20 Rugby Union / Betfair Education / 18 March 2008 / Leave a comment

The origins of rugby are believed to trace back to the early 19th century when William Webb Ellis "took the ball in his arms" and ran, whilst playing football at Rugby School.

A game of rugby union lasts 80 minutes divided into two 40-minute halves when teams swap attacking ends. The simple aim of the game is to outscore your opponents using the ball. The rugby pitch is arranged as follows note the goal post H shape.

The game is controlled by one referee and two touchline judges. High-profile games now have a television referee who can be used for disputed tries, such as offside or ball grounding technicalities.

Rugby is played with an oval-shaped ball, hence rugby is often jokingly called "egg chasing". It can be kicked, passed between players of the same team or run with. The only restriction is that the ball must be passed backwards and when the ball is kicked the retrieving player from the kicking team must have been behind the kicker (on-side) when he made contact with the ball.

Each team has a maximum of 15 players on the field at any time. These are broken down into two groups, a 'pack' of eight forwards who do most of the physical work - compete the scrums, line-outs and gain the hard yards in rucks and mauls. The second group the 'backs' are the creative 'flair' players who are more frequently found running with the ball attacking open spaces, looking to score tries. All positions are specialised particularly in the 'pack'.

A typical rugby union line up is illustrated; the forwards are numbered 1-8 and the backs 9-15.