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| Rugby on the ground Photo by Toomas Tartes on Unsplash |
Sheboygan, Wisconsin resident Brian Brecheisen has worked extensively as a project engineer, dating back to his time as a field service engineer with Balemaster. Most recently, he served as an operations project manager at Charter Steel in Saukville. Outside of work, Brian Brecheisen leads an active lifestyle. He has played several competitive sports over his lifetime, including football and rugby.
Depending on your perspective, the sports of American football and rugby may closely resemble one another or appear nothing at all alike. The fact is, the two sports have several different rules while also maintaining several similarities. To begin, football and rugby are both contact team sports in which teams are allotted a set number of downs or tackles to advance a ball downfield into a scoring zone. The fields of players are very similar as well, with football fields measuring 120 by 53.34 yards and rugby fields measuring 130 by 74 yards.
The mechanics through which teams attempt to advance and score are also similar, though the sport’s many differences can also be seen here as well. Forward passes are illegal in rugby at all times. American football maintains rules for illegal forward passing as well, but one of the primary responsibilities of the quarterback position is to complete forward passes from behind the line of scrimmage.
Rugby is often viewed as the rougher sport due to the lack of protective equipment worn by players. The game is indeed taxing and much quicker paced compared to football, with play resuming as soon as a tackled player returns the ball to play. However, it is illegal for rugby players to disrupt or engage with a player not in possession of the ball. This is in stark contrast to football, in which defensive and offensive linemen are tasked almost exclusively with blocking players that do not have the ball.
Rugby games last 80 minutes, with little stoppage time. American football games last for 60 minutes of playtime, though the stoppage pushes the total length of play to more than three hours.
