Odd that they're able to maintain such high TV ratings, given the sharp decrease in blood and death.

Maybe the NHL could learn from this.

Now now, no need to push your agendas here. There's nothing wrong with the NHL.

I have nothing against the NHL. But when one of the game's greatest players, Wayne Gretzky, says that the NHL has to remove the violence to improve the sport's appeal, the league should listen. The newspapers treat it like the fourth major sport, but in reality, that spot is taken by golf, and hockey isn't in the top ten anymore.

Rugby is much more brutal, kids get killed in school games many times every year and that's just in SA. then again if NFL player got an interest in rugby the USA would dominate it globally...scary thought. 150kg monsters doing the 100m in 11 secs..

I doubt that - at least not for a long time.

Let me explain why. I grew up in Rugby, the place where William Webb Ellis picked up the ball and ran.

As am sure you can imagine there's a lot of town pride about this and many a tournament.

Whilst at school I moonlighted as sports correspondent for the local paper, covering school fixtures and as such was covering a special tour organised to promote Rugby in America. The set up was that the cream of the college crop of American Football players came over here and played their counterparts at Rugby.

The tour started and ended in Rugby and played my school for both of those matches. The result was a convincing defeat on each occasion, as it was for all the other games.

The original plan had been for them to finish playing the Rugby School team, but this was changed after their tour performance, Rugby School being considered to be a better side than any they had face along the way (yes, including my school).

In short, they got trounced every time they walked out onto a field.

Now despite the seeming qualification of being a sports correspondent, I know very little about the subject and so can't offer an in depth analysis.

What I can suggest though is that the constant interruptions in the American game make it near impossible for the players to give what they need to give for the way Rugby is played.

Mind you, one of the team "mothers" accompanying and chaperoning the tour seemed to be of the opinion that as most of them could barely read the chances of them picking up the rules to a new game were pretty slim.

Anyway, bottom line, in my opinion, is that for America to succeed at Rugby they'd have to ditch American Football and I can't really see that happening.