I hate the word ‘physicality’. ‘Physicality’ just sounds silly.
It sounds boring. It is so PC, it is anti-PC.
Maybe hate is too strong, but I mean it in the same way as I hate some comments I read here on The Roar. You try it ignore it, but it keeps coming back.
There were days when the words we used were strong, powerful, fast, or fit. Instead we use a catch-all phrase – “physicality”.
This may be convenient for some coaches, performance analysts and players who spend too much time with their physio. But it sucks.
This word has no place in rugby.
We all love games, because like music, art and our family, it is natural. Five-year-olds will run around and take part naturally.
Can you imagine a five-year-old point at a friend on the paddock and say “wow, look at that physicality?”.
Which normal person will say “I want to have more physicality”?
No more. I vote for a ban on physicality. In fact this is the last time I will use the word. To be honest, I never used it.
So, we need to either find a new catch-all word, or just go back to good old terms like good, awesome or bloody good. But never that word, which I have never used, and will never say again.
DaniE says: As an U6s coach, I say no to physicality in rugby. No, no, no. Well, I have to say no. I really shouldn’t encourage the little tykes to be physical already. Because that would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull.
About half the kids I coach live in rugby-watching households, and do they see any touch rugby on their TV screens? Nope. They see big chunky guys throwing themselves at each other, dragging each other down, using every ounce of their physicality to dominate play. And you know what? They want to do that. They’re begging to do that. I have one boy who’s eschewed the Disney Channel for Setanta Rugby, from breakfast to night time and he’s suffering I tell you, suffering. You know why? Cause he’s bought into the whole physicality thing. And in tournaments, that ain’t allowed. It’s only that lovely touchy-touchy feely tag stuff that’s permitted. That’s why I can’t entertain use of the word physicality in my coaching. I have to stifle the kids’ natural impulse to be physical, otherwise there’d be red cards for the whole lot of them!
Digby says: Where did this word come from and what does it mean, this physicality? Fizzzz-aaaaa-kaaaaaaaa-li-teeeeeee. When did this word come in and steal from, mongrel, aggression, dominating and other great descriptors and why does it seem to apply only to contact sports? If I go for a walk, I am being physical. If I go for a walk, acting out like an Olympic walker and risking ridicule from the bogan element of my neighbourhood and my own children have I walked with great physicality? All it seems to elicit when I hear the term is images of Olivia Newton John in whatever whacky exercise attire it was back then encouraging men to push some tin.
It’s a stupid term. Let’s just go back to simpler times, like smashed ;em bro and leave the pseudo-intellectual terms for, well, someone else.
Harry says: There is a problem with this word. I confess it is true. It is overused. A simple Google search reveals that it is most-used about the Springboks, in fact. Shag used it last year before the World Cup semi-final. Michael Cheika uses it a lot when he is about to play the Boks. The Northern Hemisphere rugby guys are using it on overdrive right now. It’s actually an old word. But it sounds overly modern. Like made up.
So, we’re discovered two problems with it: it’s used a lot when the speaker doesn’t know what to say. And it sounds consultant-y. It has consultantality.
But wait, there’s more! I don’t think it’s a good suffix: “ality.” Mentality. Bestiality. Morality. I don’t like any of those three.
Another point is that it’s fake-smart. It sounds like someone is trying to avoid: “tough” or “brutal” or “rough” or “rugged” as being too Anglo Saxon and instead going for an obtuse Latinate expression. It sounds a bit fancy. It has fancytality. But my real problem is that it is part of a gnostic plot to make us commoners swallow an ontological thesis that “everything is physical” and there is nothing “over and above” the material, and that matter has no consciousness.
That’s obviously a myth, just as mythical as mythology. It’s got mythologicality. Also, I think people who say it a lot are knobs.
Rugby Tragic says: Ahhh “Physicality”… yes, really, where did the word come from? On research through various sources, the Miriam Webster dictionary determined that it was first used in 1660!… Boo Hoo to that, I/we were not around to absorb the teachings of the tutors of those days.
In a rugby sense, it seemed to pop up around the turn of the century, I don’t remember exactly when but when it was used, the word sounded strange.
When I first heard the word physicality used in the normal course of conversation, it from a rugby coach. I racked my brain trying to recall yet, maybe that was just a figment of my imagination? I recall in NZ, Sir Graham Henry and in Aussie Robbie Deans using it a bit, I believe to try and describe a condition, as an adjective rather than a noun and predominantly used to describe forwards big forward packs such as the Springboks and Poms trundle out all the time. I cannot it ever being used in other spheres of life – I could not even begin to think how the word could be used.
According to Grammarphobia authors, and I quote…
Q: More and more, I hear sportscasters use the word “physicality” to describe the physical strength of a football player or other athlete. Is this even a word? And what would be a better one to refer to a physically strong person?
A: “Physicality” is a legitimate word. Whether it’s a good choice as a sports term is another matter.
The noun “physicality” entered English in 1592, when it was another word for medicine or medical practice, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Hang on! someone has not got their facts right here Miriam Webster says it was first used in 1660. The Oxford Dictionary says 1592? Oh, who’s counting? What’s a mere 68 years in context of time.
Back in the 50s to the turn of the century words such as ‘aggressive’, ‘dominating’, ‘intimidating’ ‘over powering’ etc were used to describe the big brawny combatants, never the word physicality. I guess some guy decided to search back a few hundred years to re-design the descriptive word to be used and came up with physicality and it stuck! …. Sort of!
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