This weekend, I got to watch Tom Brady touch the ball down in the end zone three times.

Sitting in the stands, I heard no talks of his great bone structure by girls sporting his number or University of Michigan stats by cap-adorned guys holding beers.

Rather, I heard a middle-aged woman named Collette admire his ‘chiseled thighs and nineteen-year-old firm bum,’ as she drank her pungent coffee out of a thermos.

Yes, I am aware the Patriots had a bye this week. The Tom Brady I’m referring to is a 5-foot-10-inch winger who plays for the Sale Sharks, a professional rugby team based in a suburb of Manchester.

This past weekend, the Sharks played in an Amlin Challenge Cup game against El Salvador, emerging after 80 minutes of hard-hitting tackles with a score of 97-11. According to one of the team managers, playing a full game of rugby on the professional level incurs physical harm worse than getting into a head-on car accident at 50 mph.

Ninety-seven points well earned.

Talking to the natives throughout this match, I learned a considerable amount about the significance of rugby in Europe.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the game, rugby is the progeny of a twisted one-night stand between soccer and football.

The rugby ball can be kicked, held and carried. Players can only pass backward, and no

padding is worn. Tackling is the dominant action, and most ripened players have sustained injuries spanning from collarbone fractures to displaced teeth to completely deteriorated ACLs — or, most likely, some macabre combination. Rugby is rough-and-tumble at its finest.

My English-style enlightenment came from the aforementioned Collette: Manchesterite, coffee consumer, admirer of fine male legs.

She informed me of the average salary professional rugby players earn. As a typical American, I associate professional athletes with large paychecks, especially for those who endure asinine physical duress as part of the job description.

Rugby players in England earn around 70,000 pounds a year, approximately $150,000.

While they bring home bacon of comparable size to white-collar workers, the difference is that an accountant director probably doesn’t run the risk of incurring significant bodily harm on a daily basis.

Between sips from her thermos, Collette explained, ‘The lads do it for the love. What else could make a man like little Tom (Brady) face being tackled by the likes of that,’ referring to the 6-foot-4, 300-pound Spaniard playing for El Salvador.

Point taken.

When I asked what these players do when their injuries are too severe for recovery, Collette informed me it was never a problem: Rugby players are among the most educated athletes in England. Didn’t see that one coming.

Comparing rugby players to soccer players, she elaborated, ‘Rugby players can only play if they educate themselves. No school, no rugby. Football players — no dear-y, English football players — are usually picked out when they’re small and taken on quite a different path.’

That lent me a tad of relief when, two minutes later, there was a tackle at midfield that I could hear from my seat.

So as Tom Brady finished his car accident of a game, as the Shark mascot tackled kids on the sideline and as Collette fed me tidbits of trivia on each and every player on the team, I decided that to England, rugby is a tribute to the basics.

Men driven by the most basic love of the game accept basic compensation, inserting themselves into a proverbial battle with basic protection. Basically.

Jessica Smith is a junior information studies and technology and television, radio and film major. Her column appears weekly, and she can be reached at jlsmit22@syr.edu.

Published on October 10, 2010 at 12:00 pm