One of the greatest things about rugby in comparison to it's classic American nemesis, football, is that it is fast paced. There isn't any time for a breather. Just when you think you can slip your hands onto your knees and catch your breath, the opposing side breaks out of the ruck and blasts past you. You always have to be on your toes, you never have a time out, let alone a time out every single time anyone gets tackled.. (I'm looking at you, National Football League.)
In football, the players are primed and ready to run, push, and tackle like hell for all of five seconds, then they take a break before they do it again. In rugby, when you get tackled, your mates come and help you get the ball to someone else and then you're up, tackling, passing, catching, running, no matter what your position is.
Lastly, and most importantly, when it gets down to the last 3 minutes of the game, in football, 3 minutes on the clock usually means 45 minutes left in the game. In rugby, 3 minutes left means 3 minutes left.
I love how rugby creates this analogy for life that teaches almost every kid through South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia exactly what life is all about. Rugby teaches us that there isn't a nice little break every 10 seconds for you to gather your senses in life, rather, it teaches you that even when you're not going balls to the wall pumping your legs like a machine, you need to be working towards something. If you are always moving forward and trying to push through the line of meat and blood in front of you, you'll succeed. Don't stop in life, if you need to walk, walk. But don't stop.
The most important thing rugby teaches us though, is that the 80 minutes you've got on the clock is all you get. You don't get to call a time out every 5 seconds in the last quarter just because you didn't get to do everything you wanted to in the first three quarters. Work on it at all times, don't just try to make up for your shortcomings when it's already too late.
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