10-01-2014, 01:10 PM
I only brought up the subject of Stanford's rugby interlude because the "issue" of violence was put on the public stage very early on, not because there was at the time any medical argument for or against rugby vs. football.
My impression, as a participant for a short time and a fan who has watched it played for years, is that it is less prone to violent collisions because-- as mentioned above-- when the game is being played well, it really is all about angled attacks matched up with angled defenses responding.  I'm not smart enough or motivated enough to rigorously compare a game with set, periodic, predictable episodes of high impact contact (football) vs. rugby, featuring near-constant action with unpredictable instances of high impact contact. I can believe that there might be a similar concern about CTE in rugby.
But my sense, and experience tell me that overall, rugby would have fewer CTE instances. Don't know about the odds for other types of future-limiting injuries. Maybe better data would show my view is completely cockeyed.
My impression, as a participant for a short time and a fan who has watched it played for years, is that it is less prone to violent collisions because-- as mentioned above-- when the game is being played well, it really is all about angled attacks matched up with angled defenses responding.  I'm not smart enough or motivated enough to rigorously compare a game with set, periodic, predictable episodes of high impact contact (football) vs. rugby, featuring near-constant action with unpredictable instances of high impact contact. I can believe that there might be a similar concern about CTE in rugby.
But my sense, and experience tell me that overall, rugby would have fewer CTE instances. Don't know about the odds for other types of future-limiting injuries. Maybe better data would show my view is completely cockeyed.