Finesse. Use that word in sports and you might as well say it ... can't take a hit. Finesse in sports means speed, agility, deftness of hand and foot and eye, but not nastiness, please.

So when people bandy about the concept that women's rugby is a finesse game, they might claim it's a compliment, but just as much it's an insult. Those girls can't take the punishment. They just run around trying not to get hurt.

Baloney.

Women's rugby is just as physically demanding as men's. OK, sure, so the tacklers aren't as big as in the men's game, but neither are the ballcarriers, so in my mind, it all evens out. I've played a few games with women, and they can take a hit ... and a punch ... better than a lot of men.

Women's rugby has enthusiastic rucking and mauling, crunching tackles, and all the nastiness we come to love in this game. "I've seen women's games that are all about skill and speed, and others that are all about power, just like in the men's game," said David Niu, Eagle men's flyhalf and Eagle women's backline coach. "The women are more than willing to get into the physical side of the game, no question."

"I'd have to agree with David," added former Eagle Barb Fugate. "The idea that they shouldn't be able to contest scrums or that women don't want to be physical is a mistaken one."

So, how does this idea get around? Well, for one, men are bigger and a lot of big men tend to center their game around being big and running over the opposition. For some it works, but the tougher the games, the more you need those skills to back up the size.

But for the most part women don't feel that way. They have to score by working the ball and outfoxing the opposition. Nadine Nishimura, of the Bay Area Shehawks, a team known by a perfect rugby moniker, BASH, explains, "The idea that women don't like to hit, or can't handle being tackled, well that's just not true. We like it as much as anyone. And the idea that we're playing rugby but we're not interested in scrummaging or rucking and mauling, well that's just wrong. I like to see good ball movement and skillful play in any form of rugby, but that doesn't mean we can't enjoy the physical side, too."

"I think the women work harder at developing their skills ... the skills with the ball and creating space," said Niu.

Is that it, then. Women cannot blast over the opposition, so they create others ways to win. Hmmm ... sounds a lot like the men's rugby of the 1970s, when the players weren't so godawful huge, and by many accounts the skills were at an all-time high. Could it be? Could it be that the women just flat know how to play rugby, and better than the men. Are the men ... stupid????

No. You play to your strengths. Some teams succeed through teamwork, others by stocking their squads with big, fast players no one can catch. Playing one way or the other seems to me to be equally smart.

Kate Nichol-Coates, the Fitness coach at Texas A&M WRFC, adds this commentary to the physical dimension of the game for women, "I have played rugby for both men's and women's sides and the one thing I know is that rugby is ALWAYS a brutal game. Women's games do tend to be slower paced, but the physicality is just as present and necessary as in men's games. She makes a few key scientific points as well, "Why is it that men seem to perceive women as less violent? Is it because women lack testosterone? In truth, testosterone is a steroid and is converted to estrogen before it is delivered to the brain. The chemical making men feel aggressive and violent is the almighty E. Women are more physically aggressive in almost every mammalian species. Do you think it's a coincidence the ball so closely resembles an egg?"

Women, says Niu, are just as committed to the tackle, are just as tough, and just as enthusiastic about their rugby as men. He should know. He also points out that over there in New Zealand, where word has it they've got a pretty good women's team going, the women train exactly the same as the men. No special rules ... no special dispensations for the girlies who can't take a hit. Because, we know they can, and, frankly, that's what we like to see.

Perhaps best put by Nichol-Coates, "I have seen women ruggers with broken hands, broken noses, twisted ankles, and bruised ribs continue to put in 100% until the 80th minute. On the field, there are no men and no women, there are only ruggers. It is violent and it is beautiful for all of us."