Wraith wrote:JohnyMcmuffin wrote:
I wonder if the extra hundred pounds of angry black man is the reason that football players are bigger.
You know, I think it is.
you missed the point. My point is that the pool for potential rugby players includes people just as huge as football players, yet they are smaller on average. This speaks to shear mass not being the most important thing in rugby. The football player may hit like a freight train, but you have to remember, he is also getting hit just as hard. The human body cannot stand up to this indefinitely, so your options are to protect it with armour, or avoid it. Since football players have armour, slamming the largest people into each other is an option. Rugby players have to use other means to avoid this injury, so they tend to be smaller. So both in the end are using different methods to attempt to avoid permanent injury. Neither method is foolproof, and it's subjective as to which method of avoidance is more 'manly'. I personally support the one that requires skill and agility on the part of the player, not ingenuity on the part of armour engineers.
I just thought of another example of this. Who is less of a pussy, the Mongolian horseman or the European knight? I think these both fit the avoidence/armour parallel.
