Rugby world turns on ESPN writer after idiotic NFL comparison

If you want to give yourself a bit of light entertainment, watch any NFL or Rugby ‘Big Hits’ compilation on YouTube and read through the comments of users arguing about which sport is tougher ‘rugby or American Football’.

There’s arguments about pads, tackle technique, athleticism required to play different positions, but even in the blackhole that is a YouTube comment section, there is still a general consensus that you have to be an elite athlete to play both sports professionally.

ESPN writer Kevin Van Valkenburg‏ thinks that the gap between both sports is much larger that that. 

Van Valkenburg argued that all he needs is one year, an elite coach and a handful of the NFL’s elite players, coupled with those on the very fringes of the NFL, to start dominating world rugby. 

Inevitably, he was shredded for his take on the ease at which a team that has never played the sport could start to dominate world rugby, and while there may be an element that his tweet could be taken in jest, the rugby world was quick to out Van Valkenburg for his odd comparison.

Clueless

— Jonathan Davies OBE (@JiffyRugby) June 4, 2018

A statement which is both ignorant and arrogant – not a great combination.

— Simon Thomas Rugby (@simonrug) June 4, 2018

So you watched an incredibly low form of US rugby, and decided the elite levels of rugby would be easily dominated by guys who are used to playing in pads, don't know how to pass and are used to playing snaps rather than continuously. Okay then. Lol.

— Igor Guryashkin (@IGuryashkin) June 3, 2018

One of the most clueless and ignorant statements we’ve ever come across here.

And that’s saying a lot.

This is Twitter after all.

— RugbyLAD 🏉 (@RugbyLAD7) June 4, 2018

Wow! Please somebody give him what he wants, I want to see this!

— Neil Briggs (@__Briggsy__) June 3, 2018

Briefly watched NFL today getting a hair cut b/c they wouldn’t turn on hurling. If you gave me a year, SB Williams, Kieran Read, Beauden Barrett, & a Mitre 10 Cup squad, NZ would so dominate, the Superbowl winners might stop arrogantly calling themselves "World Champions". https://t.co/p7Uylemuxn

— Neil Treacy (@neil_treacy) June 4, 2018

The matter was covered in The Hard Yards [from 57:30 below] and host Andy McGeady made a couple of great points about why the comparison, and bold claim, does not stack up.

Well said by McGeady.

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