History Main / RugbyIsSlaughter

* The Indian movie ''Sye'': Granted, the writer was apparently a bit unclear about certain rules. He was convinced that a rugby match implied rivers of blood. The most ridiculous moment comes when the scrum-half wiggles inside the channel between the two packs during a scrum, and starts punching the opposing team's hooker straight in the face. (If you don't play rugby, this sentence is most likely lost on you, go watch the scene from the movie if you're curious, it can be found online).

In the end, the truth of the matter is that both American football and rugby are about equally as dangerous to the players per minute of the match played. It's the ''risks'', and the type of fitness needed, that are different. Namely, American football often revolves around players making headlong sprints into one another, which are the main reason why padding is necessary. In rugby, on the other hand, hard hits of that sort are less common, with tackles generally involving pulling the other players to the ground as opposed to knocking them down. The result of this is that, owing to the strict rules about forward passing and the lines being in much closer proximity, meaning that players usually don't pick up much speed before being tackled - and only players with the ball can be tackled. Also, historically, those who do tend to pick up speed, the backs (especially the wingers) tend to be smaller and slighter - however, this is now changing, with some wingers both weighing over 100 kg (220 lb) and moving at well over 30 kph (20 mph). As a result, historically, rugby has tended to have a higher rate of scrapes, cuts, and gashes than American football, the concussion rate is lower (though it does seem to be increasing - whether this is simply increased diagnosis or a trend remains to be seen) -- a fact that isn't lost on many rugby organizers, especially those in American youth leagues seeking to market it as an alternative to football that won't cause the concussions that that sport is notorious for. A short truism is that American Football has lots of padding and very few restrictions on what you can do to people, while Rugby has no padding and lots of restrictions about what you can do to people (admittedly, most of those have been instituted since the turn of the millennium).

* An unusual case from ''Series/KousokuSentaiTurboranger'' -- the secondary TransformingMecha, the Ruggerfighter/Turborugger is themed after rugby for no discernable reason; it even has a giant rugby ball it can kick at a target. So it is slaughter, albeit of giant monsters rather than humans.

* A traveller enters a local watering hole in the Irish countryside/South African veldt/New Zealand tablelands, and says to the bartender, "Nice part of the world this is."
"Couldn't agree more," the publican responds.
The blow-in asks, "So how do you pass the time here?"
The publican says, "This is a proud rugby-playing community. We often have a match between our local players."
"Oh yeah? What's it like?"
"I'll tell you what, the last match was something fierce. There was a broken jaw, several knees were stomped on, and we had five concussions and ten black eyes; hell, the local constable even made a dozen arrests afterwards." The bartender stands on the spot, looking wistful. "Oh, and some of the players also got into a fight, too."

** City of London Boys, a well regarded and extremely old private school, stopped playing rugby after one boy was killed. The scrum collapsed and his neck snapped. The South African headmaster, though from a culture where rugby is SeriousBusiness, immediately stopped the game. Considering the size of the players in the modern game (supposedly 14- ear-old players have been known to comfortably top six feet and be similarly wide), it was far too dangerous.

** Note that the players emerging is the only time in the entire story that the [[StiffUpperLip extremely Briton]] Anticlimax gets worked up about something. In fact the look on the heroes' faces when an entire stadium of (up to this point) extremely stiff upper lipped Britons suddenlt goes wild is priceless.

** {{Bar brawl}}s have existed for so long in Ankh-Morpork they've become a kind of combination of rugby and gymnastics.

** Note that the players emerging is the only time in the entire story that the [[StiffUpperLip extremely Briton]] Anticlimax gets worked up about something.

* Tuppy Glossop finds this out to his cost in "The Ordeal of Young Tuppy" in the Literature/JeevesAndWooster book ''Very Good, Jeeves''.

* An unusual case from ''Series/KosoukuSentaiTurboranger'' -- the secondary TransformingMecha, the Ruggerfighter/Turborugger is themed after rugby for no discernable reason; it even has a giant rugby ball it can kick at a target. So it is slaughter, albeit of giant monsters rather than humans.

* An unusual case from ''Series/KosokuSentaiTurboranger'' -- the secondary TransformingMecha, the Ruggerfighter/Turborugger is themed after rugby for no discernable reason; it even has a giant rugby ball it can kick at a target. So it is slaughter, albeit of giant monsters rather than humans.

** Then there's ''Discworld/UnseenAcademicals'', where the form of football that exists is known for violence and the wizards are tasked with reforming it.

There are elements of truth in this. In every single rugby game, players have to leave the field because of an injury. There is even a system concerning bleeding players - they have to leave the field immediately to be replaced by a teammate, but the original player can return within 15 minutes if the bleeding stops without it counting as a substitution. They have afforded the same luxury to suspected head injuries due to long running concerns about the long term effects of concussion.[[note]]The mandatory medical test for concussion that happens at this point is seen as a bit nanny-state by South African players, who dismissively refer to "the ding-dong check". You get a distinct impression the Bokkies consider this superfluous and un-necessary.[[/note]]

* In ''SpaceAdventureCobra'' that BloodSport named rugball is supposed to be based on baseball and rugby. It is apparently baseball plus violence, with nothing else in common with rugby.

Compare BloodSport. For information on the game, see UsefulNotes/RugbyLeague or UsefulNotes/RugbyUnion. Yes, there are two different versions. Rugby Union is more widely played, while Rugby League is more popular in a few regions such as [[OopNorth Northern England]]. Non-Australians also sometimes confuse rugby with UsefulNotes/AustralianRulesFootball, which has a similar reputation and all the more so because the players wear only ''singlets'', and many believe that rugby was a major influence in the creation of Aussie Rules football. Believe it or not, James Naismith actually adapted some elements of rugby when he created UsefulNotes/{{basketball}}. In the US and Canada, UsefulNotes/IceHockey has a similar reputation as the [[HockeyFight most violent]] of the four major sports played in those countries, though the [[UsefulNotes/NationalHockeyLeague NHL]] has tried to crack down on the violence and tone down this part of the sport's image.

There are elements of truth in this. In every single rugby game, players have to leave the field because of an injury. There is even a system concerning bleeding players - they have to leave the field immediately to be replaced by a teammate, but the original player can return within 10 minutes if the bleeding stops without it counting as a substitution. They have afforded the same luxury to suspected head injuries due to long running concerns about the long term effects of concussion.[[note]]The mandatory medical test for concussion that happens at this point is seen as a bit nanny-state by South African players, who dismissively refer to "the ding-dong check". You get a distinct impression the Bokkies consider this superfluous and un-necessary.[[/note]]

** And when football fans are around: "Football is 90 minutes of [[WoundedGazelleGambit pretending you're hurt]], rugby is 80 minutes of [[MajorInjuryUnderreaction pretending you're not]]".

There are elements of truth in this. In every single rugby game, players have to leave the field because of an injury. There is even a system concerning bleeding players - they have to leave the field immediately to be replaced by a teammate, but the original player can return within 10 minutes if the bleeding stops without it counting as a substitution. They have afforded the same luxury to suspected head injuries due to long running concerns about the long term effects of concussion.[note]]The mandatory medical test for concussion that happens at this point is seen as a bit nanny-state by South African players, who dismissively refer to "the ding-dong check". You get a distinct impression the Bokkies consider this superfluous and un-necessary.[[/note]]

There are elements of truth in this. In every single rugby game, players have to leave the field because of an injury. There is even a system concerning bleeding players - they have to leave the field immediately to be replaced by a teammate, but the original player can return within 10 minutes if the bleeding stops without it counting as a substitution. They have afforded the same luxury to suspected head injuries due to long running concerns about the long term effects of concussion.

[[quoteright:350:[[Anime/FullMetalPanicFumoffu https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/rugby_fmp.jpg]]]]

[[quoteright:350:[[Anime/FullMetalPanicFumoffu https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/RugbyFMP2.jpeg]]]]

For this reason, much media depicts rugby as an agonizing slaughterhouse that will put you in Ward 4.[[note]]"I hope not, Bill. That's a maternity ward."[[/note]] This depiction is not confined to American media either. Nations where rugby is played a lot tend to compare it to other football codes and often come to the same impressions. Furthermore, the global rugby community seems to revel in their sport's reputation, taking perverse joy in the fact that the very mention of its name is enough to make football ([[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball association]] and [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball American]]) fans squirm.

* The Paralympic sport of wheelchair rugby is also known as murderball and yes, it's for a very good reason. Let's just say that the special wheelchairs have to be made of titanium.

* Football came to the ''{{Discworld}}'' in ''Literature/UnseenAcademicals''. Reasoning that the fifteen-a-side code came from the same roots as the eleven-a-side, author Creator/AAPessimal decided there was mirth to be mined by introducing a [[UsefulNotes/{{Wales}} Llamedosian]] religious ritual involving two teams of fifteen men chasing a lemon-shaped ball (this is vaguely alluded to in the original ''Discworld Mapp''). The idea spread, and Ankh-Morpork now hosts a Llamedosian Rules Fifteen-A-Side Foot-The-Ball league. Fixtures in the top flight in this League include representative sides from [[UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}} Hergen]], Llamedos, [[UsefulNotes/{{Australia}} Fourecks]], [[UsefulNotes/NewZealand The Foggy Islands]], and possibly the most cheerfully violent national side of all, [[UsefulNotes/SouthAfrica The Rimwards Howondalandian Springboeks]]. An observer ponders the accuracy of Fourecks and her own Rimwards Howondaland naming their teams after two essentially pacificistic and placid animals, the Wallaby and the Springboek. She considers the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmanian_devil Purdeighsislandian Demon]] and the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_badger Rattel]] would be far more zoologically accurate as animal avatars.

* Parodied with ''[[ComicBook/{{Asterix}} Asterix in Britain]]'': a rugby game is made more "interesting" when it turns out that the players' drink has been spiked with [[SuperSerum magic potion]]. It was already pretty violent without the potion, what with one player jumping up and down repeatedly on another player's head. Obelix enthusiastically comments, "We must take this nice game back to Gaul!"