Rugby ! 24-15 to Ireland We won !!!! 3rd Grand Slam in 140 years, on Paddy's Day !!!

[OnDoutside]

http://www.the42.ie/ireland-england-grand-slam-match-report-3909895-Mar2018/



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England 15

Ireland 24

Murray Kinsella reports from Twickenham

GRAND SLAM CHAMPIONS.

Those words sound sweet and the St. Patrick’s Day party in London and further afield will be riotous tonight as Ireland celebrate just the third Grand Slam of their history.

Joe Schmidt’s men saved the best for last as they scored three tries to take Eddie Jones’ England apart in Twickenham, comprehensively underlining their quality.

They were even able to close the game out with key leaders Rory Best and Johnny Sexton off the field, with young guns like Joey Carbery and Jordan Larmour helping them to drive it home after building a brilliant 21-5 half-time lead.

England’s discipline hurt them again but this win was all about Ireland’s quality as they wrote their names into Irish rugby history.

They have shown a repeated ability to score just before half-time in this Grand Slam success and they did it again here as Jacob Stockdale produced a sensational solo score to break the record for most tries in a Six Nations by a single player – this his seventh.

Schmidt’s coaching genius was underlined by a stunning set-piece starter play for Ireland’s second try through CJ Stander as they shredded England’s defence.

[Jarqui]

1. First game against France was the only close one

They dominated the tournament

[OnDoutside]

3. Definitely, Joe Schmidt is an amazing coach. We all fear he will move back to NZ after the 2019

World Cup in Japan. I hope he stays, as he has brought a level of professionalism to the old plucky Irish that we've never seen.

[Kirk Lover]

2. Great day to be Irish ! nt

[OnDoutside]

4. And to win it in Twickenham, London, makes it especially sweet !

[Submariner]

5. No helmets and pads for these guys

They’re nuts!

[OnDoutside]

6. Yes, and the hits are unbelievable.

[Drahthaardogs]

7. Please.

The violence in Rugby is not even remotely close to that of American football. Even college football is more aggressive. NFL football is like nothing else in terms of collision forces.

[OnDoutside]

9. Amateur rugby maybe, but Pro rugby is ferocious, where the players are bulked up and hitting far

harder than even 10 years ago. And no pads or helmets.

[Drahthaardogs]

10. No!

What people don't understand is NFL players are freak athletes. Ryan Clady did a 6.8 shuttle at 320 lbs. Look at Chubb coming out of college at 270 lbs runs a 4.46 forty.

F=MA

The best athletes in the world aren't playing rugby. Sorry

And on edit I played Division II ball. Those highlights of your ferocious tackles are not even Division I type hits.

[OnDoutside]

11. You're not comparing like with like. In rugby players are on the field for 80 minutes, with the

obvious element of fatigue that needs to be factored in, whereas American Footballers come on and off for lots of rest periods. Anyone that Clady hits is fully padded and helmeted up, which doesn't happen in rugby. You need to look at it in an overall context.

There was an interesting piece in https://rugbywarfare.com/rugby-vs-american-football/

Speed
Figuring out which athletes run fastest can be a bit tricky. While maximum speed is a good indicator, we should also keep in mind that American football players wear a hefty layer of padding.

The best way to compare the two is to take stats from the NFL training combine, where players carry out a series of timed drills without any padding. For comparison purposes, we will use the speed stats from Jarryd Hayne, Australian rugby league superstar that tried his luck in the NFL back in 2015.

The top speed recorded at the NFL combine for a 40-yard dash (36.6 meters) was 4.31 seconds in 2016. On the other hand, Hayne ran the same distance in 4.53 seconds during his 2015 stint with the 49ers, which is also extremely fast.

However, American footballers seem to have the upper hand in this category, with some players running at speeds of 22 mph while wearing their protective gear.



Tackle G-Force
Both rugby and American football are known for big hits and jaw-dropping tackles, but which athletes endure the hardest hits? To get a better idea, we’ll go over some basic concepts.

You’ve probably already heard of g-force in both rugby and American football. This measurement can be described as a type of acceleration that causes the accelerating object to experience pressure acting in the opposite direction. The force is measured in units called gs. One g is equal to the force of gravity on Earth’s surface, which is 9.8 meters per second per second.

What you need to know is that gs represent the impact felt by an athlete. To put it in perspective, a high-speed roller coaster can exert anywhere between 3 and 6 gs on your body. But how does this compare to the force felt by these athletes?

There are many elements that impact the force of a tackle. Rugby players can experience hits with more than 10 gs of strength multiple times during a game. On the other hand, American footballers may experience an average tackle force of more than 25 gs, but their padding and helmet absorb most of the impact.

Because of their lack of protective gear, rugby players take this one away.


Total Tackles and Hits Per Game
While the destructive force of both rugby and American football tackles can cause some serious damage, we also want to look at the number of tackles in a game.

In order to compare them accurately, let’s take a look at the average number of tackles in an NFL game during the 2016 season. Jerrell Freeman from the Chicago Bears led the league with just over seven tackles per game.

Rugby players such as Robbie Henshaw can tackle 10 times or more in a game, which he did in Ireland’s thrilling victory over France in the first fixture of this year’s Six Nations. This gives rugby another point, especially if you consider the protective gear American footballers have.

[OnDoutside]

8. Highlights from the day at Twickenham