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Originally Posted by Cheerio
So um... does anyone actually know the rules of rugby? If so would they mind explaining? I was watching bits and pieces of the Japan vs. France game, and it seemed like football without pads, downs, or forward passes
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Ya its a lot to explain. Football is derived from rugby though, its just that rugby doesn't have the constant stoppages and its more continuous. You can't throw the ball forward at all, otherwise there is a scrum and the other team puts the ball in.
A try is like a touchdown and the ball actually has to be touched down. They are worth 5 pts. The conversion is kicked on the same line as the ball is touched down as far out as the kicker prefers. This is why you see players try to touch the ball down closer to the posts if given a chance. The conversion is worth two points.
Drop goals and penalties are worth three points. A drop goal is when a player drops the ball and it bounces and is kicked at the same time, and it goes through the uprights. You don't see tons of those, but they aren't incredibly rare either. When a penalty is awarded its up to the team receiving the advantage what they would like. They can just tap the ball to their foot and run, have a scrum or kick the ball. If they kick for goal then that is the 3 point kick. They might kick for touch (kick out of bounds) and throw the ball in where it went out.
Penalties are awarded for a number of things, but the most common are offsides, holding the ball on the ground and holding the tackled player on the ground or intentionally collapsing a scrum. There are others, but off the top of my head I would say these are the most common.
The kicking in general is a little more complex. If you are behind your own 22 metre line and kick the ball straight out of bounds the other team gets the ball where it went out. If you are past the 22 though it comes back to where you kicked it...so players either don't kick there or try to get it to bounce out. I started to talk about offsides here....but changed my mind.
If you're interested in how offside works and such maybe post again and I can explain it (gladly!). Otherwise I'll leave it at that for now. Its a great game though, and you have the gist of it when you compare it to football!