Introduction
American Football is the most popular and watched sport in the U.S today; 11 players on the field, tackling, kicking and passing the ball from player to player just to score a touchdown. It’s fascinating how much people are obsessed with the game. Tournaments and league, starting from middle-school level to high school to college football, everyone is crazy about this game. But wait there is another game often when you come across shifting through sports channels, Rugby. This usually leads to a battle between the fanatics of the two games, football vs rugby. Rugby is again quiet similar to football. Players holding an oval shaped ball and tackling through the opponent team to score a touchdown, the same rectangular field with just a little less padding. American football was actually derived from the rules and popularity of rugby in Canada when the British introduced it there. Here in this article we shall discuss the differences of football vs rugby.
History
American football is played on a rectangular field of 120 yards with goal posts on each end at an “H” or “Y” shape. 11 players are on the field at all times with unlimited substitution and playing on an artificial turf. Rugby is played on a rectangular field slightly larger (131 Yards) with goal posts at each end in an “H” shape. 15 players are on the field playing exclusively on grass in an attempt to kick the ball over the post or touch the ball at the goal line but they only have a maximum substitution of 7 players. Hence, American football vs rugby has unlimited substitutions so every player gets to have a special role. For example, a player can either be an offender, defender or part of the special team. To keep teams from having too many players on the side line, leagues usually restrict teams to 48-53 players a game. In rugby player has to both be an attacker and a defender. The team if runs out of substitutions as they are limited to 12, must simply play a man short if one of the team members gets injured.
Features
Discussions between football vs rugby always lead to a debate on which one is better. Football is only played in the U.S while rugby is a worldwide sport with New Zealand as the current champion. Most significant difference between football vs rugby is that in rugby all players are allowed to handle the ball but no kind of forward passing, blocking or time-outs are allowed. A player may kick the ball forward and chase after it. In American football, only one forward pass is allowed during a play from behind the line of scrimmage.
Tips and comments
People also consider rugby to be much safer than football. This is because in rugby any kind of tackling and blocking of a player without the ball is not allowed. In American football, this is not the case. This is also why you’ll find rugby players with much less padding than in American football. The main difference in scoring is that in American football, a touchdown requires a player only to cross the goal line which gains him 6 points but in rugby, a player must touch the ball with the ground of the goal line which gains his team only 4 or 5 points depending on leagues.
