Rugby (sport)
Rugby refers to the sports of rugby union and rugby league, which are team sports popular in the UK, France, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and throughout the south Pacific region. It is similar in some ways to American Football, being the original basis of American football's laws, and Australian Rules Football.
Two teams of fifteen (rugby union) or thirteen (rugby league) players carry, pass (only backwards or lateral passes are allowed in Rugby) and kick the ball down the field in order to be able to touch the ball down over the opposition's try-line, (this being the comparative and the derivative of the end zone in America football). When the ball is touched down, it is known as a try. Scoring a try awards that team a certain amount of points: 5 in rugby union and 4 in rugby league. An attempt (or try, the original source of the word) at conversion is than allowed which is taken by kicking the ball from a stationary position on the ground (usually with the help of a kicking tee or a small mound of dirt) over the crossbars of the H-shaped posts which awards the team an additional 2 points. Other manners of scoring points is by penalty kick: worth 2 points in rugby league and 3 points in rugby union, or by drop goal:worth 1 point in rugby league and 3 points in rugby union. [1]
Rugby League developed as a separate code after a number of teams, mainly in northern England, broke away from the governing body, the Rugby Union, in 1893 over the issue of professionalism. The Rugby Union demanded (with varying degrees of effectiveness) complete amateurism for the game; the newly-formed Rugby League allowed players to be paid. This split was in part a reflection of class differences between middle-and working-class players (there were more of the latter in the industrial towns of the north). However, it does not explain why the coal-mining valleys of south Wales, one of the heartlands of the game, adhered to the amateur, Rugby Union code.
