If you use your head like a battering ram , then protection is required. But if you play rugby you
you use your shoulder, and live to play again.
Padding only serves to increase the risk to the spnal colunm

Your blog has an interesting transition....you start out sounding like my physics teacher and end on a note sounding like the gals in my carpool...oooweee! I am surprised that with your love of space Mr. McDonald, you didn’t give us the perspective of the alien watching this game of games. Could we add one more scientific perspective to this national pastime? After all, what could be more quirky science than that?

...a spacecraft surreptitiously hovers then slips through a crack, spinning into a parking position beside one of the overkill-owatted stadium lights. Curious aliens peer out of their windows to see below a gathering of human figures, gold and green, with others clearly marked in black and white stripes. They are all milling about an open green area surrounded by what appears to be a very deep and high fortress. The figures create patterns that morph in time to a piercing noise in the air emanating from the striped humans that vaguely remind the aliens of the black and white striped four stick animals, last viewed roaming on the plains of a darker land mass across the planet's watery expanse.

The other human figures on this green plain resemble visitors that the aliens recall seeing a few times on the satellite of Planet Earth. The ones here still have the large round glossy heads, but the aliens note they have changed around the bottom section. The lower half of the form seems to have shrunk, leaving only a divided bulb in the back with two very thin sticks below moving along the ground. The front of the split bulb must be a mechanism for control because the figures are seen frequently placing the end of one of their top sticks firmly on this place. They hoist it up, causing the shoulder portion to raise, and then the bottom sticks seem to move faster. The movement is repeated regularly, especially after those guarding the fortress break out into raucous noise. Perhaps it is just a gesturing of dominance, control of a different kind.

This entire passage of time, muse the aliens, must be a ritual of some sort by the Earthlings. They move into what appears to be lines of combat within this enclosed pasture. The moving figures are confined by the sloping fence that totally encircles the area, and is encased with many other humans who make surging guttural noises in keeping with the rhythmic movements of the lines on the pasture. These fence sitters seem to become particularly agitated when figures in one colour or the other break free of the pattern, and do not stay as part of the lines.

Looking around the acres and acres of barren wasteland within which the fenced pasture is located, it is clear this must be a competition for food. No wonder these striped figures have come here...they must have come looking for pasture, and their wailing whistle is most likely over the fact that these other gold and green figures are trying to take over the food source. They constantly kneel and fall face first on the ground, obviously looking at the quality of the grazing area. Could this all be some war for the last remaining green space that the humans so desperately crave, the green space which they have systematically destroyed with their living methods?

But wait, what is that? A small brown form --- is it a poor representation of the aliens’ very own ship?? Could it be that the humans are battling over ownership of this small, misshapen spaceship model? They seem to test its airworthiness, and practice propelling it with their top sticks and sometimes their bottom sticks. One group tests the model’s ability to fly, and if they fail to get it to fly far, they all run and attempt to take possession of it, falling on one another, struggling until the striped humans pierce the air with their sound, giving the retrieved brown form to a chosen one to try again. While observing the fighting for control of it, the ineffectiveness of the plan is obvious.

At this realization the aliens chuckle in their alien way. As if it weren’t pathetic enough that these Earthlings have destroyed their habitat until this one small rectangle of green is all that is left of their foraging grounds amidst the concrete jungle. Now they think they have discovered the mystery of the flying ship. Yet they still cannot all work as a team, but instead smash themselves into each other battling for possession of the supposed working model.

The aliens tire of the confusing spectacle, and prepare to leave. Then, as he sprang to the play, the striped one gave a whistle. At that, the aliens flew like a missile. But the humans heard them exclaim as they flew out of sight, ‘” It’s PHYSIQUES not PHYSICS Bob that make their pants so darned tight!!”

Kate

Actually, many rugby players do wear (soft) helmets... but that's to make sure their ears don't get ripped off but the studs on other players' boots during tackles.