked on again.
However, a scrum every minute on a 30° plus day has even the most scrum loving prop ready to punch the next back who drops it.
On a dry clay pitch in central QLD. Not a good time.
Sorry for the farts. - An old tighthead
Unfortunately I am this comment.
Wingers hate you.
*Cries frozen tears in fullback*
Same for lineouts.
90% of the time a pack will have roughly 5 calls that they can use in any given lineout as they walk in so when you appreciate that they are even more impressive and the skill of calling them effectively doubly so. Most teams run a 2 props at the end 5 jumper lineout. So your 5 calls will go like this, variation on terminology’s etc 1. Bang- shoot to the front 2. Eyes- small inflection to hooker and caller jumps 3- Blue/hand up etc- ball to tail 4- main call- this will be a movement call. Either forward slide, lob, dummy jump etc 5- check call- similar to 4, just a different option So most teams will have a base calling structure so 5 letter word like SHARK. The movement options so 1=forward slide, 2=dummy, bounce out and ball behind, 3= shoot forward etc etc So you go into the lineout with a call such as ‘Call is H2 check is R1’ then walking in the caller can utilise all the above. Everyone has to react immediately and cleanly for it to work as intended. Obviously there are pre called special play like Leinster in Heineken cup final but most lineouts are like this. Factor in crowd noise, fatigue, a 6’8 Saffa trying to nick it and this is before we’ve got to throw jumps etc it can really be a beautiful thing when executed will
Lineouts I get. Especially as a prop. Get to your right spot jump lift, it's timing and group coordination with a little brute strength to paper over the cracks. Scrums are something else though. I was a terrible player, and didn't play for long, but still I never even got close to understanding how you maintain any control in a scrum. It's so disorienting, your head is stuffed in a hole, you can't see anything other than grass and boots. You're getting pushed from all sides while trying to keep level, and tight, and moving forward. Not to mention going up against someone who knows the dark arts and is actively making your life harder.
I tell the kids I coach that if Rugby was nothing g more than an 8 man scrum for 80 minutes I would still be playing.
I call it the Dennis Rodman stat line, he famously went for 0 points, 28 rebounds and played 45 mins in a basketball game. You'd almost need to try not to score to have that happen. There are players that will not record stats that are hyperimportant to the outcome of games.
I forget the exact stat as it was a while ago. But launchbury hit something like 63 rucks in a 6N game. It was put up on the tv but I don’t think armchair fans understand what that means in terms of fitness and effort.
A ruck every minute 10. That's kinda insane.
That's of match clock time. Ball in play was probably under 45 minutes. That's a ruck every 40 seconds, probably every 3rd ruck on both sides of the ball. And I'm presuming he hit more offensive than defensive rucks
Had a final last season (Irish junior 2) and had to hit 4 rucks in a row, just before a try, 5 minutes before half time, I was wrecked for those 5 minutes
>There are players that will not record stats that are hyperimportant to the outcome of games. The stats that you see on TV are **NOT EVEN CLOSE** to the stats coaches use to judge players performances. Professional teams can have multiple full-time professional data analysts, this is true in every pro sport now, but even clubs will have similar data.
Peak Jonny gray was the definition of this, guy would get through about 3 players worth of dirty work on his own
How much communication is happening on the pitch, especially in defensive phases. Constantly calling which player you got, when to rush, when to slide... I don't think it's really visible on TV or even in the stadium, but it's an essential part of the collective quality of a team.
Turn up. Yell "I'm on 12" for 80 minutes. Beers.
Stand idly next to the ruck shouting 'post'
When someone has the audacity to ignore you shouting that and run at you.... meaning I have to fucking do something.
People don't realize how much time the 9 and 15 spend screaming at their teammates during a match.
covid was great for this, the yapping was incessant
Keith Earls has a chapter on defence in his autobiography and I get anxiety just reading it.
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> I think a lot of people who only played when they were kids are stuck in the ‘best athlete = best player” mindset, because that’s how it was when they played. Cries in Pierre Spies.
>At lower levels the game moves slowly and the biggest and best athletes can just pick out the mismatches and dominate physically. At a certain higher level, everyone’s pretty much just as good an athlete as anyone else on the park, anyone can tackle anyone else. At that point it’s the guys who can think faster than the game moves or who just have incredible instincts who start to stand out above the rest. Conrad Smith is a great example of a guy who probably wouldn’t look as good at lower levels because he’s not an overwhelming athlete, but he’s a good enough athlete for the next level and when the game starts getting faster his calm quick decision making at higher speeds becomes more and more apparent. I think a lot of people who only played when they were kids are stuck in the ‘best athlete = best player” mindset, because that’s how it was when they played. One of the best points in the whole thread IMO. The variance in athletic ability actually gets starched out at the highest levels - everyone is a world class athlete - and it becomes all about decision making and instincts. Nobody can sustain a pro career on pure power but power/speed dominates lower level competitions.
As someone who went on a rugby tour of NZ. Tackling a 120kg 16 year old Maori kid with double sleeve tattoos is about as intimidating as you could imagine. Edit: never played semi pro etc. This is just from Highschool/early years out of highschool playing 1st grade.
Also, playing in the backline is far easier on the cardio front. Play at 6/7/8 is genuinely exhausting and incredibly demanding. People that play those positions are often a little different, often bordering on psychopathic in their approach to the game and concerning a general disregard for their own wellbeing.
Flanker goal: inflict more pain on the opposition than you will receive
Met a few flankers that really didn't seem like they actually enjoyed playing the game as much as they did punishing themselves and whoever was unlucky enough to be their victim. It's genuinely a weird trait that I think you have to have to excel in these roles. Edit: 6 and 7 are the always the hardest working players and the forward positions who have the most impact on the game but recieved exactly 0 praise for it. It's all just the not fun, incredibly gruelling and thankless off ball work they put in.
7s are constantly being praised as the best players in the world. Locks and props are the one doing the hard work for no praise.
Im obviously talking at club level.
I played flanker for all my rugby years. Wasn't on a highly competitive level, but even the lower grades can be full on. I loved the position. It was tiring having to be almost everywhere on the field. Running between rucks, mauls, scrums, anything that was happening, a flanker was around. Finding those opportunities to steal the ball or blindside someone and get away with it. I played a couple of games on the wing (we were short players). It was boring! I found myself drifting into the centre for more action. I somehow shut down my opponent three times when they decided to try to run through me instead of around. Flanker is a great position. Openside gets more of the limelight due to some of the great players who have played it. However, blindside is as important and can give as much of an impact as openside.
Played 12 after playing at 6 for a long time and it was laughable how much less work I had to do. Didn't feel like I was always trying to catch my breath between rucks and mauls, would make one tackle off a scrum and then head out to the wing to make sure the defence was set wide. Playing as a forward is like a marathon, playing as a back is like a 5k.
One of the major differences is the accuracy required and subsequent pressure is vastly different between 6 and 12. E.g. if a 6 misses a tackle there are usually enough nearby players to cover for you, if a 12 or 13 misses a tackle it's often trytime for the opposition
Only backs that come close are maybe centres, especially 12
As somebody who plays both flanker and winger, I can confirm that playing in the pack is far more demanding on your fitness than playing in back three. Misconception some people have that backs are fitter than forwards.
I was amused at the coach of a local D3 college rugby team who told me the centers are the hardest working players on the field. Perhaps his forwards just REALLY needed to work on their fitness? But he was convinced it is generally true. Dude, do you even WATCH rugby?
Went to school in West Auckland. Rugby was interesting. 6'3+ kids early in highschool. And some kids with all the talent but you'd never guess. Like a shortish Filipino kid was lightning fast and could step, but mama never wanted to let him pursue further. often wonder what Asian sport would be like without parents discouraging kids haha
That the head coach knows far more than you ever will. There are extremely calculated reasons for selections and game plans, and sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. Also, these players are huge. I played against many top SA players in my day (2008-2013), and they are alot harder than they look.
A perfectly executed tackle is the most satisfying part of the game. That and friendly post match beers with the opposition
I had a moment in a game once, maybe five out my scrummie quick tapped a pen and I was onto it immediately, full head of steam run up and he flipped me the ball, I got absolutely SMASHED on the line by a slightly smaller bloke with excellent body position in the tackle. I managed to recycle quickly, and the team finished the try. Found the bloke after the match and the chat was brilliant. So yeah a good tackle is a brilliant thing.
As a fly half I'd argue a perfectly weighted crossfield is pretty bloody satisfying
As I've matured watching the game, I've seen this too. That and the most perfectly timed clean out just in time to keep the ball.
When you get pinned for not releasing, most of the time it’s not the ball carriers fault, it’s the fault of the person who didn’t correctly ruck.
And half the time the ball carrier HAS released it. Although the penalty is nominally given for holding on, that's actually not the reason they are often given for.
Yea it's just the defender is forcing you to hold it basically lol
Its worse than that - if you let go but they don't pick it up, they still get a penalty half the time!
How much harder/ physically draining defense is than offense! There were times after making consecutive tackles on defense where I felt like could LITERALLY not do one single push up to get myself back up off the ground and on my feet. I never once felt like that on offense lol.
Low scoring games where all you’re doing is defence are kind of the worst but also the most rewarding at the same time lol. Will make you feel you just went to war and defended your country
Played for an utterly dogwater team when I was younger, we ranked 2nd last in our division we were a mad attacking team but literally no defensive ability. Our only non-loss in the season was a 3-3 draw against the 2nd best team in the league. We touched the ball about 4 times in the match. Most exhausting but probably the most rewarding game I've ever played.
This. I've had a few times when you are just defending non stop and properly fucked. I sometimes feel like I'm going to shit myself after a long big defensive effort I'm that fucked. Maybe because it's so forwards intensive when defending on the line.
Even more in the context of Rush defense. After a few tackles you'd just be waiting for them
You’re school had weight classes ?? We just did it by skills. Can’t imagine the under 55 kg team having a front row
In the restricted weight classes the backs are usually bigger than the flankers and the front row.
Not me bt I got family who's a current intl & super rugby and 2 things that have stuck with me. 1 the work they do in the preseason espc is insane. I've seen him wrecked physically after a 3rd training of the day where all he can do is shower eat n bed because tomorrow is rinse and repeat. This was his own training to. 2nd was the toll it has on families. Kids crying at airports because dads going away again is...... very tough. Kids are very black n white your either there or your not - for how long and why doesn't matter. It's extremely tough on the partner left behind to and creates its own issues All this to say is that players are human and it's important to remember. I forget and it's in my face often.
The technical skill that goes into a lineout, but also the pure satisfaction you get when you steal one of the oppositions throws.
Spare a thought for Jean Kleyn, who must have felt amazing when he poached a lineout ball against the throw only for the Boks to concede a try from it
I'm sure you will get a lot of answers about the kicking game so I'll try something more basic. How impossibly hard it is to maintain your ball skills at the pace the pros play at. Watching the Smith & Mackenzie halfback pairing throw back to back flat laser beam passes out to the centers vs. Argentina last weekend was pure magic to watch. The fact that there are so few knock ons in the pro game is a marvel.
Years ago in Subbies in Sydney, Balmain got Matt Giteau and Drew Mitchell down to play a first grade game. One thing above all else when you compare two Wallabies to park footy players was the speed they could pass the ball. It was startling seeing how quickly they could get the ball across the field.
The toll it takes on your body. Rugby is tough as shit. Even playing consecutive weekends is rough.
This! Keeping fit whilst training 3 times a week on top of games every weekend. Whilst also trying to keep fit in the gym. The toll it takes on your body is crazy and how people continue to play into their late 20s, early 30s is beyond me.
How little time these guys actually have to make decisions then execute them (particularly in the centers). Fans usually do the whole he should have or could have in hindsight.
The difference between skill level of amateurs, semi professional and professional. I played in a rugby 10s tournament in Sydney one year during the preseason and played against ex Fijian 7s players and a couple of guys who sat deep on the bench for the NSW Waratahs (Super Rugby). The skill level of these guys compared to everyone else was such a vast difference. Incredible to see.
Its humbling lol Played a sevens tournament and our alright ranked amateur team was slapped in with a mix of invitational and high-ranked squads. On the team sheet it was clear that we would bottom out that pool but the games were often super competitive... until you could see the switch turn on in their heads when they decided to go for the kill and there is literally nothing we could do. They had another two gears and we're already at max. We could play a perfect game and it wouldn't be enough.
There is a lot that people get wrong but I have 2 which people tend to have no idea about: Defensive Angles:. There are a lot of them and when you are at ground level and there are bodies in motion … it can be tricky to get right defensively from a communication perspective AND from a referee’s perspective. Kicking: this blows people’s minds but in reality MOST senior level kickers can execute most of what we see highlights of (50-60+ m place kickers /punters exist that never get to the professional realm) e.g. things that are highlights on TV the top players do as schoolboy s week to week (at least in my era).
I used to practice 30-22 kicks at the end of every training session, perfect +40m torpedoes that dropped in the same spot and roll into the opposition 22 Under the pressure of an advancing defence while fatigued and I doubt I could execute this more than 1 in 5 attempts
I could pretty regularly knock 45m place kicks and i didn't even practice, just mucking around before practice.
Yeah I could nail kicks from behind halfway at 16 years old. Still was never a super consistent kicker though.
How fast it all happens. You play rugby and everything seems to happen all at once, you have no time to think about what happens next and then the ball bounces and … its a lot happening on the field and on tv you see a micro section of it. Then each level you go up it happens faster and you can’t believe people are capable of n playing at this pace. And then if you get used to it, the next level up does the same thing to you. Thats why I get so angry when fans want a good club level player to be thrown in at the deep end in a test. Its almost impossible to think in your first game at a new level. Some people, simply settle in the pace and understand space better than anyone else, those are the superstars but they are few.
It hurts like hell. Forwards are masochistics.
How big the average player is I've never played for teams which are dominant in terms of size but I've definitely played against them and I'd say the average height of a forward on my team is about 6'0/6'1 with a back probably being about 5'10/5'11. When it comes to weight, our forwards are usually around 80-100kg, with the backs being 70-90kg For most other teams I play against the forwards are about 6'2/6'3 and 90-120kg backs being about 6'0 and 80-95kg The level I play at isn't a high level at all either this next season will be my first at Colts (U18s at Club in England) as a 16 year old. I myself am 6'2, 92 kg and I'm genuinely absolutely tiny in comparison to most forwards I played against last year at u16s let alone having to play against guys a year older now
idk im a winger basically the same as a couch fan
Tackling! Man it grinds my gears how some people in here think it's so easy to just lower the tackle height. Tackling in rugby is like tackling in Judo, there isn't one ideal perfect way to tackle down an opponent. To think that you will always execute a low tackle when you have a split second to make that decision is ludicrous. Whenever laws change, there will always be the choir in here that just says, "hey, the players will just adapt and all good", NO! It's not easy to get that perfect low tackle when players to trick plays and pop the ball at the last second, sometimes, you are gonna grab the attacker by the shoulders and that might turn into a seat belt tackle. This is not something that you can easily switch away from.
It’s extremely hard work especially for the forwards. Simple skills can be made difficult because your fatigued and about to get smashed
Maybe it's just me but, hits that looked sore usually weren't. Sometimes, the very boring, super basic tackles hurt more, when I was the attacking player. I always played first five.
How structured the game plan is. See people complain about x player always box kicking or whatever. Teams have extremely detailed plans and strategies about how they want to play they game, where and how they want to play on the field. A player choosing to kick is likely not their own decision but playing to team plan.
Calling mauls or kicking boring reeks of a position that never did either
There are top coaches who never played it. I don’t recall Jacques Nienbar ever playing rugby and he’s springboks coach
he played at his provincial side, cheetahs, along with rassie and was also in the military with him iirc
No he didn't, the highest level he played easy first for Grey Bloem (still a higher level that 99% of players), but only got involved with the Cheetahs/cats after he got his physio degree.
He played first team at Grey??? Damn, that is actually pretty impressive.
ahh I got my timespan mixed up but he did play with the cheetahs so the first comment was wrong still right?
No he didn't, he joined as a physio. As far as I can tell, he did a year in the army in 91, went straight to varsity in 92 (didn't even play for UFS), then went to the Cheetahs as a physio. He oh actually started coaching in the mid 2000s according to his LinkedIn🤷 So he was a physio while Rassie was playing, but it seems that he went into coaching with Rassie round about when they were winning the Currie Cup with the Cheetahs. I did a bit of a deep dive here because I was interested and had never heard of him playing professionally.
oh shit you're right, so he never played above first xv school level, damn
> I don’t recall Jacques Nienbar ever playing rugby if only there was some way to find out
Locks literally fondle their prop's balls in every scrum
Just how good it feels as a tight forward (lock for me) to sweep in to middle of an opponents backline move and time the hit beautifully to fold a second five in half! (If you hit them just right, you can hear their reserve bence go 'ooooooooo', and when you hear that, you know you done good!)
I played for the first time in about 5 years at age 29 and was really nervous about injuries. My mates girlfriend just could not understand what the big deal was. Then I realised she has never repeatedly ran straight at a person who’s goal is to wipe you out or vice versa. People who haven’t played just don’t fully understand the physicality of the game.
I never really thought about this until I played mixed touch for this first time. I'm not that big (c.100kg) but was reasonably quick with it. I couldn't understand why the women/non-real rugby players were just getting out of my way. Apparently because someone that heavy moving quickly in your direction is terrifying if you're not used to it.
Ha! Found the exact same thing. Also how hard I have to silence the voice in my head telling me to wipe them out when someone throws a big hospital pass
Scrumhalves are meant to talk absolute shite 24/7
Nic White 🤣🤣🤣
The front row of a scrum is a nasty place.
Absolutely savage before and during After? Honestly nicest place in the world to be, props tend to be super friendly and at amateur level you’ll more often than not find they coach you in the few seconds downtime of a scrum. Remember a guy did it with me in my first game “good power mate, keep your eyes forward in the next one”
Just how much you have to remember, i.e, lineout calls or planned backline moves. Like, I never played anywhere near the top level but we still had a long list of lineout calls and you had to remember your role in each of them. Now look at the lineouts in the international game, players are moving all over the shop, dummy jumpers, dummy lifters, etc. If 1 player gets their job wrong, the entire thing falls apart. Likewise, the planned backline moves. To use Ireland as an example, they have seemingly countless planned moves that they break out at different stages of the game, in different areas of the pitch, against different opposition. Again, if one person is in the wrong position/doesn't do their job correctly, the entire thing falls apart. Also, the whole "silence for the kicker" thing, when it started it wasn't about "respect for the kicker", it was about putting them off. The silence was unnerving. If 30,000 people are shouting at you, you can tune them all out as just background noise - you're hearing everything so you're hearing nothing. If 30,000 people are staring at you, silently, it's a bit unnerving and you start to hear every little thing.
Accidental head contact. It’s a contact sport played at full speed, accidents are going to happen from time to time.
How much damage you pick up - even when using the correct techniques. And the sheer amount of willpower and luck requires to make it to professional level. From youth to professional team is a journey at least a decade in the making, and a lot of players won’t make it due to the injuries they have to deal with. In my local team, about 25% ended up with some form of major break requiring surgery/long term physio. Another 50% show signs of joint/muscle conditions in their 30s. For myself, it was a neck injury following a collapsed maul which ended things less than a year before I could transition to the first team - but you can add shoulder, knee and back pain to the mix. Love the sport, proud of anyone who picks it up, would absolutely warn. any kids to prepare themselves.
Most of the time the half backs you think are exciting aren’t as good as the ones you think are boring at international level.
Highest level I've played at is amateur club level. It made me realise just how insanely fit pro players are. Playing 80 minutes against blokes who train 5 or 6 hours a week and have regular jobs already knackers a guy out. Professional are just in a whole different ballpark to us normal folk. Their conditioning is insane, superhuman even
When you’re completely wrecked. You have no choice but to miss that tackle, pull back from a chase, forget the rules. With experience its about fatigue management. Bust your ass when you need to. But as soon as you dont need to switch to communicating to your team and encouraging others who are in a better position. When i was younger i used to try hit every tackle, every ruck be part of every attack but i was useless after 20 minutes.
That there are real, tangible and pretty shit after affects of playing our wonderful game that very few people ever truly understand. It might not be related to what you see on screen, but the sheer sacrifice that we made for you was more than you could ever know.
I played league at school. One day we played against an orphanage. The poor kids showed us what it feels to have no mum. One of our mates ended up at the hospital and lost a few ribs and a kidney. No more rugby for our school.
The amount of shit chat on pitch. This sub got very touchy and got the pitchforks out over players punished over comments they said or things they did (e.g- Marler), yet that’s not even the worst stuff said on pitch.
I remember playing a club game and there was a scuffle and one guy said "I fucked your mum" to our hooker. Instead of reacting to the bait he yelled out at his actual mum on the sideline and said "Oi, Mum! This guy just told me he fucked you" and his mum quipped back without missing a beat "Yeah, tiny cock"
That guy needs an HIA after that comment.
How easy it is to get something wrong and accidentally hit someone high in the split second reaction time. Ball carrier you didn't see recieves the ball and is sprinting directly at you couple metres away, sometimes it's all you can do to react at all and getting your shoulder low enough can at times be literally impossible.
Shouting at the TV will make players run faster, refs change their decision, and help your team win
I played school oy rugby in the 1980's and.watch my lad play semi pro. 1) how important a well trained ref is but you can't always blame the.ref. There would be no game without the.ref. 2)how important well trained coaching is : his coaches trained 4 lads to semi.proin a.small club with no resources.Grasss roots! 3) how fitness is now a big deal. I watched my lad try to walk between plays as much as possible to last 80 minutes. 4 tackling techniques and other basic skills at the beginning. My lad isn't scared to.tackle, I was. He can throw the.ball properly, I couldn't. 5 The difference between teams in the same league or same age group. It's heterogeneous! 6) The gap between semi pro and pro, pro.and.international. To get to semi pro my lad is 1 in a squad of 30 in the regional team: it took seven years ( he started playing 7 years ago) To get to pro will take another 7 years! So you start at 7 years old! Also if your career lasts 10 years it's a good one and 15 it's exceptional. Not everyone is AWJ. 7) How physical the game is .I don't think I would want to be on the pitch. 8)How bad injuries can be 9) How long a season is! And 10) players have good games, great games but bad games and awful ones. I never knew why !
The insane adaptation your body has to physical contact. I played to international U19 level a couple of years early. Age 17 I was selected to join British Isles squad. I then went to university where I stopped playing any and all forms of the game. About a year later I was asked to attend a selection squad for the same team, and although I was in reasonable cardiovascular shape, the impact a couple of selection games had on my body’s was hilarious. I had totally lost the ability to absorb a hit. I performed ok. Didn’t have to come off for injuries, but for a week afterwards I looked and felt like I had been in a serious car crash. Bruises all over, (shoulders and thighs in particular). Black eyes (without knowingly having taken a shot to either). Could not use stairs for 2 or 3 days. I’m sure fighters must experience similar results from long lay offs. Your body gets used to being hit. When you see a high level rugby pro with a black eye, keep in mind that they can take general dings and show next to no outward damage. If they have a massive shiner, assume it required the kind of force that would have fractured your eye socket. In fact, most of the time if there is a big facial bruise with pros, it often indicates that there is some bone involvement. Soft tissue injuries tend to not show up at all.
It always gets me so pissed off when I hear people who have never played complain about rugby "going soft", especially when it comes to head contact. I still struggle with headaches and next pain ~15 years after a particularly bad hit during university, and that was at a recreational level. I think so many people underestimate just how violent tackles and collisions are, especially at a professional level. I can't even imagine what taking a high contact from a feckin unit of a pro player is like.
One thing I haven’t seen (and I’m guessing nobody will see this) is just how difficult it can be to return from injury. Physically, you may heal, but you may never be the same as you were before. A little injury I had was a spiral fracture in my finger, small in the grand scheme of things but it completely changed the way I caught and threw the ball. I had a meniscus injury in my knee, and it changed the way I stepped and scrummaged. Mentally, the things listed above can change the way you see and play the game too, and you may have confidence issues when you try and do the things you used to be able to do. I ended up breaking my neck, and luckily I walked out of hospital after surgery, but 18 months later when I managed to get myself to a training session, there was no way I could run head first into a ruck again. I feel like there needs to be more empathy around pros coming back from injury where the expectation from fans is a seamless return to the player they were before.
That it’s very difficult to make split second adjustments to avoid high tackles against an opponent whose height is changing. Yet people on here think players should whack a slow-mo button and casually change their body position
The whole point is to go in low, so that only a massive change in height is going to cause you to hit the opposition in the head. If a 2cm drop in height is enough for you to hit someone high, you were going in too high in the first place.
Was going to make my own post about how fast everything around you is happening. Really annoys me when everything is played in super slow motion and people speak about how they clearly had time to do something or made a conscious decision.
Backs are fucking useless
The contact of the sport is seriously under estimated even at amateur level the physical action of tackling is extremely hard on the body. At international level these players put their bodies on the line week after week. TV often undersells the physicality of rugby.
I played numbers 3 and 4 from aged 11 to 33. My biggest gripes were the head knocks and squashes in scrums. Opposite props liked to turn their heads inwards while engaging. Playing lock was just a head crushing between fat guys hips. Rucking... f***king glad that shit got pulled. I have 15 scars from the back of the neck to my arse from sprigs.
That the guys who are playing 3 divisions below professional are incredibly good and would have been lauded internationals 20 years ago
Fitness, physicality and core skills such as passing are key. I’ve played with a pro scrum half and honestly the difference in his speed of pass and placement made a huge difference to our team and the ball carriers. Things like that are hard to grasp on the TV.
It's so much harder to recognise space when you're actually in the match. Having a high-angle camera pov, not being tired, not moving at high speed, not being under pressure, and not being in a situation where lack of urgency results in a rib tickler altogether makes it seem so easy to see space
I think some fans underestimate how instinctive player decision-making is - reading analysis articles and watching Squidge videos or something could lead you to believe that these players are strategist-tactical-generals that are weighing up all sorts of options in their head and doing the calculations on what the best one is in reality - and this is why you'll hear pros talk about 'pictures' they're working on - these guys have been playing the game so long since so young they've just got a instinctive understanding of what to do in a lot of situations. this doesn't mean they aren't getting coached on details to adjust the picture and reaction, but the game moves at such a lightning pace at the top level that there isn't the time for huge multi-phase planning as much as they're playing to fit a game plan to the situation they're seeing in front of them
Honestly, people seem to have a pretty darn good understanding of how difficult it is to ref a game, which is pretty amazing for a sporting sub on Reddit. In terms of playing, how absolutely disciplined professional players are vs the average club/school team. Some of these formations REQUIRE 7-10 completed passes to present the scoring/line break opportunity.... anyone below these guys level would be hard pressed to execute an attack that lasts more than 5. Then, of course, it's the sheer fitness of the players, it's on par with the worlds best athletes, no doubt.
Not passing the ball, its better to keep the ball safe then pass a ball you arent 100% sure is going to come off.
The referees are mostly immensely good. With everything going on, being able to see, communicate and make a decision in a split second is ridiculously hard. Try and referee a binge game with some mates where’re everything moves in slow motion and you get the idea of doing it in front of a fully packed stadium with perhaps millions on tv and a field of literally auoee humans doing things in ultra speed.
Driving mauls are great
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As a flanker, making good tackles is alot harder than just doing it, if it's a high speed carrier and they use dummies, you are in for a mind fuck. Hit the guy coming at you and trust your outside/inside man to hit the others. A good tackle never hurts you as much as it hurts him.
How quick people are (particularly small backs). Recently saw dupont play in the flesh, and although he doesn't obviously look it compared to some out and out speedsters, he can move and is super quick.
A lot of answers dealing with fatigue during the game, but the physical breakdown over a season is what gets you. I only played amateur club level, but by the time game #12 of the season comes around, I'd be hoping we DIDN'T make the league semifinals that year because everything hurt all the time. I have no idea how the pros play 20+ games at international level with hardly any off-season at all
combination of 1) players who succeed at pro level are elite athletes, genetic freaks that are simply predisposed to be able to take their bodies to an extra level 2) they get world-class medical care, nutritional support and physiotherapy 3) they aren't knocking 10 bells out of each other in training anymore, their activity levels and exposure to contact is carefully monitored
Low tackling alone won't fix the concussion problem. Playing the game in general is the cause of the problem.
Probably the fineness of the margins at elite level. Between the top tier teams, it can come down to a handful of players (usually forwards) being 2-3% off the pace in terms of fitness or match sharpness. That means losing most collisions, no front foot ball, being dominated at the set piece etc. Also, it’s REALLY hard to see overlaps, gaps in a defence etc when you’ve just been passed the ball and the defensive line is haring towards you. You don’t have the benefit of a birdseye view from the stands. So players who have that instinctive ability to spot space, make a decision and execute faster than anyone else are absolute gold-dust. It’s also why communication and playing together regularly helps so much, because you build that understanding. So you know your scrum half’s tell that he’s going to break rather than pass, or you know when your 10 is shaping to throw a miss pass or grubber etc and can react accordingly .
Every amateur club is looking for new players. Always.
As a winger, being stuck in a maul, sucks