I turned over from watching the England rugby team getting absolutely hammered by South Africa to watch the Argentina v Mexico game and one of the Argentinian players was on the ground for ages as if he'd been trampled by an elephant after a slight knock to his face.

Meanwhile, the rugby players must have actually felt like they'd been trampled by an elephant with the sorts of things going on in their game.

So what is it about footballers that makes them react like that? Are they just cheats? Are they just pretending in order to get their opponent into trouble. Or is it that they're not physically conditioned the way rugby players are so, naturally, physical contact takes on more significance? (that doesn't work for face/head things, though, as you can't condition your face or head unless you're one of those mental Shaolin monks).

Talking of which, we get smacked in the face way harder in Tae Kwon Do than that lad's just been hit and I've never once seen someone fall to the floor and roll around crying. Apart from children.

Thoughts?