Aussies rule at Olympics

New Zealand doing pretty good too mate - poplulation 4 million, medal count = 5 in addition to the Bledisloe Cup!

aussiesmg wrote: Padding is padding mate

you have never put on football pads, you have no idea what your talking about.

On the other hand i have played tackle football with no pads. You cant hit nearly as hard without a helmet and padding on top of your shoulders. Im sorry, but you cant tackle a person without "pads" by using your face as a battering ram on a persons knee while they are at full sprint.

"Pads" in football for the most part do 2 things. They keep your head from getting crushed by some 300 pound lineman and they let you HIT much harder then you could otherwise get away with. I see a lot of aussie rules football players turn there back right before a hit to protect their own head. You will never see that in football. All the way up to point of contact they are trying to accelerate into their opponents at full speed

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJF_PPayomI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6ZOK8okDRA

Long one but it always puts a smile on my face:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxzg1YyoImQ

GlennS wrote: On the other hand i have played tackle football with no pads. You cant hit nearly as hard without a helmet and padding on top of your shoulders. Im sorry, but you cant tackle a person without "pads" by using your face as a battering ram on a persons knee while they are at full sprint.

Uh... mmmm... If you use your head as a battering ram, that's just stupid.

First of all, it's spearing, if you are looking at the ground.

Second, in all instances, it's high risk for neck injury.

And if you are aiming for a person's knee with your head, that's just wrong. We talk about poor sportsmanship in another thread about celebrating, but going for the knee with your head is trying to intentionally hurt someone.

Bad form. Poor example to try to "proove" that US footballers are tougher than aussies.

E-

alfadriver wrote: First of all, it's spearing, if you are looking at the ground.

Yes, obviously if your looking down your going to compress your spine and break your neck.

In the original post it was implied that american football players are wimpy because they wair pads. I just find it a bit funny how little understanding people have of what the "pads" actualy do.

Having played both Rugby, and American Football, I'll say that pads give the wearer a sense of invulnerablity. This leads to more injuries. Yes, I tend to not go in head first when playing rugby. It's called self preservation. In football, we were taught to go in head first. Coach didn't like me for that... Oh, and Canada currently has 17 medals. more than 1 per 2million citizens. Not bad considering that we don't have a summer.

Knowing little about this, I have always suspected that wearing pads will result is fewer, but more serious injuries. A Rugby player might have lots of scars and maybe some broken bones, a football player will not be able to walk from destroyed knees etc. All in all, I think no pads is a much better way to go.

A buddy of mine in high school hit with his head in football, he and another buddy were practicing head on collisions in high school football practice. His neck is fine, everything above that works. He can also kind of move his right hand/wrist. The rest is paralyzed. Good thing he had that helmet and pads on.

Bryce

AFL has the highest incidence of knee injuries in any sport, you can be dumb and go in head first hoping your pads do their job or you can hit with your body.......hmmmm, even if you turn away you are still not relying on pads.

By the way this thread was about the Olympics, Aussies are the top country with more than 5 million people by a long way

aussiesmg wrote: I am justifiably proud of my native Australian Olympic team, third in the medal tally now but, a country of 20 million with 20 medals to date, one medal per million citizens, who can top that per capita result. Aussie, aussie, aussie, oi, oi ,oi,

For some reason I thought Australia was closer to 30 million. In elementary school here I had this english teacher (by that i mean from england not the subject) who was indoctrinating us 8yr olds about the commonwealth. Australia was supposed to be "Britain's child, like Canada so in a sense your like brothers, your practically the same.". Practically the same, Christ she was insane. America was bad too of course, but it was the 80's we were all eating big league chew, watching the a-team and riding bmx's, hard to convince people into that, that the US was the great satan.

mistanfo wrote: I'll say that pads give the wearer a sense of invulnerablity. This leads to more injuries.

They certainly make my wife more violent, One month I was almost hit with a waffle iron

Wally wrote:

mistanfo wrote: I'll say that pads give the wearer a sense of invulnerablity. This leads to more injuries.

They certainly make my wife more violent, One month I was almost hit with a waffle iron