Rugby union is a contact team sport based on running with the ball in hand, which originated in England in the first half of the 19th century. The game is played between two teams of 15 players using an oval-shaped ball on a rectangular field with H-shaped goalposts on each try line.
The game of rugby is said to have been invented at Rugby School one afternoon in 1823 during an inter class football match, then played according to traditional soccer rules, which permitted only kicking and bouncing. One of the students, William Webb Ellis, bored with the tedium of the game and on the spur of the moment bent down, picked up the ball, and ran, carrying it down the field.
Webb Ellis went on to win a Blue for cricket at Oxford and became an Anglican clergyman.
It was only natural that Ellis' unorthodox behaviour was identified with the name of his school. In 1839, Arthur Pell, a student at Cambridge University, suggested to friends that they "have a go at that game at Rugby." The name stuck and Rugby football became famous in the world of sport.
These Cambridge players enjoyed their "rugby" game so much that they decided to retain it. They adopted the rule that a player could run with a ball if he caught it on the fly or on the first bounce.
The earliest reference to rugby football in the Oxford English Dictionary dates back to 1852.
Originally a try had no value but allowed the attacking team to “try” a kick at goal. If successful it converted a try into a goal, hence the name.
In 1875, tries were added and, in 1887, a system of scoring by points was introduced. This counted a try as one point and a goal as three.
The first game of rugby in New Zealand was played in Nelson between Nelson College and the Nelson Rugby Football Club in 1870.
The first rugby match under floodlights takes place in Salford, between Broughton and Swinton in 1878.
The Home Nations Championship was launched in 1883, with just England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales competing. The tournament became the Five Nations Championship in 1990 with the addition of France, and expanded further in 2000 when Italy became the sixth nation to join.
The predominantly Māori New Zealand Native football team played the last match of their 107-game tour on August 24, 1889. The Natives toured Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand - it was the longest tour in rugby union history.
The Natives were the first New Zealand team to perform a haka, and also the first to wear all black.
The first rugby match was played at Twickenham on October 2, 1909. Harlequins beat Richmond by 14 to 10. Before the ground was purchased, it was used to grow, among other vegetables, cabbages, and so Twickenham Stadium is affectionately known as the Cabbage Patch.
The BBC televised its first rugby union match, which was a game between Scotland and England held at Twickenham. Scotland emerged victorious with a score of 21-16, and the match marked the beginning of a new era for sports broadcasting in the UK. The historic broadcast helped to popularize rugby union and paved the way for the coverage of other sports on television.
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| South Africa v New Zealand 2006 test match. By Hamish McConnochie |
The game of rugby is said to have been invented at Rugby School one afternoon in 1823 during an inter class football match, then played according to traditional soccer rules, which permitted only kicking and bouncing. One of the students, William Webb Ellis, bored with the tedium of the game and on the spur of the moment bent down, picked up the ball, and ran, carrying it down the field.
Webb Ellis went on to win a Blue for cricket at Oxford and became an Anglican clergyman.
It was only natural that Ellis' unorthodox behaviour was identified with the name of his school. In 1839, Arthur Pell, a student at Cambridge University, suggested to friends that they "have a go at that game at Rugby." The name stuck and Rugby football became famous in the world of sport.
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| Rugby School in Rugby, Warwickshire, with a rugby football pitch i |
These Cambridge players enjoyed their "rugby" game so much that they decided to retain it. They adopted the rule that a player could run with a ball if he caught it on the fly or on the first bounce.
The earliest reference to rugby football in the Oxford English Dictionary dates back to 1852.
Originally a try had no value but allowed the attacking team to “try” a kick at goal. If successful it converted a try into a goal, hence the name.
In 1875, tries were added and, in 1887, a system of scoring by points was introduced. This counted a try as one point and a goal as three.
The first game of rugby in New Zealand was played in Nelson between Nelson College and the Nelson Rugby Football Club in 1870.
The first rugby match under floodlights takes place in Salford, between Broughton and Swinton in 1878.
The Home Nations Championship was launched in 1883, with just England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales competing. The tournament became the Five Nations Championship in 1990 with the addition of France, and expanded further in 2000 when Italy became the sixth nation to join.
The predominantly Māori New Zealand Native football team played the last match of their 107-game tour on August 24, 1889. The Natives toured Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand - it was the longest tour in rugby union history.
The Natives were the first New Zealand team to perform a haka, and also the first to wear all black.
The first rugby match was played at Twickenham on October 2, 1909. Harlequins beat Richmond by 14 to 10. Before the ground was purchased, it was used to grow, among other vegetables, cabbages, and so Twickenham Stadium is affectionately known as the Cabbage Patch.
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| Painting of the England v Wales rugby union match at Twickenham in 1931. Wikipedia |
The BBC televised its first rugby union match, which was a game between Scotland and England held at Twickenham. Scotland emerged victorious with a score of 21-16, and the match marked the beginning of a new era for sports broadcasting in the UK. The historic broadcast helped to popularize rugby union and paved the way for the coverage of other sports on television.
The International Rugby Football Board only lifted the century-old ban on professionalism in rugby union in 1995.
On October 27, 1994, Hong Kong's beat Singapore 164-13. The scoreline is the highest ever recorded in a rugby international match between two recognized unions.
The highest scoring rugby international match between two leading rugby nations is New Zealand 145-17 Japan, which took place on June 4, 1995 at the Free State Stadium in Bloemfontein, South Africa, as part of the 1995 Rugby World Cup. New Zealand scored a record 21 tries in the match, with Marc Ellis scoring six of them. Simon Culhane scored 45 points, which is also a record for a single player in a Rugby World Cup match.
The record attendance for an international rugby union game was set on July 15, 2000, when New Zealand defeated Australia 39-35 in a Bledisloe Cup game at Stadium Australia in Sydney before 109,874 fans. The Bledisloe Cup is a rugby union trophy contested annually between the national teams of Australia and New Zealand. The match on July 15, 2000, was the 100th Bledisloe Cup match, and it was a sell-out.
The reigning Olympic champions at rugby are the USA. They won in 1924 and it hasn’t been in the Olympics since. A bunch of All-American Football players were taught how to play rugby during the boat journey to the games.
Seven-a-side rugby was included at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
In 2014 there were more than 6 million people playing rugby union worldwide, of whom 2.36 million were registered players.
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| Ivory Coast before their 2011 World Cup qualifier vs. Zambia. By Zeneruera |
Fiji is one of the few countries where rugby union is the main sport. There are about 80,000 registered players from a total population of around 950,000.
Other countries that have adopted rugby union as their de facto national sport include Georgia, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga and Wales.
Source Daily Express, Europress Encyclopedia
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