Rugby Variants Around The World

Rugby is rough-and-tumble, full-contact sport that’s categorized as a variation of football. It has a lot of superficial similarities to American Football such as the legality of tackling and holding the ball. A key difference, however, is that American Football players wear copious amounts of body armor while Rugby athletes do not.


Rugby slowly developed from a combination of multiple football variants played in English public schools back in the 18th and 19th centuries. Today, modern rugby is played under two different rule sets called Union and League. A few things they’ve retained as common law between them include the ball’s ovoid shape and the disallowance of passing forward. Both styles have active amateur and professional leagues with their own respective governing bodies.


Rugby union is the more conservative version of the game that harkens back more to the original rules developed a hundred years ago. Each team in a Union game fields 15 players. Its main difference from league play is what happens after a tackle situation. In rugby union, opposing teams can still contest the possession through a maul or ruck following a tackle. A maul involves the two teams locking together in the middle of the field and trying to physically outmuscle their opponent from the ball.


In a rugby league club, the rules have been modified to encourage a faster, more spectator-friendly sport. Teams are only allowed to field 13 players at a time to speed things up. The game tries to focus on keeping referee stoppages at a minimum and keeping the ball in play as much as possible. The rule changes have succeeded somewhat in this goal; the ball remains in league matches for an average of 65% of the time, in contrast to 44% for union games.


One key aspect that contributed greatly to speeding up play is the changes on tackling rules. Athletes are not allowed to contest possession after a tackle. Instead, there is an immediate play-the-ball situation where the defending player rolls the ball off his back foot to a teammate to retain possession. A rugby league club is allowed six tackles without a scoring goal before they have to surrender possession to the opposing squad.


Whether you choose to join a rugby union or rugby league club, one thing that hasn’t changed is the challenge and fun you are sure to have playing the game.