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Rugby football, often just "rugby", may refer to a number of sports descended from a common form of football developed at Rugby School in England, United Kingdom. Rugby union, rugby league, and American football and Canadian football, are modern sports that originated from rugby football. Rugby league and rugby union are the only two sports referred to as "rugby" today.
History
- See also: Football, History of rugby union, and History of rugby league
The legendary story about the origin of Rugby football—whereby a young man named William Webb Ellis "took the ball in his arms [i.e. caught it] and ran", showing "a fine disregard", while playing Rugby School's already distinctive version of football (not to be confused with association football, which was codified much later) in 1823—has evidence to support it. Pundits have credited the story as likely since it was first given the School's seal of approval following an official investigation by the Old Rugbian Society in 1895. The story has entered into legend, and the trophy for the Rugby Union World Cup bears the name of "Webb Ellis" in his honour and a plaque at the School commemorates the "achievement". Various kinds of football have a long tradition in England, and football games had probably taken place at Rugby School for 200 years before three boys published the first set of written rules (in 1845). At the time, a set of rules would be agreed between two teams before a match. Teams which competed against each other regularly would tend to agree to play similar rules. Richard Lindon (1816–1887), a Rugby-based boot and shoemaker pioneered the shape of the "oval" ball when he invented the rubber bladder and its brass hand pump, creating for the first time a standardization of the shape of the ball.
Rugby football has strong claims to the world's first and oldest football clubs: the Barnes Club (as it was known), formed in London in 1839 and the Guy's Hospital Football Club, formed in London in 1843, by old boys from Rugby School. However the continuity of these two clubs has not been documented. Dublin University Football Club, founded in 1854, is the world's oldest documented football club in any code. Other old rugby clubs include: Edinburgh Academical Football Club (1857–58), the oldest documented club in the UK); Blackheath Rugby Club (allegedly founded in 1858, although some sources suggest that the club did not start playing rugby football until 1862); and Liverpool St Helens Football Club (1858).
The Blackheath club also features in the history of association football (soccer): as Blackheath Football Club, it became a founder member of the Football Association (FA) in 1863. However, Blackheath 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 rugby) and hacking (legal tripping). Other rugby clubs followed this lead and did not join the FA. Interestingly the clubs that did not join the FA and continued to play Rugby Football dropped the tripping rule and outlawed it.
By 1870 about 75 clubs played variations of the Rugby School game in Britain. Clubs playing varieties of the Rugby School game also existed in Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand. However, they had no generally accepted set of rules: the clubs continued to agree rules before the start of each game. On January 26, 1871, 22 clubs founded the Rugby Football Union (RFU), leading to the standardization of the rules for all rugby clubs in England. Soon most countries with a sizable rugby community had formed their own national unions.
Games based on rugby football became immensely popular in North America. However, by the 1880s these games had rapidly diverged from the laws of rugby used in most countries, and they became instead the basis of both Canadian football and American football. (See Comparison of American football and rugby league and Comparison of American football and rugby union).
The origins of the North American codes of football left lingering traces: the Canadian Football League's predecessor originally bore the name of the Canadian Rugby Football Union from its founding in 1884. Canadian football, was frequently known as "rugby" until the middle of the 20th century. On the setting up of the modern CFL in the late 1950s, it assumed control of the Grey Cup from an organization that still called itself the Canadian Rugby Union (now Football Canada, the country's amateur umbrella organization for Canadian football). Only in 1929 was the Canadian national rugby union formed—the predecessor of Rugby Canada.
In 1886, the International Rugby Board (IRB) became the world governing body and law-making body for rugby and remains the governing body for rugby union to this day. The RFU recognized 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 aristocrats, a dispute revolving around the nature of how injured players should be treated within the game. On August 29, 1895, 21 clubs split from the RFU and met at the George Hotel in Huddersfield in Yorkshire 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 made up the IRB became known as rugby union. The code played by those teams that 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 was formed in 1901. The name Rugby Football League dates from 1922.
A similar schism opened up in Australia and in other rugby-playing countries. 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.
In 1948 a meeting in Bordeaux set up the Rugby League International Federation (RLIF) to oversee rugby league world wide. From this meeting the first "Rugby World Cup" was played in France in 1954.
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. This was a result of newly adopted European Union working laws which would have forbidden rugby union clubs banning players for competing in any form of rugby league, even amateur rugby league, for life.
The status of the rugby codes in various countries
Rugby league is played both as a professional and amateur sport in Australia, France, Great Britain and New Zealand. It is widely accepted as the national sport of Papua New Guinea. There are semi-professional and amateur competitions of rugby league which take place in Russia, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Serbia,Israel, Lebanon, South Africa, Japan, Canada, the United States, Fiji, Cook Islands and Tonga. (For further information see: List of international rugby league teams.)
Rugby union, also a professional and amateur game, is dominated by eight "major" unions: France, Australia, England, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, Wales and Scotland. Rugby union is the national sport in New Zealand and Wales. Argentina's Los Pumas, having beaten many top eight teams such as England, Australia, Ireland, Wales, France, and having held the British and Irish Lions to a draw, is coming to be seen as a top six nation, arriving in third position in 2007´s rugby world coup. "Minor" unions include Canada, Fiji, Georgia, Italy, Japan, Namibia, Portugal, Romania, Samoa, Spain, Tonga, the United States and Uruguay. In Malaysia, rugby union is played by campus students. (For further details see list of international rugby union teams.) Rugby union ranks as the national sport of Pacific countries such as Tonga and Fiji.
Rules
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Distinctive features common to both rugby codes (league and union) include the prolate spheroid ball and the ban on passing the ball forward, so that players can gain ground only by running with the ball or by kicking it.
Scoring in both games occurs by achieving either a try or a goal. A try (at goal) involves grounding the ball, that is, touching the ball to the ground over the goal line at the opponent's end of the field. (New rules say that you must show 'intent' as you do this.) A goal results from kicking the ball over the crossbar between the upright goal posts. Three different types of kicks at goal can score points: the goal kick after a try has been awarded (which if successful becomes a conversion); the drop kick; and the penalty kick. The points awarded for each vary between the games.
The main differences between the two games, besides league having teams of 13 players and union of 15, involve the tackle and its aftermath:
- Union players contest possession following the tackle: depending on the situation, either a ruck or a maul occurs. League players may not contest possession after making a tackle: play is continued with a play-the-ball (AKA: "Scratch")
- In league, if the team in possession fails to score before a "set of six" tackles, it surrenders possession. Union has no six-tackle rule; a team can keep the ball for an unlimited number of tackles before scoring as long as it maintains possession.
Set pieces of the union code include the scrum, where packs of opposing players push against each other for possession, and the lineout, where parallel lines of players from each team, arranged perpendicular to the touch-line (the side line) attempt to catch the ball thrown from touch (the area behind the touch-line).
In the league code, the scrum still exists, but with greatly reduced importance. Set pieces are generally started from the play-the-ball situation which has meant that rugby league has evolved into what some perceive as a faster and more attacking game with a greater emphasis on running with the ball in hand, passing and scoring tries. Many of the rugby league positions have similar names and requirements to rugby union positions but there are no flankers in rugby league. The result of these variations have led to rugby union being considered the more traditional form of rugby.
Culture
In the U.K, where they - like most of the world - refer to the soccer code as football, an old saying goes "football is a gentleman's game played by thugs and rugby is a game for thugs played by gentlemen"[1] In most rugby-playing countries, rugby union is widely regarded as an "establishment," historically amateur sport, played mostly by members of the upper classes. For example, many students at private schools and grammar schools play rugby union. By contrast, rugby league has traditionally been seen as a working class and middle, professional, pursuit. A contrast to this ideology is evident in the neighbouring unions of England and Wales. In England the sport is very much associated with the public schools system (i.e. independent/private schools). In Wales, rugby is associated with small village teams which consisted of coal miners and other industrial workers playing on their days off.
Exceptions to the above include New Zealand, Wales, Cornwall, the Borders region of Scotland, County Limerick in Ireland, Languedoc in southern France, and the Pacific Islands, where rugby union is popular in working class communities. Nevertheless, rugby league is perceived as the game of the working class people in the English counties of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria, and in the Australian states of New South Wales and Queensland. In the United Kingdom, rugby union fans sometimes use the term "rugger" as an alternative name for the sport, (see Oxford '-er'). Also the kick off is known to be called "Rug Off" in some regions. Those considered to be heavily involved with the rugby union lifestyle — including heavy drinking and striped jumpers — sometimes identify as "rugger buggers". Retired rugby union players who still turn up to watch, drink and serve on committees rank as "alickadoos" or, less kindly, as "old farts". An alternative name for the game adopted primarily in local rugby comps is known as "Ra-Ra" referring to the pomp and circumstance associated with the sport
Because of the nature of the games (almost unlimited body contact with little or no padding), the rugby world frowns on unsporting behaviour, since even a slight infringement of the rules may lead to serious injury or even death. Because of this, governing bodies enforce the rules strictly.
French rugby league supporters sometimes call themselves "treizistes", reflecting the French title of their sport (jeu à treize). The epithet occurs almost universally in France, but its use has also spread to English-speaking countries.
Australia is unusual in that rugby league is by far the more popular of the two codes. Support for both codes is concentrated in New South Wales, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory. The same perceived class barrier as exists between the two games in England also occurs in these two states, fostered by rugby union's prominence and support at private schools. Australian followers of rugby league usually refer to rugby league as "rugby", "footy" or "football" and rugby union as "kick and clap" or "union". A popular television show dealing with rugby league, called The Footy Show screens weekly during the NRL season and t.v. coverage is generally known as Friday Night Football and Monday Night Football.
New Zealanders generally refer to rugby union simply as either "football", "rugby" or "rugby union" and to rugby league as "rugby league", "football" or "league". In New Zealand, playing rugby football has a reputation as the epitome of manliness for both Māori and Pākehā (non-Māori), as symbolised by a haka (war dance) at the start of important games. Kiwis see rugby as the accepted substitute for military heroism and an excellent training ground for soldiering. If (as the Duke of Wellington allegedly said) Britain won the Battle of Waterloo on the playing-fields of Eton, New Zealand long saw its role in the British Empire as intimately connected with the football field. Popular Kiwi mythology sees the encouragement of New Zealand rugby in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as the Imperial reaction to declining fitness in Britain's industrial slums.
See also
External links
Classical
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