Incidentally, while rugby is a contact sport, every player knows that tackling above the shoulders is a foul. So is leaving your feet during a tackle. Either of these is serious enough that the other team is immediately awarded a penalty kick, often directly resulting in points for the other team.

So even without throwing a punch, Bush is already well outside fair play.

Grasping an opponent by the back of the head and punching him in the face is beyond the pale - I've watched rugby avidly for years, and I've never seen it during an open-field tackle like this, honest - and will typically result in a player being immediately sent off.

I've seen a lot of rugby over here, and while a good sport, playing it doesn't much impress me. Having played a bit of both, let me assure you that despite the padding, American football is a lot rougher, and would have most rugby players crying in ten minutes.

In France rugby is an elite sport in the sense that it isn't professional, it is played 'for sport.' The guys who play it regularly are very tough - mostly stonemasons from the Pyrenees. No wimpy Parisians. Some rugby players are fragile little guys - fast sneaky guys who flummox the oxen. They try to stay untouchable - for their health.

What's so odd about it? It's a faster, rougher game than US football. It moves more. It's not static. It's fluid. There are fewer set pieces - more flow. A lot of chance happens in it. While the stonemasons are in a tangled heap, some little guy gets the ball and runs half the field with it - with not a touch on him. The game doesn't stop for commercial breaks. They can't flash them in like they do with soccer because there's usually too much happening.