RUGBY

Rugby football (usually just "rugby") may refer to a number of sports through history descended from a common form of football developed in different areas of the United Kingdom.

A ball-game resembling rugby football was a game played by ancient Greeks called episkuros (Greek: επίσκυρος). In Wales such a sport is called cnapan or "criapan," and has medieval roots. The old Irish predecessor of rugby may be caid. The Cornish called it "hurling to goals" which dates back to the bronze age, the West country called it "hurling over country" (neither should to be confused with Gaelic hurling in which the ball is hit with a stick called a hurley or hurl, not carried), East Anglians "Campball", the French "La Soule" or "Chole" (a rough-and-tumble cross-country game). English villages were certainly playing games of 'fute ball' during the 1100s. English boarding schools would certainly have developed their own variants of this game as soon as they were established - the Eton Wall Game being one example.

The invention of 'Rugby' was therefore not the act of playing early forms of the game at Rugby School or elsewhere but rather the events which led up to its codification.

The game of football which was played at Rugby School between 1750 and 1859 permitted handling of the ball, but no-one was allowed to run with it in their hands towards the opposition's goal. There was no fixed limit to the number of players per side and sometimes there were hundreds taking part in a kind of enormous rolling maul. The innovation of running with the ball was introduced some time between 1859 and 1865. William Webb Ellis has been credited with breaking the local rules by running forwards with the ball in a game in 1859. Shortly after this the Victorian mind turned to establishing written rules for the sports which had earlier just involved local agreements, and boys from Rugby School produced the first written rules for their version of the sport in 1870.

Around this time the influence of Dr Thomas Arnold, Rugby's headmaster, was beginning to be felt around all the other boarding schools, and his emphasis on sport as part of a balanced education naturally encouraged the general adoption of the Rugby rules across the country, and, ultimately, the world.

Rugby union is a competitive outdoor contact sport, played with an oval[1] ball, by two teams of 15 players. It is one of the two codes of rugby football, the other being rugby league. There is also a seven-a-side variant named rugby sevens, which is played under modified laws. There is a variant popular in parts of New Zealand called South Island Round-ball Rugby, or simply, 'Rumble Rugby'. Rugby union is often referred to as simply rugby. The origin of rugby is reputed to be an incident during a game of football at Rugby School, Rugby, England, in 1823 when William Webb-Ellis picked up the ball and ran with it. Although this tale is likely to be apocryphal, the trophy played for every four years at the Rugby World Cup is named after him. Significant events in the early development of rugby were the production of the first set of written laws in 1845, the Blackheath Club's decision to leave the The Football Association in 1863 and the formation of the Rugby Football Union in 1871. The code was originally known simply as "rugby football"; it was not until after a schism in 1895, which resulted in the separate code of rugby league, that the name "rugby union" came to be used for the game itself. Rugby union was famously an amateur sport until the IRB declared the game 'open' in 1995, removing restrictions on payments to players.

Rugby league is a full-contact team sport, played with an oval ball[4] by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. Rugby league is one of the two codes of rugby football, the other being rugby union. Rugby league was established in 1895, when twenty-two members of the Rugby Football Union in England revolted in protest about compensation for working class players.

The objective in rugby league is to score more points through tries, goals and field goals (also known as drop goals) than the opposition within the 80 minutes of play. The try is the most common form of scoring, and a team will usually attempt to score one by running and kicking the ball further upfield, or passing from player-to-player in order to manoeuvre around the opposition's defence. A goal is worth two points and may be gained from a conversion or a penalty. A field goal is only worth one point, and is gained by kicking the ball between the uprights in open play. If after two halves of play, each consisting of forty minutes, the two teams are drawing, a draw may be declared, or the game may enter extra time under the golden point rule, depending on the relevant competition's format.

Rugby league is most prominent in Australia, England, New Zealand, France and Papua New Guinea (where it is considered the national sport). It is also played professionally in France, Wales and the United States. New Zealand are the current World Cup holders. The game is played at a semi-professional and amateur level in several other countries, such as Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Ireland, Scotland, Russia, Lebanon, Germany, Japan, United States, Malta and Jamaica.

Rugby league takes its name from the Rugby Football League, which was established in 1895 as the Northern Rugby Football Union, a breakaway faction of the English Rugby Football Union (RFU). Both organisations played the game under similar rules at first, until similar breakaway factions occurred from RFU-affiliated rugby football unions in Australia and New Zealand in 1907 and 1908, and formed associations known as rugby football leagues, introducing modified Northern Union rules to create a new form of rugby football. The Northern Union later changed its name to the Northern Rugby Football League in 1922 (later dropping the 'Northern') and thus, over time the sport itself became known as "rugby league". Over the following decades, the rules of both forms of rugby were gradually changed, and now rugby league and rugby union are distinctly different sports.

Rugby sevens is a variant of rugby union in which teams are made up of seven players, instead of the usual 15, with shorter matches. The game originated in Melrose, Scotland, and the Melrose Sevens is still played annually. The game is popular at all levels, with amateur and club tournaments generally held in the summer months. Notable international competitions include the IRB Sevens World Series and the Rugby World Cup Sevens. Rugby sevens is also played at some multi-sport events such as the Commonwealth Games. Although it was conceived as an event for rugby union, rugby league has also adopted the sevens format.

Rugby sevens is sanctioned by the IRB, and is played under substantially the same laws and on a field of the same dimensions as the 15-player game. While a normal rugby union match lasts at least 80 minutes, a normal sevens match consists of two halves of seven minutes with a one-minute half-time break. The final of a competition can be played over two halves of ten minutes each, with a half-time break of two minutes. (In the IRB Sevens World Series, only the Cup final, which determines the overall winner of an event, is played with 10-minute halves; all finals for lower-level trophies are played with 7-minute halves.) This allows rugby tournaments to be completed in a day or a weekend. However, sevens scores are generally comparable to union scores; scoring occurs with much greater regularity in sevens, since the defenders are more spaced out. Scrums are composed of just three players from each team. Because of the speedy nature of the game, good sevens players are often backs or loose forwards in fifteens rugby.

Rugby sevens was initially conceived by Ned Haig, a butcher from Melrose, Scotland as a fund-raising event for his local club in 1883. The first ever sevens match was played at the Greenyards, where it was well received. The first ever officially sanctioned international tournament occurred at Murrayfield as part of the "Scottish Rugby Union's celebration of rugby" centenary celebrations in 1973. Due to the success of the format, the ongoing Hong Kong Sevens was launched three years later. In 1993, the Rugby World Cup Sevens, in which the Melrose Cup is contested, was launched. Three of the best known sevens competitions are the Hong Kong Sevens, Wellington Sevens, and the Dubai Sevens which now make up parts of the IRB Sevens World Series