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Touchdown or try? Quarter back or fly half? In line with the NFL landing in London this weekend during the Rugby World Cup, we explore how different the two really are.

On the face of it, a sporting novice may struggle to notice any differences at all, an oval shaped ball and players aggressively kick and wrestle themselves across the pitch. But there is much much more to it than that; it’s a different shaped oval for a start…

The first major distinction is the quite literally in the appearance, the NFL requires body armour and padding underneath your jersey as well as a helmet. The closest prerequisite you get in rugby is a gum shield, the rest on the field will be a variety of different scrum caps, coloured tapes and gloves.

American football games generally last much longer than the standard 80 minute rugby matches too; every tackle results in the whole field being reset. This results in the game playing time becoming spread out alongside slow motion replays and additional in game entertainment.

To illustrate the differences, our friends over at StubHub have created the graphic below showing all of the key points you need to look out for.

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