Fuck Rugby?

Really bud, make an effort to learn some basic laws (YouTube) & your enjoyment will only go up. If you need a few tips on dos & donts I’d be glad to help.
Rugby laws are very fluid, in that the authorities aren’t afraid to tweek them, particularly when it comes to player safety.

 

The Ruck & Maul probably occur more often than other plays during a match.

The Ruck.
This occurs when a tackled, ball-carrying player goes to ground. They must release the ball immediately, at which point the race is on to gain possession of it, providing it remains in play and on the ground. The tackled player’s team-mates will quickly arrive and bind together over the ball and push their opponents’ back, using their feet to ‘ruck’ the ball back to their side. Players joining the ruck can only bind on from the back, never the side.

To gain possession, both sides must try to drive over the ball to make it available for their team-mates behind them. If the ball disappears and does not come out of the ruck after five or so seconds, the referee will likely award a scrum to the team he considers to have had the greater forward momentum in the ruck.

A completed ruck or maul where the ball is successfully recycled is called a phase, teams can have lots of successful phases in its attempt to score or move forward.



The Maul.
The maul is very similar to the ruck, only the player carrying the ball remains on his feet, allowing his team-mates to bind on and push their opponents back. A maul begins when there are at least three players – the ball carrier and one player from either team.

The Irish are the specialists when it comes to The Maul. Holding their own player up & driving forward to great advantage

Staying onside is crucial and should be the aim of every player. Whenever the ball is in play, any player who finds himself ahead of a team-mate carrying the ball, and who then actively attempts to play the ball, is deemed to be offside and likely to concede a penalty, taken from the place the offence was committed.
Offside comes into play in the Ruck & Maul, but grasp the basics first then delve deeper at a later date.


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I grew up in Fife and played Rugby for both a club (Glenrothes RFC) and a high school, although not my high school as we didnt have a team (I played for Buckhaven High School, if you know Fife you'll know Buckhind is far from posh) There were a few working class schools and teams but after a couple good seasons and you start to play better sides it is definitely almost all posh boy schools and clubs. You could feel the sense of superiority from them, their parents, their teachers and coaches. As if they had a bye week basically because they were playing the oik side this week. Used to love going away to the likes of Stewart Melvilles or George Watson and beating them. Even if we lost, every ruck or maul would be a good wee punch up when we played those teams. Those games are probably my fondest memories of playing tbh.

In saying all that, THE single best team I ever played against was also a working class side. They came up from south Wales for some tournament and we played them as a warm up I think. They boys were on a completely different level. You could tell they had always wanted to be nothing other than rugby players, whereas most of our team were two sport players ,mostly football but a couple boxers too.

I have started enjoying watching rugby again after kind of falling out of love with the sport, but I still have my pet peeves which still drive me mad. I played hooker and what annoys me about the pro game most is the put in at a scrum. WHy can pro's not feed the ball in the * middle and actually have to hook for the ball. I had to do it as a kid yet pros practically feed the ball straight to their second rows. Drives me mental.

 

That reminds me of the time my school, who were a pretty good Gog (North Wales) side came up against a team of Taffs (South Wales) from the South.
We were given a lesson in the art of rugby that day. Totally schooled us in every department.

 

They were seriously unreal. Is rugby more of a south Wales thing then and football in the north?

 

Agree, they were on a different level is all I remember. Contrary to popular opinion football is the majority sport in Wales, & as far as I am aware Rugby is played in all schools North & South, though very few Gogs have been good enough to have played for Wales.
In the southern valleys, the heartland of Welsh rugby, football is frowned upon by the school sports teachers & many anecdotes exist where headmasters have burst the footballs so the boys can only play rugby.
Anyway, I think we only like it so much so we can beat those English * at there own game.

 

Might just do that.

Cheers bud

 

There’s 2 sides to this. I played rugby up to district level and never once attended private school or any of the ‘rugger *’ social circles, and didn’t even grow up in the borders. It was actually the sport I felt I was best at and I still think I could’ve made a career in it if I had been focussed on it. It’s a genuinely great sport, amazing fun to play, can accommodate a wide range of shapes and sizes while the likes of football tends to be quite restrictive in that aspect. There’s also so many aspects of the behavioural side of of the sport that football could learn from, right from youth to the top level.

In Scotland however, I struggle with it, and moving to Edinburgh kinda drives home exactly why. It’s part of a private school clique which is incredibly guarded, difficult to break into, demonstrates a lot of frat-boyish behaviour much of which is forgiven and even celebrated as part of lad culture. I also can’t say I’m convinced by the athletic ability or dedication of the guys playing it in Scotland - it’s seems to be an image thing for a lot of folk, rather than a genuine drive and determination to improve.

It is a tougher/rougher sport than high level football, although that gap is much much smaller at the * level, where football is arguably tougher, simply due to the much more working class mentality of most people playing it. It’s all relative though, I don’t think for a minute that the guys lacing up some gloves for a living and fighting in boxing rings or cages around the country are looking at 30 guys trying to get a ball over a line and viewing it as a particularly tough endeavour.

So basically, great game, just not in Scotland.

 

Brilliant post.

 

It's the same in Ireland. A sport for toffs

 

Watch Rugby League instead. More of a working class sport. If you get a chance to watch the following (try Youtube) and educate yourself. Unbelievable.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09w01q4