Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The first national rugby union was the Rugby Football Union, founded in England in 1871. This was followed over the next decade by the home nations of Scottish Football Union (1873, later SRU), Irish Rugby Football Union (1879) and Welsh Rugby Union (1881).
This timeline lists the foundation dates of the national governing bodies for rugby union—known as rugby unions or federations. The first union was the Rugby Football Union (RFU) that was founded in 1871 to govern rugby union within England. It was founded following the first ever rugby union international, played between England and Scotland ...
Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in England in the first half of the 19th century. Rugby is based on running with the ball in hand.
Rugby union participation in the U.S. has grown significantly in recent years, growing by 350% between 2004 and 2011. [3] A 2010 survey by the National Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association ranked rugby union as the fastest-growing sport in the U.S. [4] Rugby union is the fastest growing college sport and sport in general in the United States.
USA Rugby was founded in 1975 as the United States of America Rugby Football Union, and it organized the first U.S. national team match in 1976. Today, USA Rugby has over 130,000 members, the largest segment being college rugby with over 32,000 members.
Unlike in rugby league, no combined British and Irish national rugby union team has ever competed in a major tournament such as the Rugby World Cup.Instead, the British & Irish Lions go on tours to the traditional Southern Hemisphere nations of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, currently occurring on a four-year cycle; the first was an 1888 tour to New Zealand and Australia.
The Australia men's national rugby union team, nicknamed the Wallabies, is the representative men's national team in the sport of rugby union for the nation of Australia. The team first played at Sydney in 1899, winning their first test match against the touring British Isles team.
England's first international match was against Scotland on 27 March 1871; not only was this England's first match, but it is also noted as being the first rugby union international. [7] Scotland won the match by one goal and a try to England's one unconverted try, [ 8 ] [ 9 ] in front of a crowd of 4,000 people at Raeburn Place , Edinburgh. [ 10 ]