Rugby World Cup

The Rugby World Cup is a competitive tournament that stands as the highest level of rugby competition. Rugby is a game that evolved from English football, known in the United States as soccer. The sport first developed in the nineteenth century at the Rugby School in England. Unlike traditional football, rugby participants are allowed to pick up and run with the ball. Additionally, rugby allows for significantly higher levels of physical contact between players than traditional football. For that reason, it is known for commonly causing injuries among players. Throughout most of the game’s history, rugby was strictly an amateur sport, originating as a schoolyard game. During the course of the twentieth century, the sport spread throughout much of the world, but the International Rugby Football Board was determined to ensure that the amateur spirit of the game remained intact. For this reason, the first Rugby World Cup did not occur until 1987. Since then, the Rugby World Cup has grown immensely popular. Millions of people buy tickets for each year’s games, placing it among the best attended sporting event in the world.

Background

Rugby, also called rugby football, traces its origins back to medieval England. During that time, it was played by young men as a variant of the game of football. Football was popular in the Tudor Era of the late fifteenth to early seventeenth centuries, but had gained a reputation for causing injuries among participants.

The earliest incarnation of the style of football that would evolve to become rugby was first played at a boys’ school in Rugby, a town in central England. The variant of football played at the Rugby School had significantly fewer rules than the common form of the game. The football could be caught and carried in the hands, but participants were not allowed to run forwards while carrying the ball. Participants were expected to move the ball towards the opponent’s goal by throwing and kicking it. The number of players on each team was not firmly set, with some games including more than two hundred participants on one team. Additionally, games did not have a set length. It was common for games to last for days at a time.

In 1823, it was recorded that a player first intentionally disregarded the rules by catching the ball and continuing to run towards the opponents’ goal. By 1841, this variation had become a legal move, setting rugby football firmly apart from traditional football. As members of the Rugby School graduated and moved to other locations, the game of rugby football spread. It quickly became popular at universities, particularly at Oxford and Cambridge. Following that, rugby football rapidly spread to other European countries. The first international game of rugby occurred in 1871, when Scotland played against England at Raeburn Palace, Edinburgh.

In the modern era, rugby is played across the world. It is particularly popular in England where it remains a common game at schools and universities. The game is also played in South Africa, France, New Zealand, Ireland, and Scotland. In 1886, representatives from Scotland, Wales, and Ireland met in Dublin, Ireland to form the International Rugby Football Board (IRFB), which managed the rules of the game. England played its own variant until 1890, when it joined the IRFB.

Overview

Throughout most of rugby’s history, there was no organized World Cup. Despite this, international competitions still occurred. For example, many nations sent teams to the French Club Championships in 1892, and rugby became an Olympic sport in 1900. However, Rugby quickly fell out of favor with the Olympics, and from 1925 through 2016, the sport was not played during the Games. Despite this, teams continued to engage in international tours for much of the twentieth century.

Initially, the creation of a Rugby World Cup was delayed by internal politics. Many other nations that founded and initially popularized the game, such as England, Wales, and Ireland, firmly believed that Rugby should remain an amateur sport. They believed that keeping rugby on the amateur level helped keep the game in touch with its roots. Additionally, rugby was played in different seasons in different parts of the world, complicating the idea of a single international tournament.

In the early 1960s, Harold Tolhurst, a famed rugby player, proposed that Australia host an international rugby tournament to find the best team in the world. The IRFB quickly forbid all member states from participating in such an event, arguing that it would damage the game’s amateur reputation.

In 1984, the IRFB began to conduct feasibility studies into creating a genuine Rugby World Cup. The studies found positive feedback from players and organizers. A year later, the IRB officially voted to organize a World Cup tournament hosted by Australia and New Zealand in 1987. It was important to the organizing teams that the governing body of rugby be the ones running the World Cup. They did not want companies profiting off the sport.

The first Rugby World Cup contained six teams, each representing a country. New Zealand emerged as the first World Cup champion, defeating France in the finals. More than 600,000 people attended the nearly month-long tournament, giving the Rugby World Cup a significant boost in popularity. While at first there were no plans for a second tournament, it was later decided that the World Cup would be held every four years.

Teams compete for a chance at the Rugby World Cup through a series of qualifier tournaments. If a team advances through these qualifiers, they will be entered into a series of pools of other high-scoring teams. During most World Cups, the teams that finish first and second in each pool are selected to move into the quarterfinals and compete for the championship.

In the 2019 World Cup, twenty teams competed for the title of world champion. During England’s final match of the tournament, it was estimated that 79 percent of the nation’s televisions were tuned in to the game. More than 50 million people worldwide tuned in to watch the games, and more than 70,000 spectators attended the finals in person. About 1.8 million tickets were sold during the 2019 World Cup, making it the second best attended sporting event in the world, behind only the FIFA World Cup.

The first official women's Rugby World Cup was held in 1998 in the Netherlands and saw New Zealand defeat the United States to win the title. New Zealand continued to dominate at the event, winning five additional titles over the following six iterations of the event (2002, 2006, 2010, 2017, and 2021). New Zealand's win in the 2021 World Cup, which was hosted by New Zealand, was the first time in the history of the event that a host nation had won a women's Rugby World Cup.

Bibliography

“Black Ferns Beat England to Create Rugby World Cup History.” Rugby World Cup, 12 Nov. 2022, www.rugbyworldcup.com/2021/news/776516/rugby-world-cup-2021-final-recap#. Accessed 14 Dec. 2022.

“Game-Changing Rugby World Cup 2019 Is a Record-Breaker.” Rugby World Cup, 2019, www.rugbyworldcup.com/news/538379. Accessed 6 Nov. 2019.

Hathaway, Adam. “Rugby World Cup Pools Explained.” Rugby World, 13 Oct. 2019, www.rugbyworld.com/tournaments/rugby-world-cup-2019/rugby-world-cup-pools-explained-99302, Accessed 6 Nov. 2019.

Johnson, Ben. “History of Rugby Football.” Historic UK, www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/History-of-Rugby-Football/. Accessed 6 Nov. 2019.

“How the RWC Started.” Rugby Football History, 2007, www.rugbyfootballhistory.com/rwc‗start.htm. Accessed 6 Nov. 2019.

McCarthy, Niall. “The Rugby World Cup: Second Only to the Soccer World Cup in Attendance.” Forbes, 18 Sept. 18 2015, www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2015/09/18/the-rugby-world-cup-second-only-to-soccer-in-attendance-infographic/#cd6c8966e1b3. Accessed 6 Nov. 2019.

“Rugby World Cup: How It Works, Who’s Going to Win.” ESPN, 18 Sept. 18, 2015, www.espn.com/rugby/story/‗/id/13684745/how-works. Accessed 6 Nov. 2019.

“Stats Hub.” Rugby World Cup, 2019, www.rugbyworldcup.com/stats. Accessed 6 Nov. 2019.

Tighe, Shane. “A Brief History of the Origins of the Rugby World Cup.” Sports News Ireland, www.sportsnewsireland.com/rugby/rugby‗world/a-brief-history-of-the-origins-of-the-rugby-world-cup/. Accessed 6 Nov. 2019.