Part of the game. Unfortunately they have all come in such a short period of time. Last WC we had hardly any and were very lucky. Liam Williams was already carrying his foot injury prior to being recalled to the squad same as Samson Lee (archilles strain). Bottom line when there is such a short change around between games these things happen. Just bad luck they have all come in our backs. Its a tough old game!
Depends on what type of injury , soft tissue injuries can occur without contact , a twist of the ankle or a fall .It is a full on contact sport so what else would you expect even the backs are now build like 70's forwards .Imo the game is now far safer than it's ever been with non contested line outs and a greater discipline in the rucks and mauls along with the scrums .Much improved sports science means the recovery times can be far quicker .
If the soccer players were to have the knocks the Rugger players get then we would be lucky to see them ever play again.....
I used to have a season ticket for the Swans and the All Whites and enjoyed rugby. You had the twinkling feet of Phil Bennett, the silky sidestep and pace of Gerald Davies, the smooth skills and tactical awareness of Barry John and there were players of that ilk in all the home nations at international and club level. The forwards were naturally strong and muscled and the game was enjoyable. Now the players are grotesquely over muscled and give me the impression they are either on steroids or spend too much time on the weights. This is may be why so many injuries are taking place. The game has become like pseudo American football, a game I don't enjoy, even copying some of that games terminology and tactics. You may also notice that American footballers wear a lot of padding and safety equipment.
I agree with most of this but unfortunately it was inevitable Rugby Union would go this way once it became professional. The inevitable consequence of professional coaching and players becoming full time athletes. When it's your livelihood at stake everyone is looking for an edge. Sad but inevitable.
That is the true name not football.....Rugby is the true football game...........soccer is the real name that we now call football.....
Soccer comes from an abbreviation of "Association" in Association rules football. So, for the ******ed amongst us...Dai Twp, there was a game called football which some people decided to codify. Hence "Association Rules Football". Rugby, of course, was invented by a schoolboy whilst playing football at an English public school called...Rugby. So football is the true football. Got that Dai? No? didn't think so. Twat.
In the 1860s, there were quite a lot of “football” sports in existence being played popularly throughout the world and of course, England. Many of these sports had similar rules and eventually, on October 26th, 1863, a group of teams in England decided to get together and create a standard set of rules which would be used at all their matches. They formed the rules for “Association Football”, with the “Association” distinguishing it from the many other types of football sports in existence in England, such as “Rugby Football”. Now British school boys of the day liked to nickname everything, which is still somewhat common. They also liked to add the ending “er” to these nicknames. Thus Rugby was, at that time, popularly called “Rugger”. Association Football was then much better known as “Assoccer”, which quickly just became “Soccer” and sometimes “Soccer Football”. In the beginning, the newly standardized Rugby and Soccer were football sports for “gentlemen”, primarily being played by the upper calsses of society. However, these two forms of football gradually spread to the masses, particularly Soccer as Rugby didn’t really catch on too well with the lower classes. This resulted in the name switching from “Soccer” and “Association Football”, to just “Football”; with the first documented case of the sport being called by the singular term “Football” coming in 1881, 18 years after it was first called “Soccer” or, officially, “Association Football”. The game gradually spread throughout the world under the lower class name of “Football”, rather than “Soccer” as the “gentlemen” called it. The problem was, though, that a lot of other countries of the world already had popular sports of their own they called “Football”, such as the United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, to name a few. In these countries, the name “Soccer” was and, in some, still is preferred for this reason.
So people were already playing differing forms of "football" before anyone thought to write some rules down. The word "soccer" was a slang term used by public school boys in reference to Association Rules. Everyone else in this country continued to use the word football. So football is the true football. Soccer is for twats
Excellent appraisal Bap, back in the 60's growing up in Skewen, everybody back then used the word 'Soccer', including myself, but over the years it has been replaced by football, which I prefer. Wiki states: "The term soccer originated in England, first appearing in the 1880s as an Oxford "-er" abbreviation of the word "association". Within the English-speaking world, association football is now usually called football in the United Kingdom and mainly soccer in Canada and the United States. People in Australia, Ireland and New Zealand use either or both terms, although national associations in Australia and New Zealand now primarily use "football" for the formal name. According to FIFA the competitive game cuju (蹴鞠, literally "kick ball") is the earliest form of football for which there is scientific evidence. Cuju players could use any of the body apart from hands and the intent was kicking a ball through an opening into a net, it was remarkably similar to modern football though similarities to rugby occurred also. Association football in itself does not have a classical history. Notwithstanding any similarities to other ball games played around the world FIFA have recognised that no historical connection exists with any game played in antiquity outside Europe.............
We always referred to the game as soccer in the 50's 60's......Many countries still refer to it as Soccer but today most people refer to the game as football which other ball sports around the world also refer to their own games as football.....
