I remember playing on gravel as 12/13 year old kids at school. The “big kids” in Year 10-12 would sometimes take the oval and we were left with the gravel area to play.
it's splitting hairs. American football, those guys at the line of scrimmage are athletic 300 lb guys running full speed into each other. a study showed it was like being in multiple car crashes and footy is tough too........saying one is "real" over another is just silly
Oh really? Pretty sure a it doesn't take a genius to realise that tackling lower is easier (which you can't do in AFL) - so that's one aspect of physicality. The next aspect would be that even though every hit up top is big - each player knows whats coming. In AFL, pretty much every horrible injury comes from someone being absolutely destroyed from the side / behind. A proven stat is that the most players hospitalised in Australian sport, have been AFL players. To round off, you clearly haven't analysed what it means for a game to be truly "physical", but that's alright champion - we learn something new everyday!
AFL is my sport but I'm in awe of league and union. Moved to Queensland and the first game i ever saw was the origin game Wally Lewis and Mark Geyer got into it. I was hooked!! Don't subscribe to the code competition. I watch it all!!