FACT ONE
The sport of rugby is named after Rugby School, where the game was first played. The game is said to have been invented in 1823 when William Webb Ellis caught the ball while playing a game of football* at school, and ran to the goal with it. Although there is doubt about whether this actually happened, Webb Ellis is still remembered as the sport’s inventor and the winner of the Rugby Union World Cup, held every four years, receives the Webb Ellis Cup.
* At the time, the game of football played in schools wasn’t the sport that it is now, with each school having their own rules. It was only from the middle of the 19th Century when inter-school matches began to take place that set rules were defined, with the two main variants of football becoming Association Football (soccer if you’re American) and Rugby Football.
FACT TWO
Rugby is known for the use of oval-shaped balls. However, this hasn’t always been the case. Initially, the balls were plum-shaped due to the shape of pigs’ bladders that they were made from. They became more spherical towards the end of the 19th Century when they began being made using rubber inner tubes rather than the bladders of pigs. However, to distinguish the balls used in rugby from the balls used for football, Rugby School requested that their balls remained slightly egg-shaped. Over time, they have become more and more flattened to the shape that they are now. Oval balls are more suited to rugby than spherical balls as they are easier to catch, hold and run with and don’t roll as far so don’t go out of play as often.
FACT THREE
As rugby balls and footballs were made from pigs’ bladders and they had to be blown up by breath alone, it was possible to become ill if blowing up a diseased bladder, and the wife of Richard Lindon, a man who made balls for Rugby School in the 19th Century, died after breathing in the air from too many bad bladders.
FACT FOUR
Rugby union has been a men’s medal sport at the modern Summer Olympic Games, being played at four of the first seven competitions. Rugby Union teams have 15 players per side. Rugby 15’s debuted at the 1900 Paris games where the gold medal was won by the host nation. It was subsequently featured at the London games in 1908, the Antwerp games in 1920 and the Paris games in 1924.
Shortly after the 1924 games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) dropped rugby union as an Olympic sport. Since then there have been numerous attempts to bring the sport back to the Olympic program. In October 2009 the IOC voted at its session in Copenhagen to include the 7’s version of the sport in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and remains a Men’s and Women’s Olympic sport today. The event made its debut in an Olympic program at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics.
The reigning Men’s Rugby 15’s Olympic champion is that famous (?) rugby-playing nation, the United States! The game of 15’s rugby has only been an Olympic sport four times.
FACT FIVE
The first time a national anthem was sung before a sporting event happened, kind of spontaneously, before a rugby game. New Zealand famously dance the Haka before the start of a game of rugby, a traditional war-dance which is sometimes seen as an attempt to intimidate their opposition. On 16th November 1905 they played Wales at Cardiff Arms Park. After New Zealand danced the Haka before the match, Wales responded by beginning to sing the Welsh national anthem, ‘Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau’ (not sure what it means, but it probably isn’t anything to do with chickens). The crowd picked up on this and joined in. Nowadays, before major sporting events, it is traditional for the national anthems of the countries being represented to be sung beforehand.
New Zealand sports teams’ practice of performing a Haka before their international matches has made the Haka more widely known around the world. This tradition began with the 1888–89 New Zealand Native football team tour and has been carried on by the New Zealand rugby union team (“All Blacks”) since 1905.
Here is an example of a Haka: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiKFYTFJ_kw
FACT SIX
Rugby players mostly earn points by scoring tries, achieved by a player crossing the touchline with a ball and touching it to the ground (which can be done by falling on it!). A try in rugby union is worth 5 points, in rugby league it is worth 4. However, a try was once worth nothing, instead it gave the player who achieved one the opportunity to “try” to score a goal, hence its name. Goals were scored by placing the ball on the ground and kicking it over the crossbar and between the two posts, therefore converting the try into a goal, a goal being worth 1 point. Nowadays, an attempt at a conversion still follows a successful try and gives players the opportunity to score an extra 2 points.
FACT SEVEN
Rugby Union World Cup tournaments are the top 20 teams/countries from the world who qualify to compete. Held every 4 years over a 35-day period.
The first Men’s tournament took place in 1987. It was hosted by Australia and New Zealand and was won by New Zealand. There have been 10 Rugby World Cups so far. South Africa have won 4, New Zealand 3, Australia 2, and England 1. The Current World Champions are South Africa.
The first Women’s tournament took place in 1991. It was hosted by Wales and was won by United States. There have been 9 Rugby World Cups so far. New Zealand has won 6, England 2 and United States 1. The Current World Champions are New Zealand.
The next World Cup is Women in 2025 hosted by England. Australia hosts next with Men 2027 and Women’s 2029. United States will then host Men 2031 and Women 2023.
Trivia question: What year was the 2021 Womens World Cup played?
FACT EIGHT
The Rugby World Cup game with the highest number of points was 162 from the match played on 4th June 1995 when New Zealand beat Japan 145 points to 17.
Japan went on from that to be a top tier nation today. Thier best Worl Cup performance was in the 2015 Rugby World Cup. Japan beat South Africa 34–32 in their first match of pool play, in what was described as the “greatest Rugby World Cup shock ever”. They went on to beat Samoa and the United States in pool play. They won three games out of four in pool play, the same as Scotland and South Africa, but unlike the other two, Japan did not get any bonus points, so the other two qualified for the quarter-finals with South Africa going on to come third.
FACT NINE
The same whistle is used to kick off the opening game of every Rugby World Cup tournament. It is the Gil Evans whistle and was first blown by Gil Evans, the Welsh referee overseeing a match between England and New Zealand in 1905. It was also used at the kick off of the final rugby match at the 1924 Paris Olympics.
FACT TEN
The first international rugby match took place between Scotland and England in 1871 at Raeburn Park in Edinburgh. Scotland won 1-0 by converting a try. The scorer, and therefore the first player to score an international rugby goal, was William Cross. If the modern scoring system was used, the score would have been 12-5 to Scotland, who scored two tries and one conversion. England achieved one try but failed to convert. The game happened 18 months before the first international Association Football (soccer) match, which took place in November 1872, also between Scotland and England.
FACT ELEVEN
The oldest Rugby Trophy in the world is the United Hospitals Challenge Cup, which was first held in 1874, which was contested between medical schools in London. The first winner was Guy’s Hospital and the Runners up were St George’s Hospital
FACT TWELVE
The oldest International Rugby Trophy is the Calcutta Cup, which is won from a match played between Scotland and England. On Christmas Day 1872, a game of rugby football, between 20 players representing England on one side and 20 representing Scotland on the other, was played in Calcutta, India. The Calcutta Cup (the trophy) is actually made from Indian Silver Rupees which were melted down to create the Cup. It was first contested in 1879, but the plinth shows records extending back to the first international in 1871.
The first Calcutta Cup match was played at Raeburn Place, Edinburgh, on 10 March 1879 and ended in a draw. The following year on 28 February 1880 England became the first winners of the Calcutta Cup when they defeated Scotland by two goals & three tries to one goal in Manchester. Matches have continued on an annual basis except for two interruptions due to the World Wars between 1915–1919 and 1940–1946.
2021 saw the 150th Anniversary of this Trophy. Currently, this game is the annual match between the two nations in the Six Nations Championship. The ground alternates between Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh (on even years) and Twickenham Stadium in London (on odd years). The current holders of the Calcutta Cup are Scotland (2021, 2022 & 2023)
FACT THIRTEEN
The World Rugby Rankings (formerly the IRB Rankings) is a ranking system for national teams in rugby union, managed by World Rugby, the sport’s governing body. The teams of World Rugby’s member nations are ranked based on their game results, with the most successful teams being ranked highest.
As of February 2024, the rankings are as follows:
Mens Womens
1) South Africa England
2) Ireland New Zealand
3) New Zealand France
This is a link to the rugby world rankings: https://www.world.rugby/tournaments/rankings/mru
