Rugby Football – How to Play, Rules & Regulations

Rugby is an exciting form of sport that's originated in different parts of England and it resembles with ancient Greek sport played in medieval times somewhere near Wales. These types of games are played in France and Ireland with name of La Soule and Caid. These games are played differently from each other and from time to time it was played with variation in playing style and rules in English schools. This game is emerged as most fascinating sport at global level in which it can be played professionally as well as amateur and different type of competitions is held with variation in rules of games.

The game is rugged and pace of the game require enormous skill and strategies to beat the opponent. The skill is not enough to play rugby but it required mind and require strength up to maximum level for brutal challenges and tackles faced by opponents. This fascinating game requires 15 players on each side who are entitled to perform specific tasks allotted to them. The formation of team is depended upon the strategies of every team but mostly it is broken into two phases which includes forwards and backs. The ball should be passed, or carry by a player or kicked by him to take possession of ball for longer period of time and grounding the ball maximum time than opponent to win the match.

The ground of rugby is consisted of touch lines and goal lines and ground must be covered with grass and rectangular shapes. The players must kick the ball or dribble it with their feet with incessant passing to grounding the ball further than their rival's goal line. The games lasted for 80 minutes in two equal numbers of halves and have to ground the ball more than opponent to win the match. The ball is oval shaped with weight of 440 gm and 30 cm long and player should play the match in 110 yard ground. The players are not allowed to wear any protection and only wear boots and leather studs other than jersey and shorts.

The game begins from centre when a player kicked the ball towards opponent's 10 yard line and at the same time the player who is not offside (a player is offside when he is advancing toward balls direction and he is ahead of ball) can advance the game by kicking or dribbling. If he manage to hold the ball, he can pass the ball to his player or runs with it but he can only pass ball to sides and backward also not allowed to pass it forward. The players run toward opponent's goal lines and with special condition that no player of ball carrier team can run ahead of that player who is carrying the ball. The carrier can be interrupted by opponent by tackle to gain ball procession and if he is cannot succeed to tackle the ball carrier runs forward and keep passing ball literally to sides and backward up to the goal lines.

During the run, the player who is carrying ball is only charged by opponent with tackle and if a player is not having ball in his procession he cannot be obstructed or charged with tackle. If the opponent is engaged with such incident and willfully striking other player is penalized with penalty kick at infringement place to opposite team. The rugby is more attacking game than American soccer and uninterrupted passing and faster game play.

When a goal is scored, game is started again at centre and when penalties or foul occurred it's started with award of scrimmage in which ball is rolled in tunnel formed by forwards of both team who are linked together with arms holding each other's waist in which they are binding with front row of opponents team bending forward so the shoulders are linked to make tunnel and the push each other straight and try to touch the ball and push backward to their team mates behind them.

The method in which ball is gone out of bounds is different from it in which they are lined up against each other horizontally toward touch lines and ball is thrown toward centre of these pack of forwards and they jump to catch the ball for procession. When the ball is ground well beyond the goal lines of opponent, 4 points are rewarded to scoring team in rugby union and 3 is benchmarked for rugby league.

The rugby commonly exist in two sports known as Rugby Union and Rugby League which is played widely all over the world and American football is known as new genre of rugby in modern times. Many competitions are played like World Cup which is played after 4 years and 20 teams are participating in this tournament which is known as one of biggest sporting events of sports category around the globe. The last world cup was won by South Africa in 2007 and next rugby world is scheduled in 2011 venue at New Zealand. Tri nation series between New Zealand, Australia and South Africa which was founded in 1996 are rugby union based series in all games played between these teams since then the New Zealand won 39 out of 56 and Australia won 23 and South Africa won 21 games. The super 14 and six nations are also important and famous tournaments of rugby.

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Source: ScoresPro.com