Rugby World Cup

The Rugby World Cup is here!

Much in the style of the Soccer World Cup, every four years the best nations in the world bring their rugby teams together to decide on the World Champion. The Rugby World Cup began in 1987.

Rugby competitions like the World Cup have two rounds; the preliminaries and the knock-out round. In the preliminaries teams are divided into pools, where they play round-robin until everyone has played everyone else. Teams with the best records are then seeded into the knock-out elimination round, where they advance until only one team is left.

Past Rugby World Cup winners are:
1987, Auckland: New Zealand 29, France 9
1991, London: Australia 12, England 6
1995, Johannesburg: South Africa 15, New Zealand 12
1999,Cardiff: Australia 35, France 12
2003. Sydney: England 20, Australia 17.
Original article can be found at http://goaustralia.about.com/cs/eventsfestivals/a/rugbyhistory.htm

***To watch World Cup games live for free, simply do the following:***

1) Download SopCast.

2) Look at the schedule of games at http://myp2p.eu/Other.htm.

3) Click the links and enjoy! Other links for the World Cup are at the bottom of this page.

Introduction

This blog is dedicated to 15's Rugby Union. I am writing this blog for several reasons. First, rugby is an immensely fun sport to play. Sharing it with others based on this fact is much of the reason it has become one of the major world sports. Second, rugby is a very social game. Most of my life-long friends have been made or made closer through playing. Third, the ideals venerated by rugby, camaraderie, perseverance, discipline (and others), are those that I hope all can hold close. This is especially important in American society, where many of these ideas have fallen by the way-side to apathy and amorality. Sadly, The United States is one country where Rugby is not played very much, despite its popularity with certain segments of the population.

A very brief introduction to the game is as follows: In the game of Rugby Union, teams play 15 players a side on a 100 by 70 meter field. The game is primarily a physical one, with players tackling each other for possession of the ball. Players can score by either kicking a "drop-kick" into the opposing team's goalpost or by scoring a "try" by touching the ball down in the opposing team's try-zone. Think, American football with no pads and more running. The mechanics of play will be discussed more in-depth in later posts.

There are, of course, other types of rugby that will not be discussed in this blog. Other forms of rugby include Rugby League and Aussie Rules.

Getting Started

Hi,

I'm The Inside Center, but you can call me Matt. While I am exploring the various aspects of this blog-- and before I really get into posting, I've posed a a question to get me started. Answer it if you like, and check back for more information next week!

Matt