Quote Originally Posted by Mickey View Post
I watched the game and was riveted. I didn't know *** was going on... I really don't understand rugby, but enjoy watching it.. perhaps because of the confusion, I don't know, but I was caught up in it as always. Cool game.
Mickey, if you understand football (NFL/CFL) you'll catch onto rugby mighty quick. There are a fair few similarities.

The KEY difference (IMO) between football and rugby is that in rugby, the ball touching the ground or a player being tackled with the ball does NOT result in a dead ball. The team that has possession is free to continue to recycle the ball by passing it to a teammate laterally (there is no forward passing allowed in rugby) or move the ball to another part of the field by kicking it.

football: touchdown = 6 pts, conversion kick = 1 pt, field goal = 3 pts
rugby: try (almost the same as a touchdown) = 5 pts, conversion kick = 2 pts, drop goal = 3 pts.

Line-outs (when the ball goes out the side) is taken in a way that's similar to soccer. Scrums occur when certain rules are broken. The team with the advantage is the side that feeds the ball into the scrum. The object is to pass the ball through the center of the scrum to the back where it can be picked up by a player and put into play.

Those are the bare, bare bones basics... But being a football fan myself, I highly encourage other football fans to give rugby a try! You'll be very pleasantly surprised. It has all the physicality as football but without all the consistent stop-go restarts from down to down.

(Which is the reason why I also don't care for baseball... I like games where there is constant, non-stop action... Like hockey. I don't like games where there is lots of waiting and standing around for stuff to happen).