William Webb Ellis probably did not start it
The famous story says that in 1823, a pupil at Rugby School called William Webb Ellis picked up the ball during a game of football and ran with it, inventing rugby. The story was first told in 1876, more than fifty years later, by a man who had not been at the school at the time, and Webb Ellis himself never claimed it. Historians think the running game grew more gradually.
The legend stuck anyway. The trophy of the Rugby World Cup is called the Webb Ellis Cup, and a plaque at the school still tells the story. The game took its name from the town and school.
Why a try is called a try
In early rugby, touching the ball down behind the other team's line scored nothing on its own. It simply earned the right to try a kick at the goal. Over time, the touchdown itself began to score points, and now a TRY scores five points in rugby union. Kicking the ball between the POSTS afterwards is a CONVERSION, adding two more.
A DROP GOAL is kicked during open play by dropping the ball and kicking it as it bounces, and a PENALTY kick can also score. A KICKOFF starts each half, and the ball must never be thrown forwards: every PASS goes sideways or backwards.
The split over lost wages
In 1895 rugby split into two sports. Many clubs in the north of England had working-class players who lost wages when they took time off work for matches, and they wanted to pay them for the time lost. The sport's leaders refused, insisting the game stay amateur, so twenty-two clubs met in Huddersfield and formed their own organisation. That became rugby league, with its own rules, and the original game became rugby union.
Rugby union itself only allowed professional players in 1995, exactly a hundred years later. The ball has changed too. Early balls were inflated pig's bladders inside a leather case, blown up by mouth, and so they came out plum-shaped rather than a neat oval. Richard Lindon, a ball maker who supplied Rugby School, went on to use rubber inner tubes, which made the modern shape possible.
The haka and the rest of the grid
Before international matches, New Zealand's team performs the HAKA, a Māori ceremonial dance with chanting, stamping and fierce expressions. The best-known version was composed in the early nineteenth century by the Māori chief Te Rauparaha. It is a respected part of Māori culture, performed at weddings, funerals and ceremonies as well as sport. Our Polynesian mythology page covers the wider Pacific traditions it comes from.
The grid holds the rest of the game: the SCRUM, the LINEOUT when the ball goes over the TOUCHLINE, the RUCK and the MAUL, and the players — the PROP and HOOKER in the front row of the forwards, the FLYHALF, the WINGER and the FULLBACK. Every FORWARD must be ready to TACKLE, and SEVENS, played with seven players a side, has been an Olympic sport since 2016. It is played on a grass PITCH.