I played one season of intramural rugby in college. I don’t remember what position I played. It was the one where they handed me the ball and I ran for my life until I made it to the end zone or some big Helga hurt me. Playing rugby is a great way to make sure you stay very, very quick on your toes. I got quick on my toes and after one season realized that the pain-fun ratio wasn’t really optimal. Being a big fan of having all of my teeth inside my mouth I went back to soccer, where you still get hurt sometimes but it isn’t on purpose.

I don’t remember any of the laws except that you’re supposed to call them laws and not rules, and that I can’t help but think of them in terms of football rules. Like if you make it to the end zone you get five points and then two after points. And field goals are still worth three points. And you can’t pass forward, which is easy enough to remember because there isn’t a quarterback and running backs can’t pass forward after gaining possession anyway.

My woeful ignorance of the sport concerned me a little on Saturday morning, when I found myself at a pub at 9:30 a.m. to see the England-Wales match for the Six Nations tournament. Turned out that the place, which is owned and operated by folks from Belfast, was a little lonely for England supporters. But they didn’t appear to have poisoned our breakfast and the match was fun to watch, snarky comments from some bratty little offspring of Wales fans notwithstanding.

I realized a few minutes in that rugby would have been a lot more easy for me to understand back in college if I had actually seen a match on television before playing the game. It makes a lot more sense with a bird’s eye view. The smooth line of play, the forward progress, the reason there’s so much kicking the ball around . . . it was enlightening, ten years later, to finally understand why we were doing all of that. I compared watching rugby as an American football fan to watching a familiar movie dubbed into another language. It’s familiar enough but you have to rely on context rather than clear understanding to follow things.

Once I got the hang of the flow, I started making comparisons. There is some physical difference between individual rugby players, but not nearly as much specialization as in football. Everyone is just . . . thick. Solid muscle. No linemen with drooping guts, no finely sculpted runningbacks. The lack of padding means that there aren’t the ridiculous big hits that there are in football, which meant fewer injuries. But when there were injuries, they just left them on the field, because the clock wouldn’t stop running. I kept mentally poaching guys from both teams. “Hmm, he’d make a great tight end . . . wow that guy would be an amazing wide receiver . . . hmmm.”

But as compatible as the players are to the two game styles, there is a very key difference between football and rugby players. Football players are tough. Rugby players are scary.

They don’t leave the field just because they are bleeding profusely. They pile drive their own teammates headfirst into the grass if it means gaining yardage. When they line up for the scrum, they don’t have helmets and shoulder pads, but they crash together like rams in rutting season. And they certainly don’t wear diamond earrings, swagger as they walk, or do little dances after scoring points. If I were walking down a dark alley in a rough neighborhood, the person I would want to be walking with was any one of the guys up on that screen. The person I would not want to meet would be any one of the guys up on that screen.

England fought pretty hard, but Wales pretty much had it locked up in the first half. There was an exciting moment when England almost took the lead, which may very well have given them the momentum to put the game away. Soccer usually bores me, but I could give this rugby thing another shot. (As a viewer, not as a player, thankyouverymuch.) There’s plenty of hits and enough scoring to keep it interesting. I suppose the only thing left to figure out is how to handle the lack of commercials. Sure, it’s nice not having the game drowned out by the blaring cries of commercial interests, but when do fans have time for bathroom breaks? Or getting more beer? Or loading up on snacks? Shoot, even finding a place that’s playing it and then having to get up early to see it is an extra complication. Whew! Being a sports fan requires a lot of work!