Rugby Pc

[Nayme Cutforth]

Rugby football started at Rugby School in Rugby, Warwickshire, England,[1] where the rules were first codified in 1845.[2] Forms of football in which the ball was carried and tossed date to the Middle Ages (see medieval football).[3] Rugby football spread to other English public schools in the 19th century and across the British Empire as former pupils continued to play it.

Rugby football split into two codes in 1895, when twenty-one clubs from the North of England left the Rugby Football Union to form the Northern Rugby Football Union (renamed the Rugby Football League in 1922) at the George Hotel, Huddersfield, over payments to players who took time off work to play ("broken-time payments"), thus making rugby league the first code to turn professional and pay players.[4] Rugby union turned professional one hundred years later, following the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa.[5][6] The respective world governing bodies are World Rugby (rugby union) and the International Rugby League (rugby league).[7]

Canadian football and, to a lesser extent, American football were once considered forms of rugby football, but are seldom now referred to as such. The governing body of Canadian football, Football Canada, was known as the Canadian Rugby Union as late as 1967, more than fifty years after the sport parted ways with rugby rules.[8][9][10]

Following the 1895 split in rugby football, the two forms rugby league and rugby union differed in administration only. Soon the rules of rugby league were modified e.g. removing the line-out and replacing the ruck with the play-the-ball, resulting in two distinctly different forms of rugby.

The Olympic form of rugby is known as rugby sevens (based on rugby union format). In this form of the game, each team has seven players on the field at one time playing seven-minute halves. The rules and pitch size are the same as rugby union.[11]

Forms of traditional football similar to rugby have been played throughout Europe and beyond. Many of these involved handling of the ball, and scrummaging formations. For example, New Zealand had Kī-o-rahi, Australia marn grook, Japan kemari, Georgia lelo burti, the Scottish Borders Jeddart Ba' and Cornwall Cornish hurling, Central Italy Calcio Fiorentino, South Wales cnapan, East Anglia Campball, Ireland caid, an ancestor of Gaelic football, and France had La Soule.

In 1871, English clubs met to form the Rugby Football Union (RFU). In 1892, after charges of professionalism (compensation of team members) were made against some clubs for paying players for missing work, the Northern Rugby Football Union, usually called the Northern Union (NU), was formed.[12] The existing rugby union authorities responded by issuing sanctions against the clubs, players, and officials involved in the new organization. After the schism, the separate clubs were named "rugby league" and "rugby union".[13]

Walter Camp proposed at the US College Football 1880 rules convention that the contested scrummage be replaced with a "line of scrimmage" where the team with the ball started with uncontested possession. This change effectively started the evolution of the modern game of gridiron football away from its rugby origins.

Rugby union is both a professional and amateur game, and is dominated by the first tier unions: England, New Zealand, Ireland, Wales, South Africa, Australia, Argentina, Scotland, Italy, France and Japan. Second and third tier unions include Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Fiji, Georgia, Germany, Hong Kong, Kenya, Namibia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Samoa, Spain, Tonga, the United States and Uruguay. Rugby Union is administered by World Rugby (WR), whose headquarters are located in Dublin, Ireland. It is the national sport in New Zealand, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Georgia, Wales and Madagascar, and is the most popular form of rugby globally.[20] The Olympic Games have admitted the seven-a-side version of the game, known as Rugby sevens, into the programme from Rio de Janeiro in 2016 onwards.[21] There was a possibility sevens would be a demonstration sport at the 2012 London Olympics but many sports including sevens were dropped.[22]

The premier international competition is the Rugby League World Cup, which is contested quadrennially. The premier international club competition is the World Club Challenge, which is contested annually in February. Currently there are two major domestic professional leagues globally:

In Canada and the United States, rugby developed into gridiron football. During the late 1800s (and even the early 1900s), the two forms of the game were very similar (to the point where the United States was able to win the gold medal for rugby union at the 1920 and 1924 Summer Olympics), but numerous rule changes have differentiated the gridiron-based game from its rugby counterpart, introduced by Walter Camp in the United States and John Thrift Meldrum Burnside in Canada. Among unique features of the North American game are

Distinctive features common to both rugby codes include the use of an oval ball and the prohibition of the forward pass. Due to the prohibition, players can gain ground only by running with the ball or by kicking it. Furthermore, unlike American and Canadian football, neither league nor union players wear any sort of protection or armour.

The two rugby codes differ as the result of changes made to the rules of rugby league. League implemented these changes with the aim of making a faster-paced and more try-oriented game than rugby union.

Set pieces of the union code include the scrum and the line-out. The scrum occurs after a minor infringement of the rules (most often a knock-on, when a player knocks the ball forward). After an infringement, packs of opposing players "scrum" or push against each other for possession. In a line-out, parallel lines of players from each team, arranged perpendicular to the touch-line, attempt to catch the ball thrown from touch. A rule has been added to line-outs which allows the jumper to be pulled down once a players' feet are on the ground.

In the league code, the scrum still exists albeit with greatly reduced importance. In league, the scrum involves fewer players and is rarely contested. Set pieces are generally started from the play-the-ball situation.

In England, rugby union is widely regarded as an "establishment" sport, played mostly by members of the upper and middle classes. For example, many pupils at public schools and grammar schools play rugby union, although the game (which had a long history of being played at state schools until the 1980s) is becoming increasingly popular in comprehensive schools.[26] Despite this stereotype, the game, particularly in the West Country is popular amongst all classes. In contrast, rugby league has traditionally been seen as a working-class pursuit. Another exception to rugby union's upper-class stereotype is in Wales, where it has been traditionally associated with small village teams made up of coal miners and other industrial workers who played on their days off.[27] In Ireland, both rugby union and rugby league are unifying forces across the national and sectarian divide, with the Ireland international teams representing both political entities.

In Australia, support for both codes is concentrated in New South Wales, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory (55% of the population), though rugby league is far more popular. The same perceived class barrier as exists between the two games in England also occurs in these states, fostered by rugby union's prominence and support at private schools.[28]

Exceptions to the above include New Zealand (although rugby league is still considered to be a lower class game by many or a game for 'westies' referring to lower class western suburbs of Auckland and more recently, southern Auckland where the game is also dominant), Wales, France (except Paris), Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Scottish Borders, County Limerick (see Munster Rugby) 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 northern England[29] and in the Australian states of New South Wales and Queensland.[28]

In the United Kingdom, rugby union fans sometimes used the term "rugger" as an alternative name for the sport (see Oxford '-er'), although this archaic expression has not had currency since the 1950s or earlier.[30] New Zealanders refer to rugby union simply as either "rugby" or "union", or even simply "football", and to rugby league as "rugby league" or "league".[31] In the U.S., people who play rugby are sometimes called "ruggers", a term little used elsewhere except facetiously.

There is a strong tradition of rugby union in France, particularly in the Basque, Occitan and Catalan areas along the border with Spain. The game is very popular in South Africa, having been introduced by English-speaking settlers in the 19th century. British colonists also brought the game with them to Australia and New Zealand, where the game is widely played. It has spread since to much of Polynesia, having particularly strong followings in Fiji, Samoa, and Tonga. Rugby union continues to grow in the Americas and parts of Asia as well. French influence, and the influence of ex-pat students studying in France, expanded rugby's reach to Romania and Georgia which are the preeminent European nations behind the Six Nations Championship. British influence spread the game to Argentina, where the game took root, and the game developed in Italy thanks to influence from both France and Argentina; both Argentina and Italy have become Tier 1 nations in the sport, while Georgia. officially a Tier 2 nation, regularly ranks up with the Tier 1 countries.

Being a high contact sport, rugby union has the highest announced rates of concussions[33] and outside England also has the highest number of catastrophic injuries[34] out of any team sport.[35][36] A 2014 study found that during match play concussion was reported at a higher level, and during training at a lower level, but still at a higher level than most players of any other sport receive.[36]

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