>>People don't need to beat their brains and bodies out in the name of team sports. There are sports that offer all the benefits and are a lot less risky than the crazy contact sports that hearken back to the gladiators or jousting.
Fair enough. FWIW I don't think Rugby is anything like gladiators or jousting- there's no kudos for hurting the other side, in fact in 2015 it carries a negative stigma. The kids know who the heroes are. Kudos comes from passing the ball to your better positioned team mate even if you might score. Not sure you experienced that in golf. Never mind.
The All Blacks are quite an institution in NZ - e.g. see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji65WI5QLZI Probably means little to you- but there's quite a few All Blacks and "World Famous in New Zealand" types.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
