What are the pros and cons of playing rugby for an 11 year old?

Notyme4BS: What are the pros and cons of playing rugby for an 11 year old?
My son is 11 and will be playing rugby for his middle school this year. He has been playing football (american football) for 4 years. I couldn’t imagine my son tackling the same way he does in football without pad without hurting himself.

My daughter plays rugby, but she never played football. Also my daughter is thin and fast and usually plays on the outsides (I don’t know the name of the position), and she usually is chasing someone down from the side or rear and dragging them to the ground. My son however, is short, slow, and strong.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Cma Zoo
pro he does not become a couch potatoe

con he gets hurt

Answer by Mike NYC
con: he’ll get his teeth knocked out

pro: he wont have to worry about brushing them anymore.

Answer by cacti87654
What are the pros and cons of playing rugby for an 11 year old?
Your question.

So…you play rugby, and get an 11 year old?

….Seems fair.
xD
i kid.

Pros: Sociability increase, team-orientation skills produced, kid feels included
Cons: might get too into it, might get hurt, may start tackling you when you dont buy him the latest gadget.

Its up to you really.

Answer by Meghan
It will be a great workout for sure… but I would not advise that you let your 11 year old son play rugby (unless of course it is just touch rugby, and not tackle).

As you know, insurance is a must for rugby players. And with 11 year old kids trying to play rugby without pads… it can be risky for your son.

I have played college rugby for women… and I cannot tell you a game where I did not see an extreme injury.

I would suggest that you let him play touch rugby and not actual rugby.

Answer by Spencer Papciak
rugby will be okay with him if he can take a hit. i played rugby in college, and if he can learn the right forms of tackling, and such,(hopefully his coaches will teach him) he needs to be decently quick, but not a super fast person,, but being very strong wil play to his advantage. let him try it and see if he likes it, just let him know that he will come home with lots of bruises and the occasianl bloody nose or scrape. its a great sport really. it will help with his stanima and strength. im guessing he was a lineman in football??? if so, he will do fine in rugby after four years in the trenches. 🙂 if he likes it soo much, tell him to pursue it, and mabye he could play in college.

Answer by blm
First of all, if your daughter is thin, fast and plays on the outside, she is almost certainly a winger.

If your son has played American football, then he will find rugby similar in some ways, but in others very different. He will have to learn to tackle differently. The purpose is fundamentally different. In gridiron your intent is to stop the runner — cold — in order to prevent the first down. You therefore use your own momentum to soak up the ball carrier’s, often leading with your helmet. Huge collisions!

In rugby, with its continous play, your purpose is to take the ball carrier off his feet so that he has to release the ball — players “off-their-feet” in rugby can’t handly the ball. If you can do so, while staying on your own, you can turn over possession of the ball there and then. So the technique is entirely different — more akin to wrestling that it is to football “hits”. Your comment “dragging them to the ground” is a very good discription. The contact in rugby still hurts, but is generally much less violent than in football.

He is going to find rugby a lot more challenging in terms of cardio fitness than football. Being “slow and strong” means that he will be a forward, and his primary job will be to make tackles and “ruck” — fight for possession of a released ball after a tackle. That means he must always be near the ball. Forwards in rugby actually have to cover more ground than the backs, and there are no breathers every time someone gets tackled — you get up and keep going. It is fast-paced, fun, and in my opinion, the best game in the world.

Answer by Johan Roets
Ah this is such crap! You don’t get hurt that easily I started playing when I was 6 and geuss what I’m still fine a lot of kids here (South Africa) start at that age, serious injuries are actually extremely rare in rugby, yea hell get a couple of bumps and bruises but that’s all part of it trust me its great fun its the best sport in the world the bumps will make him man up in a society going extremely soft

Answer by Irish65
PRO: He wont become a fat shit.
CON: He might possibly get injured.