Hidden Answers

The answers for all the questions that everybody asks but nobody knows

The Question
What are the differences between Football and Rugby?

The Answer
Okay folks, let's start slow on this one, we have to look to a lot of stuff. First we are going to look them separated, and then the two sports compare with each other. Let's start with the Football's “old man”, Rugby.

Just Rugby itself has different ways to play, the sport that I'm going to analyze is called Rugby League, the professional rugby. The game is played by 13 players on each side in two halves of 40 minutes each on a grass field with 120 meters in length and about 60 meters in width, on the middle of the field there is the 50 meter halfway, 10 meters from that there is the 40 meter line (in both sides of the field), followed by the 30, 20, and 10 meter lines and in the end there is the try lines, where they score the goal.

There is three different ways to score a point on Rugby, there is the Tries that worth 5 points, which consists in put the ball inside the try line, using the hands and not loosing control of the ball. The Penalties goals, they are place kicks from the ground, they have to pass through the crossbars on the try line area to be succeeded, they worth 2 points. And the Field Goal, they worth only 1 point and they are drop kicks during general play, as the penalty goal, it must pass through the crossbar, but it can be kicked from anywhere.

Players only can pass the ball downward, never forward. They use light equipments, like a Headgear, Mouthguard, Shoulder padding and protective vests are now becoming more commonly worn by players. The extent of the padding is limited by Regulation 12 of the International Rugby Board. This specifies that: shoulder padding will cover the shoulder and collar bone only and extend from the neck to a maximum of 2 cm down the upper arm.

Football in the other hand looks like Rugby with protection, but it is not the same thing, like the time, which is a 60 minutes long game with quarters of 15 minutes each. They play with 11 players on each side. The field is 120 yards long and 160 feet long, like in Rugby the middle filed marked as the 50 yard, and each 10 yard, it changes to 40, 30, 20, and 10 yard, and a final line called end zone.

On Football there is 5 ways to score a goal. Touchdown (six points), it happens when the player cross the end zone line and when he extends both arms vertically above the head. After a touchdown the team has the opportunity the a Try (one or two points), a try is more frequently called an extra-point attempt. Either one or two additional points may be scored during the try. The ball is spotted at the 2 yard line and the team is given one play to earn points: they can chose a kicking try or running try. The field goal (three points) is very similar to the kicking try, the ball must first be snapped to a placeholder, who holds the ball upright on the ground with his fingertip so that it may be kicked. Three points are scored if the ball crosses between the two upright posts and above the crossbar and remains over. The safety ( two points) it happens when a team pass the ball on their own end zone, the points goes to the opposite team, and its not very common. And finally the fair catch kick (three points), may be taken on the play immediately after any fair catch of a punt.

The players can pass to any directions, but there is some restrictions to where and when they can pass the ball. They use heavy and large equipments on football, they use hard helmets, mouth protectors, hard plastic shoulder, hip, tail, thigh, and knee pads.

Those are some of the major differences between Football and his father, Rugby, people says that an apple never falls far from the three, but as we can see based just on those informations, the apple usually just looks that it fell close from the tree, and that football is not a Rugby with protections, but a very different game.