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This article discusses the sport 'Rugby'. For other uses see Rugby.

Table of contents

1 General description

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General description

Rugby football, as a catch-all term, may refer to two related but separate team sports: Rugby League and Rugby Union.

Rugby League is a popular professional and amateur sport in some regions of the Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Semi-professional rugby league tournaments take place in France, Russia and many Pacific Island nations. Papua New Guinea regards rugby league as its national sport.

Major Rugby Union playing countries are Australia, England, France, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Scotland, South Africa and Wales. The minor nations include Argentina, Canada, Fiji, Georgia, Japan, Namibia, Romania, Samoa, Spain, Tonga, United States, Uruguay. For further details see the List of international rugby union teams. Rugby Union ranks as the national sport of Wales, of New Zealand and of Pacific countries such as Tonga, Fiji and Samoa.

An old saying goes "Soccer is a gentleman's game played by hooligans, and rugby is a ruffian's game played by gentlemen." Rugby union has a quite common image as a gentleman's sport: most private schools in rugby-playing regions play the union version of the game (often along with sports such as fencing and boxing). Rugby league, traditionally, has a reputation as a more "working class" pursuit.

Because of the nature of the game (full bodily contact with little or no padding) it requires gentlemenly behaviour, since even a slight infringement of the rules can quickly lead to great injury or to death. Because of this, governing bodies enforce the rules strictly.

Argentina-France Rugby Union match

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Rules

Distinctive features common to both rugby games include the ovoid ball and the ban on passing the ball forwards, so that players can gain ground only by running with the ball or by kicking it.

Set-pieces of the Union game include the scrum, where packs of opposing players push against each other for possession, and the lineout, where lines of players attempt to catch the ball thrown from touch the area behind the touch-line (the sidelines).

In the League game, the scrum still exists, but with greatly reduced importance, and line-outs do not occur.

The main difference between the two games, besides League having teams of thirteen players and Union of fifteen, comes after tackles. Union players contest possession following the tackle, League players do not.

Scoring in both games occurs by achieving either a try or a goal. A try (at goal) involves grounding the ball over the goal line at the opponents' end of the field. A goal results from kicking the ball over the crossbar between the upright goalposts. Three different types of kick at goal can score points: the goal kick after a "try" has been awarded (which if successful becomes a conversion (of a try into a goal)); the drop kick; and the penalty kick.

The high level of contact and the limited protective padding mean that both codes of Rugby provide an extremely physical game. Touch Rugby offers a variation on the same theme without injury or some of the complications of traditional rugby.

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History

See also: Football; History of rugby union; History of rugby league

The legendary story about the origin of Rugby football -- whereby a young man named William Webb Ellis "picked up the ball and ran" while playing football at Rugby School in 1823 -- has almost certainly no factual basis. Pundits have dismissed the story as unlikely since an official investigation by the Old Rugbeian Society in 1895. However, the trophy for the Rugby Union World Cup bears the name of "Webb Ellis" in his honour, (as does Ellis Park in Johannesburg a major international rugby union stadium,) and a plaque at the school 'commemorates' the 'achievement'

Playing football has a long tradition in England and football games had probably taken place at Rugby School for two hundred years before three boys published the first set of written rules in 1845. Until the formation of the Football Association (FA) in October 1863 each football team would agree on a set of rules with opponents before a match. Teams which competed against each other regularly would tend to agree to play a similar style of football.

Rugby football has a claim to the world's first "football club", formed at Guy's Hospital Football Club, London in 1843, by old boys from Rugby School. A number of other clubs formed to play games based on the Rugby School rules. Blackheath Rugby Club, founded in 1858 allegedly ranks as the world's oldest surviving rugby club.

Blackheath Rugby Club, though a founder member of the English Football Association (FA) in 1863, withdrew from the FA just over a month after the initial meeting when it became clear that the FA would not agree to rules which allowed running with the ball in hand (a fundamental part of the rugby game). Other rugby clubs followed this lead and did not join the FA.

For the next few years rugby clubs continued to agree rules before the start of each game as they had always done, but on January 26, 1871, the Rugby Football Union (RFU) formed, leading to the standardisation of the rules for all clubs in England that played a variety of the Rugby School laws. Soon most countries with a sizable rugby community had formed their own national unions. In 1886, the International Rugby Board (IRB) become the world governing body and law-making body for rugby. The RFU recognised it as such in 1890.

The 1890s saw a clash of cultures between working men's rugby clubs of northern England and the southern clubs of gentleman, a dispute revolving around the nature of professionalism within the game. On August 29, 1895 21 clubs split from the RFU and met at the George Hotel in Huddersfield to form the Northern Rugby Football Union, commonly called the Northern Union.

For clarity and convenience it became necessary to differentiate the two codes of rugby. The code played by those teams who remained in national organizations which were members of the IRB became known as Rugby Union. The code played by those teams which played "open" rugby and allowed professionals became known as Rugby League.

NRFU rules gradually diverged from those of Rugby Union, although the name "Rugby League" did not become official until the Northern Rugby League formed in 1901. The name Rugby Football League dates from 1922.

A similar schism opened up in Australia and in other rugby-playing nations. Initially Rugby League in Australia operated under the same rules as Rugby Union. But after a tour by a professional New Zealand team in 1907 of Australia and Great Britain; and an Australian Rugby League tour of Great Britain the next year; Rugby League teams in the southern hemisphere adopted Rugby League rules.

1948 saw the Rugby League International Federation (RLIF) set up at a meeting in Bordeaux to oversee Rugby League world wide.

On August 26, 1995 the IRB declared Rugby Union an "open" game and removed all restrictions on payments or benefits to those connected with the game.

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Culture and humour

Rugby fans sometimes use the term "rugger" as an alternative, "posh" name for the sport (though less so nowadays than previously, and mainly referring to rugby union). Those considered heavily into the rugby union lifestyle — heavy drinking, striped jumpers, girlfriends called Kay, et cetera — sometimes identify as "rugger buggers". In the United Kingdom, retired rugby union players who still turn up to watch, drink and serve on committees are known as "alickadoos" or, less kindly, as "old farts" (see W. Carling).

Rugby league supporters sometimes call themselves "treizistes", reflecting the French title of their sport (rugby à treize). The epithet occurs almost universally in France, but its use has also spread to English-speaking countries.

Australians and New Zealanders generally refer to rugby union simply as "rugby", and to rugby league as "league", to differentiate them. However, in the Australian states of New South Wales and Queensland, rugby league usually simply has the name "football" or "footy", (which confuses other Australians, for whom these terms mean Australian Rules Football).

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