League is more similar to American football than union. Even so, they are too dissimilar, and rugby requires 80 minutes of endurance in contrast to football’s short bursts of speed and power with 45 seconds of rest or less.
I do like the few posts that mentioned Bryan Habana. He is one of the few men who are almost automatic tries whenever they catch an open pass and have a few free meters in front of them.
You can tackle an airborne ballcarrier, but it’s up to the referee to judge how dangerous your tackle is. You cannot lift the ballcarrier off the ground. In general if you don’t have and aren’t near the ball, you cannot be touched.
At the physio earlier flicking through a copy of “Inside Sport”, chanced upon the weight training regime of Timana Tahu, former League player and current Union player.
Either someone is spinning BS or I’ve got it all wrong…
Tahu has 2 x 45min weight sessions per week in which he does mostly shrugs (with dumbells) and lateral raises for his shoulders. He also does dips.
He does not do leg exercises, having suffered too many injuries from doing these, and now relies on - gasp - PILATES to build those pistons.
Interesting discussion, but I have to disagree with one article linked to - Andy Sheridan, while being a complete beast and the strongest Prop in international Rugby, certainly ain’t the strongest in the world.
For starters I know competitive powerlifters who play, and I know a certain small Polish Club boasts one M Pudzianowski in the front row…
On a side note, since I stopped playing rugby regularly and switched to Football, despite team training more often I find I have been getting better results in the gym. But when I do turn out for some College rugby I’m not much more mobile now fully fit that two years ago when I was injured and carrying 20lb excess bf.
[quote]Barra wrote:
Interesting discussion, but I have to disagree with one article linked to - Andy Sheridan, while being a complete beast and the strongest Prop in international Rugby, certainly ain’t the strongest in the world.
For starters I know competitive powerlifters who play, and I know a certain small Polish Club boasts one M Pudzianowski in the front row…
On a side note, since I stopped playing rugby regularly and switched to Football, despite team training more often I find I have been getting better results in the gym. But when I do turn out for some College rugby I’m not much more mobile now fully fit that two years ago when I was injured and carrying 20lb excess bf.[/quote]
No way! Some Polish club got Pudzianowski playing!?!
Anyways, I think it’s interesting when players from different sports backgrounds employ their skills acquired from those sports into rugby.
For instance, track athletes use pure speed to beat out opponents, and football players use ferocious tackling and running skills, and usually play with a bit of an attitude.
Fuck Marius, giants get leveled on rugby fields by tiny little shits all the time. I know a couple 150lb kids that’d relish tackling him any day. Although talking about it on here and actually doing it is quite different i guess…
Whilst there are definitely 150lb kids who can easily take down 300lbers, I think you would need to compare both the 150lbers and the 300lbers.
If you get a 150lber “skinny fat” kid with poor co-ordination and timing he’s not going to be able to tackle his granny.
A ripped 150lber, maybe 5’8", with good timing and co-ordination could easily pull down a plodding 300lb tub’o’lard.
Pudzianowski - could quite happily do an “x-band walk” with a couple of 150lbers wrapped around his ankles. What’s that? A couple of medium Jump Stretch bands?
on a side note. why do some guys dive into the “endzone” in rugby matches, sometimes with noone near them? is it necessary or show boating like in American football?
In rugby to score a try you have to touch the ball to the ground once you are over the try line or endzone lol. In a way it’s show boating but also guarantees the ball to contact the ground rathe rhtan slowing down to place gently etc
[quote]DragnCarry wrote:
At the physio earlier flicking through a copy of “Inside Sport”, chanced upon the weight training regime of Timana Tahu, former League player and current Union player.
Either someone is spinning BS or I’ve got it all wrong…
Tahu has 2 x 45min weight sessions per week in which he does mostly shrugs (with dumbells) and lateral raises for his shoulders. He also does dips.
He does not do leg exercises, having suffered too many injuries from doing these, and now relies on - gasp - PILATES to build those pistons.[/quote]
Have you seen the latest Alpha magazine with Stirling Mortlock’s weight training routine. It may be more to your liking.
[quote]GETSTRENGTH wrote:
In rugby to score a try you have to touch the ball to the ground once you are over the try line or endzone lol. In a way it’s show boating but also guarantees the ball to contact the ground rather than slowing down to place gently etc[/quote]
It is not only touching the ground, it has to be with downward pressure, so you may stop a try by getting under the ball or the carrier may fail by not having enough pressure or as I saw Domenici do, slide across the deadball line without managing the all-important grass contact.