Quote:
Originally Posted by hedgie43
Back in the 1800s there were a bunch of different village ball games in England with different rules. One of those became soccer (association football) while rules from the town of Rugby resulted in the sport of rugby football. In the US, rugby basically developed into American football (line of scrimmage was originally a scrum, also known as a scrummage, touchdown was from when you actually had to touch the ball down, etc.) but outside of North America it stayed rugby and one of the big issues back then was amateurism. The Northern English teams were working class and wanted to be compensated for time missed from work. The richer Southern English clubs didn't want that so they split and over the last 115 years the rules have diverged to the point that they are different sports and players have mixed success in switching between the two. The new, professional version was called rugby league and became popular in Northern England and Eastern Australia (NSW, QLD, ACT but not VIC). Rugby union stayed amateur until 1995 and is the more popular version in the rest of the UK, Ireland, France, Italy, South Africa, New Zealand, Japan and in the English speaking South Pacific. It's also the more popular version worldwide, even in places where it's relatively small. These forms of the game also have variations with different numbers of players. Rugby union is typically played by 15 players, but has a fast-paced form called 7s with 7 minute halves and 7 players a side on the same size field. There is also a rarely played form with 10 players. These essentially have the same rules with very slight variations (drop goal conversions in 7s vs place kick conversions for example). Rugby league also has a shortened version called 9s. But they are really just two different sports with minor rule variations for shortened versions.
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The main versions are Rugby League and Rugby Union. AFL is not a form of rugby it's a different type of football the same way NFL for example isn't a type of Rugby.
Then there's Rugby 7s, which is an international 7 a side tournament version of Rugby Union (it's super fun to watch and soft lines to bet on) - the games are quicker and tries are scored very quickly due to fewer players being on the field. Imagine a 7 a side NFL game for example and how many more points would be scored vs 11 a side or whatever. It's very fun.
and Rugby 10s and Rugby League 9s are niche formats of Union and League respectively that are played about once a year in a niche tournament format usually in the pre season with less players and shortened games.
As he said, Rugby League is popular in Northern England and Eastern Australia and the pacific islands.
Rugby Union is popular in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK and Ireland, France, Argentina, Japan, the pacific islands and a few other countries plus has smaller followings all over the world
Rugby 7s is huge in Fiji, South Africa, New Zealand and a few other places and has more of a following than regular rugby in the USA and Canada. It's 10 annual events are held in Dubai, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA, Hong Kong, Singapore, England and France. Whoever scores the most competition points between those ten tournaments wins. The three best teams at the moment are Fiji, New Zealand and South Africa with USA, England, France, Australia being the next tier who win tournaments semi regularly then Samoa, Argentina, Canada, Ireland, Kenya, Spain, Wales and Scotland making up the other 'core' tour sides and Japan (who got relegated last season) will probably return next season as the favourite to be promoted from the second tier. Then there are a ton of second tier countries who will be competing for promotion as well (one side gets promoted/relegated each season)
Wales are probably going to get relegated this year, and a side like Japan or Chile or Russia or Germany or Tonga will most likely get promoted.
In Queensland and New South Wales, Rugby League (NRL) is more popular, in Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia and Tasmania AFL is more popular. Rugby Union (Super Rugby) and Rugby 7s has a moderate following everywhere but isn't the biggest code anywhere in Australia, although Rugby Union is the biggest sport in New Zealand and possibly in South Africa and Rugby 7s is the biggest sport in Fiji