If you’re travelling around the UK this year, you’re likely to meet lots of overly-enthusiastic people watching the 2015 Rugby World Cup. These encounters may lead to a lot of awkward interrogation about your own interest in the sport. We are here to help you navigate this assault course of sporting banter with our in-depth bluffer’s guide to the game.
Before we start, it’s important to realise there are in fact two main types of rugby: rugby union and rugby league. Although these sound like synonyms and poorly differentiated, it turns out people who like rugby have noticed some minor differences. The Rugby World Cup is based on rugby union though, so we won’t bother explaining here why rugby league requires rollerblades and an intricate knowledge of microwave ovens.
Anyway, let’s get on with it.
Scoring:
There are 3 ways of scoring points in rugby union: tries, conversions, and goal kicks. Tries are actually successes, namely when a team manages to take the ball all the way to the back of the opposing side’s half. They’re called tries though as a constant reminder of the futility of material existence (the game was invented by rather pious Zen monks).
For every try you get 5 points, even though you’ve only done 1 of them. When a team has scored a try, they also get an opportunity to score a conversion, which is a bit like a penalty kick over the other side’s big H. They’re only worth 2 points because they’re too much like a football thing and the monks who invented rugby hate football – they even refer to it as “soccer” to highlight their disdain.
When a penalty is incurred, which happens quite often in such a needlessly violent game, that’s when the victimised team gets a chance to take a goal kick. It’s pretty much identical to a conversion when you see it but it’s worth 3 points. Nobody knows why.
Big teams:
Each team has 15 players on the field. They need this many because most of the players spend their time getting into fights, otherwise known as scrums, in which they are constantly getting hurt. Those players who run around behind them are too scared to join in and spend their time “flying” away which is why they are called “flyhalfs”.
The other 2 forms of fighting in rugby are called rucks and mauls. Rucks are when everybody jumps on top of each other in an effort to crush the poor tackled player at the bottom holding the ball. Once his lungs have given up, he releases the ball and they all get off him.
Mauls are pretty much the same except they’re done standing up, so it’s much easier to see all the violence that’s going on. It has an extra layer of entertainment because the players like to pretend they are vehicles during a maul, namely trucks and trailers, and they all make the sound of revving engines.
When a ball goes off the field, it gets thrown back in whereupon the teams will fling 1 of their “locks” up into the air to grab it. The mix of surprise and irritation on the lock’s face as they go hurtling up is always enchanting.
Teams playing in the Rugby World Cup:
The most famous rugby team is from New Zealand. They’re called the All Blacks because they dress in all black. They were originally called the All Lemon Yellow and Burgundy Reds but they grudgingly changed their uniform for brevity. At the start of every match, the All Blacks perform what is known as a haka, a terrifying display of how people in New Zealand like to dance in Wellington nightclubs. They perform this because they think it’s funny.
In a fit of jealousy, the other teams based around the Pacific Ocean invented their own pre-game dances (Fiji has the cibi, Samoa has the Manu Siva Tau, and Tonga has the cipi tau) but you never hear about these because their uniforms aren’t as impressive.
Other than the All Blacks there are no famous rugby teams because none of the others are as interested in creating a strong brand identity like all the former PR gurus that make up New Zealand’s team.
That being said, other teams do like to names themselves after animals. The South African national team are called the Springboks, Argentina are the Pumas, the USA team are the Eagles, and Australia are the Wallabies. The Japanese national team call themselves the Cherry Blossoms because there are no animals in Japan except for a handful of migrating geese during the autumn.
The real curveballs are Romania though – they call themselves the Oaks purely because the whole country is obsessed with the soap opera Hollyoaks.
Rugby fields:
The patch of grass rugby is played on must always be imported from the town of Rugby in Warwickshire. Otherwise, the match has to be referred to as a game of “coventry”.
The most entertaining aspect during rugby, other than all the brutal carnage, is the fact that nobody is allowed to pass the ball forwards at any point. This leads to beautifully choreographed rows of players passing the ball to each other backwards as they sprint forward across the field. For this reason, rugby fields are all designed back to front so as not to confuse players about which direction they’re running.
This year’s Rugby World Cup will be held in various massive stadiums around the UK which are normally used exclusively for U2 and Lady Gaga concerts. Locals have been picketing councils for the misuse of the space, but the English government has admitted they really have nowhere else to stage these events except for these music venues.
Anyway, we hope you’ve enjoyed this bluffer’s guide to the 2015 Rugby World Cup. Rest assured: you’re now ready to partake in any rugby-based conversation you might have to engage in during your visit.
(Disclaimer: this guide was written by a bluffer, so facts may be further from the truth than they appear).
cheapflights
@ grootblousmile: are you trying to pretend you actually work for a living(again) GB? I mean; most us know that you sit on your plonk there in the Panners, sipping quietly on a Smirnoff, coke en ys staring blankly at an extinct mine dump all day long.
I also have a looong trip to make tomorrow. I travel all the way to Tygervallei for a strenuous lunch meeting(across the intimidating boerie gordyn into Etsabeth kontrei), from distant Muizenberg, somewhere near the Antarctic, some would believe. I might make it back home by nightfall. 😯
31 @ Tassies:
Bwahahaha
Yeah, I sit here and spunge on those around me…. fark, I wish!
Someone has to make the moolah to buy the Smirnoff, Coke & Ice and to keep some little wheels turning around here!
@ Tassies:
#22 good song Tassies sounds like Ska. Didn’t pick up on the digeridoo but could be because am out walking and listening
@ grootblousmile:
was off so was able to put them up, will be on course next few days so won’t manage much else will try though.
#26 it’s a pleasure Jack
@ Tassies:
#32:safe travels there will put a song up that you can play to get you going in the morning crank up the volume
32 @ Tassies:
I went to Builders Warehouse today, to go buy little odds & ends for the installations in Piet Retief, and after coming out to my Blik Met Wiele, I opened the passenger side 2 doors to start packing in from the one side… and noticed a bloody big bulging bubble on my front passenger side tyre, near the rim.
I remember going through a pot-hole Saturday evening on the way back from Handbriekie’s restaurant, so that must have been the bloody cause of it!
Now the front tyres are freegin run-flat 18″ 225 / 40 tyres, flippen Michelin ones (the back tyres are even farking wider, 255’s)… and they are not exactly freegin cheap. So I ended up going to the freegin Tyre Place and putting 2 new Front tyres on… and R 8 800.00 later I went on with my day’s business.
How the freegin hell can they charge R 4 400.00 per pop for a piece of round rubber with a bit of tread on it??
Turn up the volume!
@ grootblousmile: I dunno but I’d be broke with a tyre bill like that. I don’t even know what a new set of tyres for my chorrie will cost but I do know its going to cost me an arm and a leg but not quite 4k/tyre(I hope). Luckily my rubber’s quite hard so I can delay the pain. Wish I could say the same for the petrol bill though. Nothing delayed about that. 😥
35 @ Bullscot:
I’ll have to concentrate on getting 1 full installation done tomorrow then, so that by tomorrow night, the 1st Mobile Repeater works, so I can do some Rugby news on the farm in Piet Retief, with some proper 3G Internet…
But I know the folks well, so there is bound to be a braai and chatter till late night… so when I’ll get a chance to even have a look at rugby news, I don’t know…. phweeew!
@ grootblousmile: and I remember driving through Piet Retief a few months back en-route to Sodwana. I had lunch in the Spur and was pissed off because I’d timed it to watch the Stormers game at the time. As I arrived, sat down, ordered a Spur Mushroom Burger, the lights went out. Load-shedding would you believe. Didn’t see a ball played in anger. Mother but the burger tasted shit.
39 @ Tassies:
I nogal scouted around for good prices too… one lot of plonkers (a well-known major brand name tyre place) quoted me freegin R 7 700.00 per freegin tyre.
I nearly stuck the old tyre up the guy’s gazoomba when he told me the price!
@ grootblousmile: don’t pretend to us that you’re not looking forward to it GB. That’s not work boet. That’s called ‘fun’. Braai, boerie en Smirnoff???????
@ grootblousmile: I can rebuild my engine for that. Swop that Cayenne for a Jap-wagon boet. Join the ordentlike volk.
41 @ Tassies:
Hahaha
THAT’s why they need off-grid power in that area, they suffer badly from Eksdom’s whims-o-the-wisps!!
The one farm, where I will start first, does not even have Eksdom power on or near it, they still use a “Donkey” to heat water and they have a big AGGA wood-burning stove to cook with.
I’m going to pack their roof FULL of freegin 320Watt Solar Panels, with a strong MPPT Solar Controller, 16 x 100AH Gell Batteries, BIGGGGGGG Inverter / Charger, DB Box, earth spike, Solar Geyser and all the mods & cons!!
44 @ Tassies:
Hahaha,
It’s not a Cayenne….
I’m not Rockefeller…. I’m the OTHER feller!!
Fok, laat ek eers bietjie werk… anders slaap ekkie vannag nie!
@ grootblousmile:
#40 you will need to concentrate on getting those jobs done maybe you could put a couple of ‘open’ threads maybe one for World Cup and another for Currie Cup and ask folk to paste any news they come across into comments?
“The Rugby World Cup is based on rugby union though, so we won’t bother explaining here why rugby league requires rollerblades and an intricate knowledge of microwave ovens.”
Bwahahaha.
League is even more marginalised than Union. About as relevant as Jukskei in world sporting terms.
@ grootblousmile:
Be a Serf Effrican and buy yourself a Hilux Double Cab. Tyres are cheaper and stronger. My Triton braves the back roads of Zim 3 times a year and some of those roads make ours look like a German Autobahn.
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