StarTalk Radio - #ICYMI - Rugby – Physics and Grit, with Todd Clever

Episode Date: July 12, 2018

In case you missed this episode on the Playing with Science channel… Scrums, lineouts, and spin passes – Hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice take to the turf as we explore the science and grit of rugby alongside Todd Clever, former USA Rugby captain, and Trevor Lipscombe, author of “The Physics of Rugby.”NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/all-access/rugby-physics-and-grit-with-todd-clever/Photo Credit: Hamish McConnochie via Wikimedia Commons. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

I'm Gary O'Reilly and I'm Chuck Nice and this is Playing With Science. It is as if you didn't know already. Right, today is rugby's turn to step into the limelight. Rugby? Yes. Oh my goodness, where the hell did rugby even come from? Rugby school, it originated, so the legend has it, by William Webb Ellis in 1823. He got bored with kicking a ball. So he was playing soccer and like most people, he got bored. Got bored. Bad boy. He decided to pick it up and run with it instead.

From then on, it becomes rugby football. Believe it or not, rugby is very popular on a global level and never once have the players worn pads. Oh my God, that is so ridiculous. And of course, if you've ever seen the game, they are knocking the stuffing out of each other. Yes, they do. They love it. And joining us today, I'm so pleased about this guest.

He's a man who's played professionally on every continent yeah former USA captain and most capped Eagles player yes if you hadn't already worked it out Todd Clever Todd Clever yeah

but that's not all we have is it to pull apart the science of this incredibly physical game having played it I can vouch for it being incredibly physical will be physicist professor Trevor L lipscomb of catholic university of america the author of the physics of rugby but joining us first that man rugby's captain america that's right welcome to the show sir how clever thank you very much thanks for having me uh all right let's let's get for for listeners who aren't familiar with the, can you break down a few of the basics for us without going way back to point one?

Yeah, I mean, it's a complex game. It's 15 versus 15 is the original game. They've broken it down to seven versus seven as well. So there's a couple of different varieties of rugby. But it's continuous play. Every player plays offensive, defense. You pass the ball backwards. You tackle hard. Key to the game is possession.

You score a try, which is basically you touch the ball over the end zone. And that's worth five points. And then the conversion is worth two. So it's a great game, a great spectacle game for all kinds of fans. So, you know, when you look at the game, and I've been watching a lot of rugby since we knew we were going to have you on, the only rugby I ever watched before in my life was something called Australian Rules Football. That's not rugby.

That's not rugby. No. Oh, gosh, no. But I'm telling you, what I'm telling you is this. I was watching Australian Rules Football. Yeah. I thought I was watching rugby. Oh, you're in big trouble.

Okay, so all I can tell you is for the past couple of weeks since I knew we were going to have you on, I've just been watching rugby, okay, like the real rugby. And I have to tell you, I'm kind of hooked. It's really a cool sport. And it's amazing to me the DNA imprint that it has placed on American football. It's really very much like American football in many ways, except that the, you know, the no pads, the action never stops, the drop goal.

The, you know, the no pads, the action never stops, the drop goal. It's like you guys play every position on an NFL team all at once. Is that kind of correct? Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, you know, one of the old sayings for rugby is, you know, all skills, all players. So, you know, if it's kicking the ball, if it's passing, if it's tackling, if it's running lines, everybody's a playmaker. Everybody has an opportunity to score, which is really fun. All right, Todd, you're built to play NFL. So growing up in California, why didn't you take that path?

And what made you gravitate towards rugby? The biggest reason why I started playing rugby is to travel and see the world and live different cultures. My older brother, he played American football and he played rugby and I kind of saw him play his 10 games

in his high school season, summer double days and travel 30 minutes for games. And then I saw him play rugby where he traveled across the world and, you know, got to experience different things, practiced a couple times a day, and it seemed like the guys were having a lot more fun. So it was an easy decision to follow rugby.

Let me say this, Todd. That is brilliant because most guys join the Navy to see the world. You, my friend, have just upped the game. As Chuck said in the intro, there's no pads. There never has been, and I doubt there ever will be. How do you find people reacting to you when they realize you don't wear pads? The sport's growing, and that's awesome. So more people are getting familiar and they know what rugby is. And I mean, they think, you know, a couple of screws are loose

in the head. But once they experience it and see it, you know, it's a bit of an elegant violence. That's a great way to put it. I was going to say, like, it's a beautiful gang war. That's kind of the way I termed it, but I like elegant violence a little better. It's a bit more poetic. The way it was always described back in England is rugby is a game for hooligans played by gentlemen and football is a game for gentlemen played by hooligans. Yeah, exactly. But the discipline of rugby players is outstanding. There's probably none or very little back chair to an official. But also, Chuck, it's incredibly physical,

and the big boys don't mind smashing into the little guys. I know. And there's no sort of weight category. If you've got the ball, you're getting hit. Okay, so now, I'm so glad you brought that up. This was something that, as I'm watching these games, that struck me as so odd. So American football is highly specialized. You will have guys my size on the field.

You'll have guys, Gary, your size on the field. And you'll also have guys Todd's size on the field. And for those of you who aren't watching us on Startalkallaccess.com, where you can see the video, Todd is what you would call a monster. Okay? can see the video, Todd is what you would call a monster. Okay? Like, just think of a monster with a lot of muscles and, like, Viking hair and a beard, and that's Todd Clever.

So, Todd, what Gary just said, as I'm watching these games, it really struck me. You'll have guys my size trying to tackle dudes your size. Yeah. What the hell is that about? Fun. And what is wrong with those guys that they don't get out of your way? Because the guys your size, actually, unlike in football, where you can't lead with your head because you're not wearing a helmet, so what you lead with is a forearm,

and I've literally seen plays where guys your size will forearm guys my size into the air and away from their bodies as they plow on exactly like is that just because there are okay what are the positions and how is it that a little guy like me would have to take on a big guy like you? To break down the positions, there's, like I said before, there's 15 players on the field. Yeah, right. Eight forwards and seven backs. So typically the eight forwards are your bigger guys. You know, your front row are probably the roundest guys, you know, probably not the fastest.

Right. Or more skilled. Diplom more skilled, but they're strong. And then you have the second row, which is your kind of engine room in those guys around from 6'5 to 6'10, sort of

big guys. And then you have kind of a mixture of one of the big guys in the backs with skills and speed. And that's what position I play. Right now I'm 6'4", 230. So you kind of have that. And I'm one of the smaller guys in the back row in the four pack.

And then you have the backs, guys your size. You have to be fast, skilled. you know, guys, you know, your size, you know, you have to be fast, skilled. You bring something to the table, you know, other than obviously not the not the grit in the engine room. Right. What you learn earlier on, because I played number 10, so that's fly half. And guys like Todd would peel off the scrum and nobble me before I got a chance to kick, run, do anything. I'm looking upwards at the sky because he's completely just and he's grinning at me because he knows that's what you do as a flanker you play it right before yeah yeah oh gosh yeah even after you pass it or kick it you know

early in the game you gotta you gotta show your presence and yeah i'm i'm breathing down your neck so yeah it's a calling card part of my role it's a calling card. It's part of my role. It's a calling card. Oh, by the way, for the rest of the game, this will be me. This is you. I'll be doing this a lot. The thing is, the guys who play in the backs, you learn guys like Todd don't have that compassion gene. That sort of, I love you, I'm going to hug you. They have that, I'm going to flatten you. Right.

So you learn shift and shake and move. There's one where you will go into and rotate into a challenge and try and get a talk and pull yourself out. Is that right? That's exactly right, yeah. So now how do you deal with guys that are trying that little move on you? Oh, you know, it's like you said, those genes. You really can't really care too much on sort of things.

You got a job at hand and a tax that you got to complete. So that's it. So two things, Ed, before you go any further, because you said two things. One, you said you peel off the scrum and then send the guy a calling card, somebody like Todd. Todd will do that. So can you please tell us what is the scrum? And when you say that you peel off the scrum, what would that mean? Okay, so Todd will be part of the scrum.

Now, the team that has the ball puts it in, but it has to move backwards. Correct me if I'm wrong here, Todd. Now, you've got a line of backs that filter off from the scrum. And as that's moving, Todd will be reading the way the ball is going to exit the scrum and as that's moving todd will be reading the way the ball is going to exit the scrum and then he'll be eyeing up whoever he decides to have now so the scrum is the part where all the people are kind of hugging together that's it yeah yeah it's the eight forwards that i spoke about before so you have eight on this team and eight on this team and uh they scrum together so the front row the three guys right there.

And then I'm on the outskirts where, you know, kind of, you know, exit and, you know, on defense or attack and be part of the play. Okay. Can I ask a Philadelphia Eagles question, please? Can I stop you? Here it comes. Here he comes. So, Todd, the Philadelphia Eagles, which happen to be my hometown American football team, have in the seventh round of this year's draft, they picked a guy by the name of, if I'm not mistaken, give me a second, Jordan Malata or Malata.

Jordan Malata. He's a guy who's a little bigger than you and runs like a squirrel. Like he's so, the way he darts about, he looks like an unreal version of a video game that was programmed to play rugby. Are you familiar with him and how do you think he'll do in the NFL? I am familiar with him. Yeah. So, you know, especially whenever there was a hype of him, you know, possibly moving to NFL or giving it a go. I have some friends that are, you know, NFL agents and, you know, they've reached out to me in the past from, you know, guys that want to do crossover and join the league. You know, likes of Jared Hayne to Hayden Smith, and then also a few other guys.

So whenever this kind of comes over, it's a whole learning process. And, you know, guys, and like I said before, I've never played NFL, and I know it's pretty complex with the whole playbook and learning it. So they're going to come in you know very foreign it's going to be a whole different language and uh you know i know that uh nate ebner from the patriots uh you know a couple time uh super bowl champion is you know played rugby and he still does uh you know when he's not winning Super Bowls. And, you know, he's explained it really well of just how different the sports are.

It's, you know, athleticism gets you so far, but, you know, you got to work your tail off and really challenge yourself, the top six inches, you know, mentally to really, you know, commit those those roles in the nfl i want to go back to the point you made mentioned earlier on about the desire to travel understand learn see the world you ended up in new zealand now if there was one place on the planet you go with yes that and the hacker and everything else That must have been a whole new experience

for you to play professional rugby. Don't worry about him. He'll be doing that forever. And just... How big a difference was it? Because you've played in South Africa, you've played in England, you've obviously...

Yeah. Japan, but New Zealand... New Zealand's got to be the coolest man i'm gonna tell the truth because it's like a religion there a hundred percent you know that's exactly uh the reason why i went down there um i was you know finished my third year at university and uh you know just a couple semesters away had this opportunity to you know move to new zealand and try out for a contract play club rugby and try out is it is it and i just put all my eggs in one basket and uh you know was very thankful for you know our usa sevens coach at the time uh john mckittrick he was he was uh a coach down there for

a club and and part of uh the the professional setup so I can get you a tryout and everything else. And that was enough, all I needed, you know. And that's what I, you know, went forward with. And it was completely, you know, all eggs in one basket, going for it all. And, you know, everything, like you said, it's religion down there. The club rugby scene is fantastic. You have super rugby and then you have the New Zealand All Blacks, which,

which, which are gods, you know, among the earth. You know, if you don't know anything about rugby and you know one thing, it's that you know about the, the New Zealand All Blacks and the Hawkins.

Do you get to do that before every match or, and for those of you who don't know what we're talking about, there is kind of like a warrior ritual that happens before the match where the team, they do, I guess it's the team captain who calls out. And he, I don't know what he's saying, but he's like, and then everybody on the team just like gets down into this crouch and then they go, they stick their tongues out. And it's the coolest thing I've ever seen.

And I want to do it so bad. But does that happen before every game? Because the other team looks like, what the F is going on? Yeah, so every time New Zealand plays as a national team, New Zealand All Blacks, they perform the haka. And, you know, as you said, the other opposition, the other country, shows respect by staring it down in arms and just embracing their culture, embracing the challenge that they're laying forth. Absolutely. There was one tape, Todd, I can't remember who it was.

What was the team, the international team, that stepped forward while the All Blacks were doing the Haka, which I was, I'm being told by my French producer, it was France. It was France. He's right. Is that disrespectful? Is that disrespectful? Yes. Oh my God. How did that go for France? Yeah. Yeah. It's a, you know, it, it's,

it was actually embraced quite well from, from the New Zealand. It's, you know, they're laying down the the challenge, and the French accepted it. They stepped forward and they said, okay, let's bring it. I don't think the New Zealand team was quite too happy, and they showed their results. During the game. Well, all I can tell you this, Todd, is because of the hawker, now when my wife and I get in an argument, I perform that before the argument happens.

I say to her before we argue and then I get into my stance and then she walks towards me and I end the hawker. And she hits you with a frying pan. Right. On that note, we are going to take a break. Todd, you stick around because we're coming back. We'll have more with Todd Clever. And we will have Professor Trevor Lipscomb. Yes, the author of The Physics of Rugby. We're going to take that break. We will be back shortly. Welcome back. I'm Gary O'Reilly.

And I'm Chuck Nice. And this, of course, is Playing With Science, a very special rugby edition. We're exploring the world of rugby with former USA captain Todd Clever. Yes. But we are now joined to break down the science. Professor Trevor Lipscomb of the Catholic University of America, author, as we've already touched on, The Physics of Rugby,

as well as Albert Einstein, a biography. That's right. Wow. Professor, welcome to the show. Yeah. Thank you for inviting me. And before we get to your backstory and how you got to rugby, just got to ask you, who do you like more, rugby or Einstein?

It's a close call. I don't think Einstein would have lasted long on the rugby pitch, so I'm going with rugby here. There you go. All right, so how did you, we've asked Todd how he kind of gravitated towards rugby. How's that story work out for you? How did you find yourself in the world of rugby?

Well, like you, I grew up in England. And so in high school, you play a lot of rugby. And, you know, if I'd have carried on playing soccer, I'd only played for a really bad team like Crystal Palace. Yes, they are bad. Naughty profession. So I started playing more rugby and studying physics in college. And one day my rugby career ended actually when I broke my neck.

Oh, gosh. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. So I thought it was going to be a fun way of putting rugby and physics together. So I ended up writing a book about it. Very cool. Now, you know what? So just going to – we were about to go down the road of physics, but now that you've said what you just said, I just have to ask, since we have Todd on the line and since you were injured so, I will say, severely,

There is a common conception that rugby has less injuries than football because you're not wearing pads and football weaponizes the player by putting helmets on them. However, you just said you broke your back or your neck. You broke your neck. And I've actually seen Todd score a try by jumping over an injured player on the field while the player was being attended to. So clearly, clearly there are injuries in this sport. What is the most common injury and how often are players hurt in this sport? Can you give us some insight? Yeah. Todd, please. Yeah, I've also heard and I know that injuries are you know less common in rugby than football for the reasons that you mentioned um but i think positionally it depends on you know

what position you know for for the injuries that you that you receive for myself as as a flanker i had a lot of trouble with my fingers and hands. I dislocated some fingers and broke some bones in the hands, but nothing that you can't tape up and keep on playing. Easy for you to say. Easy for you to say. I was quite lucky. I mean, you get bumps and bruises, you know, on the shoulders, you know, bruising legs from getting tackled.

But, again, I was quite lucky through my planker to not sustain too serious. I'm fortunate as a professor, I received a broken neck. It's a contact sport and things happen.

I know it is safer than American football. And professor, from a science standpoint, if you could just tell us maybe why injury is less in rugby. And then if you don't mind reliving your horrific accident for my entertainment, I would really appreciate knowing how you broke your neck. Don't indulge him. Sure. Well, one of the things that science tells us, actually, is that the bigger a bone is, then the harder it is to break.

So in many sports, what you're going to see, contact sports, you're going to see things like Todd said, where fingers and thumbs and toes might be easier to break, but something bigger like a thigh bone or your hip or your shoulder, it's going to be a lot tougher. Unfortunately, the bones in the neck are a little bit small, so they can break easily under certain circumstances. With the difference between rugby and American football, one of the huge differences is if I go and tackle someone in rugby and I get my arm too high, then I'm going to hit them in the face. But in American football, sticking my arm out, I might actually just grab hold of the visor, right, the face mask and create a huge amount

of torque that's going to rip the neck around. And so and the other thing is, again, you can it's a lot to do with friction, right? Your hand is going to slide off another human being's skin, but it can stick to a helmet. So again, you can get these whiplash injuries, these horse collar injuries, because the friction from hand to equipment is different from hand to hand or hand to leg. OK. So the other thing is now there are certain codes that will focus on rugby union rather than the league and the sevens. But in terms of rugby union, about tackling high and spearing and all sorts of different things that have gone on in the past,

which can cause horrific injuries. So the governing body, the RFU, seem to have brought in an updated code of conduct when it comes to tackling. Is that right? They have, yeah. And I think it makes the game safer. Cool. However, I must say that in my last few weeks of watching rugby, as opposed to thinking before then when I was really watching Australian rules football, I'm so embarrassed.

I'm so embarrassed. You're in the right all these years i've been watching australian rules football which by the way comes on very late at night here in america and i've been watching it for years thinking i was watching rugby and i just thought australian rules football was another form of rugby but anyway uh in the last couple of weeks watching rugby i've seen players Todd's size actually fling guys. Like you're allowed to grab the guy and they swing the guy and like the guy holds on to the ball, goes out of bounds. But then it's held against him for holding on to the ball

and going out of bounds because he's holding the ball when he touches down out of bounds. What is up with that? Like you flung me out of bounds. You're a monster. You're Todd Clever. I'm Chuck Nice. I'm this little teeny guy who should be telling jokes,

but for some reason I'm out here on the pitch. I have the rugby ball in my hand. You grab me. You throw me out of bounds, and I'm penalized. Why is that? Because you're Chuck Nice. What the professor said. What the professor said. So we now worked out, it was like sort of multiple choice. Should I play rugby? You answered the questions like this.

Yes. Definitely not. Definitely not. So, okay, Todd, I'm going to ask you a question and I'll hopefully get the professor to explain a little bit of physics about it. As I was growing up playing rugby, all of a sudden I'd see players, when they got the ball, would spin pass. And it was like a whole new technique,

because as kids we were just chucking it left or right, and it's wobbling and it's all over the place. But then the players practice and develop this spin pass, a really tight spiral. From a player's point of view, what is the advantage of that? And then I'll ask the professor about the physics. Yeah, I mean, you mentioned from rugby how it happened and the rules and a lot of changes.

Rugby is always evolving for safety and for entertainment and all sorts of the reasons for the game but for that reason for the pass i mean if you're spinning a pass you know it's a long pass it makes sense you know it gets there faster you practice a technique uh you know it's one of those things you do 10 000 times on each hand for your uh you know training career you can you know hit a dartboard from 25 metres away, 20 metres away. And it just gets there faster and it's just more consistent and free-flowing. OK, Professor, that's the players' point of view.

From the science, why have players worked out that putting a real tight spiral on their passes is more advantageous um it's due to a thing called gyro uh gyroscopic stability if you spin something as you throw it it wants to continue in that direction right you got the same thing in american football where you try and throw the ball downfield with a tight spiral. That spiral keeps something going in the direction it's been aimed. Again, in baseball, if you throw a knuckleball, it's got no spin on it at all, and it goes all over the place. It's incredibly unpredictable. So that tight spiral will allow that ball to go straight where you aimed it,

and you hope that's straight into the arms of your teammate. Cool. So it's really a stabilization thing you get a longer pass and a more accurate pass because the ball has a rotation on it that's exactly it Todd one thing I couldn't work out was to pass from my left to the right because I'm right-handed so I was passing right I was okay but to pass it was like this is all wrong how long did it take and you just was like this is all wrong how long did it take and you just said you practice with both hands how long did it take you to master and how do you alter your technique um yeah it's uh it's just one of those things you know

like a switch hitter you know for for baseball you know takes work both uh you know you gotta just practice practice practice, practice. And ultimately, my left hand, like I'm right-handed as well, and that's how I started, you know, passing, just spinning past my right and then, you know, trying not to, you know, pass anyone to my left because I didn't have the skill, you know. So that was always my dummy move because, you know, I can't pass that way and just kind of run forward.

But ultimately, if you're playing at higher level higher level you've got to retain those skills and um you know in throughout my career i end up becoming a better left-handed passer than a right-handed passer because i was you know you're working on uh on that skill so much interesting but the okay so the shape's similar in terms of a pigskin and a rugby ball, but there's no laces on a rugby ball? Not really, no. No, so do we have a pressure differential? Does that actually make a great deal of difference?

We're getting into your favourite place in Flategate or Deflategate, yeah. So what sort of differences do we have in a rugby ball, Professor? Well, with a rugby ball, it's very much like an ellipse, right? So it's a more rounded end than an American football. What's really happening when you spin the ball is you're actually creating a pressure differential, if you want to think about it that way, which can create something called the Magnus effect, which is sort of a consequence of the drag

force, which I know you like here on the show. You've been listening, Professor. Yes, thank you. You're welcome. And so even though you're actually passing in a particular direction, it will drift a little bit. So that actually is a problem if you're defending and the other team kicked the ball towards you. If you've got a right-handed kicker, that ball is going to come headed straight towards you to begin with, but then it's going to drift away slightly one way. But if you have a left-footed kicker, it's going to drift in the opposite direction. And again, it's the same kind of thing that happens in baseball. If you've got a left-handed pitcher versus a right-handed pitcher throwing a slider, right, they're going to go in different directions. Correct. So now we have discussed with respect to American football,

the tight spiral bomb pass, which, you know, is probably the most exciting thing that we see in American football, aside from maybe a breakaway, like, 100-yard dash. What we learned is, from our other resident professor, is that the laces on the ball actually create that arcing path, which causes the nose of the ball at some point to start pointing downwards, and that's how you get those beautiful elliptical flight patterns. The only time you'll get any the ball traveling any distance will be through kicks right now and again someone will pass maybe 30 that's what i was going to say is there ever a pass in rugby that's long enough to to uh to affect that where where laces affect the paths in football where you don't get that. Todd?

In a normal game, would you find any lengths of pass over 40 yards? No, I wouldn't say more than 40 yards. That's a pretty good pass, though. I know, but you're always passing backwards. You're always passing backwards. You don't have that forward pass because if you have a forward pass, then the referee introduces himself into the game. So how hard is that to pass a ball backwards? That's basically a lateral when you're passing backwards 40 yards.

It sounds to you, it sounds completely counterintuitive because you want to go forward. But if both teams are playing with the same rules, it kind of works itself out. Yeah, yeah. So how difficult is it to get a 40-yard pass in rugby, Todd? And then, Professor, from a physics standpoint, how difficult is that?

I've seen a couple of them, and, you know, it's obviously not from anyone in the front, in the four-pack, the eight guys, the skill guys. Okay. There has been a couple, you know, big old wind-up Joeana uh passes uh you know but obviously they go backwards but they also what's what's happened is there's a kick pass where you can kick it across the field that's where you know probably the farthest you know you know pass right as uh has occurred um but uh i can't say much more than 40 metres from a pass pass. Professor, quickly, we're going to have to take another break. Is there an equation so as you can consistently trap,

catch a bouncing rugby ball? Because it seems the one thing that players, no matter how good they are, always struggle with. It's something that scientists always struggle with as well. It's an odd-shaped ball, and the ball is bouncing on a surface that could be wet if you're playing, like, in Scotland in winter, or it could be bone-hard if you're playing sevens in rugby. So it can give you some guidelines, but you're on your own. Nice.

Sounds familiar. Right, we're going to take that break. Welcome back to Playing With Science. Our guest today, if you've just joined us, where have you been? Go back to the beginning and listen all the way up to now. Right, it was former USA captain Todd Clever and Professor Trevor Lipscomb of the Catholic University of America and author of The Physics of Rugby. And Jess, we are talking about rugby still because we love it.

We've got a new devotee. He's called Chuck Nice. Yes, man. I've got to tell you, I'm a fan of rugby. I mean, I actually find, as I said, it's definitely the child. I mean, American football is certainly the child of rugby, if not the distant cousin. American football is certainly the child of rugby, if not the distant cousin. And there's so many similarities that I see where I can see the development of American football from rugby itself.

Absolutely. Except that there is a stoppage of play all the time. Which, believe it or not, I can't believe that I found that disconcerting. Because every time you would have the tackle happen, right, player goes down. You don't realize because as an American football fan, I'm like, all right, play's over. Let's break this up and let's set up at the line of scrimmage. No, no. These guys, they push the ball out or they move the ball or another player, another player picks it up.

So, so, I mean mean let's go back listen to todd so as it's it's a continuation and there are there are stoppages but it's generally a free-flowing game how do you develop a physicality and mentality to remain in the game because you being the physical demands are great as well as the mental demands. Yeah, massively. I mean, you're playing offense and defense. You don't have a coach or, you know, someone making the calls from the sideline or up in the box after every down or anything else. So you rely a lot on the captains, a lot on the playmakers to, you know, what's going on.

So it's very much a player's game. And, you know, American football going on. So it's a very much player's game. And, you know, American football is very much a coach's game. Absolutely. How interesting. Right. Because you're part of the scrum, and for me, the scrum was always, well, it goes in there and stuff happens.

It's a mystery. Is there definite, there's got to be definite techniques. And how do you manage? Because there's all sorts of hand grabs and graphs and sort of things that are going on in there. So you better, if it's secret, don't tell me. But then again, tell me. I mean, it's a possession. You know, scrums happen whenever there's a forward pass

or a knock on or a team chooses to, you know, have a scrum. And, you know, there isn't anything dirty that, you know, goes on 99.9% of the time. But, you know, the front rows, the props and the hookers, they think that's their art form, that they can express themselves and show dominance against opposition. art form that they can express themselves and show dominance against opposition. But for some fans, and I know especially number 10s and the rest of the backs, they think it was pretty pointless and they don't think much of it. You know, Todd, normally you pay extra for a hooker to show dominance.

But anyway, Professor. Professor, ignore him. Come on, Todd's cracking up. Come on. Professor, can you break down for me the physics of the scrum? Here these people are all locked together arm in arm. They're moving as their heads are budding. They have to interlock. And they're interlocking as a huge group.

And then you see them moving almost as a unit but imposing their will. What kind of physics is at play in that process? Pretty much it's a question of force, right? Each team is trying to have the largest amount of force directed downfield, right? So if you're all aligned in the same way, you're going to maximize your shove down the pitch. Now, there's a way to out force the opposition. If it's their scrum and they put the ball in, their hooker, the guy in the middle, has to hook the ball back with his feet.

That means he can't push. So if your hooker is pushing, that gives you a sort of eight to seven person advantage. And if you look at where Todd plays as flankers, you can get your flankers aligned very close to the scrum. So they're pretty much pushing straight down the field. Or you can have them more at right angles, which will mess up the opposition's scrum half because he's got to take a detour around to get the ball. So how much force is there if someone like Todd, who's built like a tank with extra armour, starts to push and rotate the scrum? So what are we dealing with in terms of physics there? All right. So a good estimate is that a rugby player can push equal to about their own weight. So if you imagine you've got eight people's tod size,

which Wikipedia says is 213 pounds, so you've got about 16,000 pounds of force going on there. Wow. You also have torque, which is when you're going to try and rotate that scrum. That's usually when you've lost it and you're trying to mess up the possession for the opposition. Now, the other worry with the scrum, which is actually how I bust my neck, that's usually when you've lost it and you're trying to mess up the possession for the opposition.

Now, the other worry with the scrum, which is actually how I bust my neck, is that if you've got the front rows pushing not horizontally but slightly downwards, then the entire scrum can collapse. And what happened in my case was the two props got pulled over to one side and so basically the weight of both teams' packs went on my neck. And you're happy you know now? Oh, God, I'm sorry I ever asked. See?

My neck is hurting right now. My neck is actually hurting. This part of me says good. This part of me says that's not good at all. Oh, man. Well, by the way, the physics, it's fascinating. And it actually goes, it actually shows you the physicality of that particular process when it's going on on the pitch. That's amazing.

Okay, Todd, there's something that Chuck probably won't quite get to grips with, but the line out. When a ball has gone out of bounds on the sideline, then it has to come back in as a line out. Now, back in the day when I played in high school, things have changed. You're allowed to pick up a player, and all of a sudden it's starting to look somewhere between ballet and... By the way, it's my favorite part of the game is because you get to pick the player up,

and he gets to go higher. You pick him up so he can actually get high enough to catch the ball, which, I mean, the whole thing looks really cool. I mean, it just looks poetic. It looks very elegant, even though you guys are like huge and muscular. It's like the one part of the game that looks almost like a dance

or like that scene in Dirty Dancing when... Never mind. Yeah, thank you. But you know what I'm saying? It just seems, Todd, it just seems wrong, but it's an integral part of the game.

Absolutely. I mean, it's a, it's, it's one facet of the game where you, you know, retain possession or you steal away the position from the opposition. So like when Chuck said,

you know, you ragdoll somebody out of bounds, it becomes, they, they, it's a turnover. So the other team gets that line out to throw the ball in. So it's complex. It's very much thinking.

You've got to outthink and speed and power. There's a lot that goes into a line out. It's not just pick a player out. There's interchanging. into a line out. It's not just, you know, pick a player out. There's interchanging, there's moving backwards, moving forwards, looping around to, you know, to beat the other opposition. It's a race up in the air, whatever the, and get this chuck, the hooker throws the ball in too. So that's pretty good. Oh, hookers, is there anything they can't do? So that's pretty good.

Oh, hookers, is there anything they can't do? Physics. Professor, save me. Physics of a line out before Chuck just disappears for half an hour. So I used to be a hooker. Yes. You're not helping. Sorry.

Go ahead. Go ahead, Professor. So the hooker throws the ball in, and physics shows without a doubt that throwing it to the big guy is usually a good idea, right? Yeah. And as Gary says, back in the day, you weren't allowed to be lifted at all, and you still throw it to the tall guy, and he gets the ball. Now, as Chuck was saying, it looks more like a ballet because it's got to be so well timed. The hooker's got to know exactly where to throw it, but also when the lift is coming. If you throw the ball way up in the air and the guys get the lift wrong, then it's going to go sailing over the guy's head. So it's really a question of throwing the ball with precision

and with practice so that everyone knows what they're doing at the right time super cool yeah todd do you have a question for the professor while you're here and we've got you together no i actually learned quite a lot about uh you know the scrums and you know the force and why why the ball passes so i mean uh you know i knew the reason i knew the outcome but uh but the technique so that's uh that's quite good okay let's all right before we before we have to sadly let you go let's ask you both the same question where is rugby headed in the future and in particular where is rugby headed in the u.s start with you professor um that's a difficult question to answer

i'm hoping it's it's going to go away from the way that England plays rugby, right? England plays rugby like the New York Jets play football. It's ground and pound and it's not interesting, but they often win, unlike the Jets. So what I would like to see is a lot more open play. I'd actually like to see no lifting at the lineouts. I think the laws really need to change to try and increase player safety, but obviously I'm a bit biased on that point. But also what you're going to see is more and more nations who've never played rugby or who've not been particularly good at rugby, their level of play is going to increase over the years and it's going to become a truly international game. Again, if you think when I was a kid with the World Cup, you know,

there are many teams who are now made in the knockout stage of this year's World Cup in soccer who would never have qualified when I was young. So that's great for the game. I agree with you. So, Todd, where do you see rugby going in the future and again in the US in particular? Because I know you have an involvement down in Austin in Texas. Moving up, world rankings were getting better. We just beat Scotland down in Houston a couple weeks ago. We've been dominating Canada, which we haven't in the past years. We've formed a new league, Major League Rugby, MLR, just started this year. And actually, the semifinals are on this weekend.

Finals are in San Diego July 7th at USD. And it's amazing what response there is of introducing rugby. And people are experiencing it for the first time and seeing the camaraderie, seeing the respect. And there's an outlet for people that don't want to play football or parents that don't want to put their kids in football. There's youth rugby growing massively. So, um, you know, America has always been sort of the sleeping giant, you know, that's what England and New Zealand, they've always said all when America, when Americans kind of take place, you know, the sleeping giants just waking up and it's awesome to be part of it um i i have interest in uh in the awesome franchise that that participates in the in the major league rugby and uh you know we uh you know had a had a pretty good season you know and now uh just just across the board you know the sport's

growing and it's awesome to get it on tv and uh and introduce it to to a lot more fans cool have you got a one-line sales pitch to get people interested in rugby? Well, yeah, put it like this. Both of you, Professor, you and Todd, you're talking to America right now. You should play rugby or you should watch rugby because? It's a fantastic fast action sport. Todd, you're up. Todd? it's a fantastic fast action sport Todd you're up Todd I mean from

from from Chuck's side I have to put in hooker somewhere in there just to sell it boom you had me

at hooker job done Todd we've got the world rugby sevens don't encourage him anymore

oh that's my I'm getting a t-shirt. It's going to say rugby. You had me at hooker. Oh, gentlemen, gentlemen. He's going to wake up in the middle of the night giggling. You know that, don't you?

Before we let you go, Todd, we've got the World Rugby Sevens coming up in San Francisco. It's going to be the Giants Stadium. So how good is that going to be to grab audience attention here in the U.S.? You know, rugby sevens is an Olympic sport since it just got reintroduced to Olympics in Rio. And now that USA Rugby bidded for the Rugby World Cup, the sevens Rugby World Cup, and we won the bid. So we're hosting an 18- 18th Park in San Francisco, July

20th to July 22nd. And there's 24 men's national teams coming, 16 women's national teams coming. So from all parts of the globe coming in and it's going to be able to showcase

and first time we've ever hosted an event like this and tickets you know tickets are are scarce at the moment we're going to sell out of the whole park of all three days and it's going to be amazing and and you know the countdown's fully on and and really excited for for the public and all the america fans and obviously the players to experience playing in uh such an iconic stadium it's 15 versus 15, but reduced to seven. And it's much faster, correct? Yeah, much faster.

I mean, you play three games a day, you know, with breaks in between. But a whole tournament, you know, happens in three days. For the Rugby World Cup, 15 versus 15, that takes, you know, seven, eight weeks. And you can have a whole whole tournament in three days brilliant fascinating great todd clever thank you so much indeed it's been a

privilege and a pleasure and uh you've got at least one extra fan here yes you do both of you uh thank you thank you professor trevor lipscomb uh what a dry sense of humor you have you must be british yeah uh the where's the catholic university university catholic the catholic What a dry sense of humor you have. You must be British. What is it? The Catholic University? University Catholic? The Catholic University of America. America.

Professor of physics of rugby. Physics of rugby. Thank you. Absolutely brilliant. The pair of you really enjoyed our show on rugby. Yeah. Yeah. This was fantastic.

Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. I'm a fan. I'm just letting you know right now for for the rest of you who are listening, if you ever get the chance, first check it out on YouTube. Just go on YouTube and check out some rugby games. Or check out the Rugby Sevens.

Yeah, and then check out the Sevens. All I can tell you is this. If you're a real football fan, you're definitely going to be a rugby fan. You don't have to play it, but you will enjoy watching it. I guarantee you that. Well, I've been Gary O'Reilly. And I've been Chuck Nice. And I'm still Gary O'Reilly. And I've been Chuck Nice. And I'm still Gary O'Reilly.

And I'm still Chuck Nice. And this has been Playing With Science. Hope you've enjoyed our rugby special. We will catch up with you sometime in the near future.