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Rugby football

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Sports

   Rugby football, often just referred to as rugby, refers to sports
   descended from a common form of football developed at Rugby School in
   England. The most similar sport to it played today is rugby union,
   commonly known as rugby. Rugby League, American football and Canadian
   football also originated from Rugby football. Rugby is the best-known
   of the British public school football games.

Rules

   Distinctive features common to both rugby games include the prolate
   spheroid 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.

   Scoring in both games occurs by achieving either a try or a goal. A try
   (at goal) involves grounding the ball (touching the ball to the ground)
   over the goal line at the opponent's end of the field. A goal results
   from kicking the ball over the crossbar between the upright goal posts.
   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); the drop kick; and the penalty kick. The points awarded
   for each vary between the games.

   The main difference between the two games, besides league having teams
   of 13 players and union of 15, comes after tackles. Union players
   contest possession following the tackle: depending on the situation,
   either a ruck or a maul occurs. League players do not contest
   possession: play is continued with a play-the-ball.

   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 faster and
   more attacking game with a greater emphasis on running with the ball in
   hand, passing and scoring tries.

History

   Rugby School
   Enlarge
   Rugby School

   The legendary story/myth 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
   little evidence to support it. Pundits have dismissed the story as
   unlikely since it was first given the School's seal of approval
   following an official investigation by the Old Rugbeian Society in
   1895. However, 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 Ireland, Australia, Canada 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 union and Comparison of American
   football and rugby league).

   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. 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 gentlemen, 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 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.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_football"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
