Here's another clip - this one is a montage of one of this year's State of Origin games.

For our American readers, State of Origin is a rugby league competition played between two Australian teams (although a number of Kiwi's play in this competition).

Rugby league is a fairly different game to rugby union, but the idea is the same -

Tackle the guy with the ball, and do it without pads.

More broken ribs, anyone?

Part 4, and this clip is a mix of American football and rugby - a great way (we think) to compare the sports side-by-side.

So - which one is rougher?

You be the judge.

Part 3 of our American Football vs Rugby section has two more videos for your viewing pleasure.

There's another video with yet more examples of the apparent 'softness' of rugby (ha, yeah right...), which we hope will show all you Americans that tackles in rugby hurt.

They really, really hurt.

In our first post on this subject, we explained why we won't be taking a side in this debate.

We told you we don't know enough about American Football, but that we know (too much, probably...) about rugby.

And that means, we can at least tell you American Football supporters our side of the story.

We want to show you that, contrary to popular belief (outside the main rugby playing nations, anyway), rugby hits are not 'softer' than American Football hits, rugby players are not slow or unskilled compared to American Football players, and that - yes - tackles very much do go above the shoulders in rugby.

In part one, we showed you a clip of rugby tackles. Here's round two - more hard hits, blood, head-highs and dirt than you can shake a stick at.

Enjoy, sports fans!

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One of the hot topics in the Attic lately has been the American Football vs. Rugby debate.

It was our original intention to enter the debate, but we've talked about it (and researched it, too) at length - and we're not sure we're in a position to do that.

See, we've never played American Football. So can we comment on how 'tough' or 'rough' it is? Or isn't?

We don't think so.

We've read so much on this debate, and there are many, many passionate arguments out there. But, to be honest, most of them seem to be born from ignorance. Rugby players who think their sport is the 'toughest' because the players don't wear pads. American Football supporters who think their sport is 'tougher' because they make tackles without arms.

We think it's all a bit naive...one of these sports probably is 'tougher', 'rougher', or whatever you want to call it - but which one that is, we don't know.

What we do know is that too many people know too little about the opposing sport before starting these debates. So, we feel the best thing for us to do is to educate, rather than join the debate.

We can't tell you a thing about American Football. We watch the Super Bowl, sure, but we don't know enough about it. What we know is rugby - inside out, and upside down. So, for all you American Football supporters out there, we're going to feature (over the next week or so) a series of videos.

These videos are intended to educate. They're to show people who don't know the sport that there are tackles without arms, there are broken bones, there are tackles above the shoulders, and there is a lot (a lot) of blood.

It's damn fast, and it's damn rough.

Enjoy the series, sports fans. We hope you learn something!