Olympic Men's Rugby Sevens
- Thread starter QuaoarsKing
- Start date
I'm trying to watch rugby. It looks like what we used to do at the end of football practice....and called it smear the *****. If you're tackled, so what, they literally need to pry the ball from your hands.
I've been enjoying it. It only takes like a half hour to watch the whole game.
I've been trying to figure out the rules without looking them up. So far, it seems like:
You can only advance the ball by running it or kicking it forward
Kicking it forward is a good way to get a lot of yards in a hurry, but you run a high risk of giving the ball to the other team.
Passes all have to be backwards, like a lateral in football
A forward pass is a penalty and gives the other team the ball
Touchdowns are basically the same as in football except they literally touch the ball to the ground
Touchdowns appear to count for 5 points, then the extra point is kicking it through the uprights for 2 points
The play doesn't stop unless a ball goes out of bounds, a team scores, or there's a penalty
A couple of things I'm not clear about:
Is there some sort of rule about how long a player can hold the ball? I saw a couple of NZ guys seem to break away from the pack and have nothing but daylight ahead of them, but then chose to stop and do a pitch back.
What initiates the scrum?
Outside of the forward pass, are there other common penalties?
I've been trying to figure out the rules without looking them up. So far, it seems like:
You can only advance the ball by running it or kicking it forward
Kicking it forward is a good way to get a lot of yards in a hurry, but you run a high risk of giving the ball to the other team.
Passes all have to be backwards, like a lateral in football
A forward pass is a penalty and gives the other team the ball
Touchdowns are basically the same as in football except they literally touch the ball to the ground
Touchdowns appear to count for 5 points, then the extra point is kicking it through the uprights for 2 points
The play doesn't stop unless a ball goes out of bounds, a team scores, or there's a penalty
A couple of things I'm not clear about:
Is there some sort of rule about how long a player can hold the ball? I saw a couple of NZ guys seem to break away from the pack and have nothing but daylight ahead of them, but then chose to stop and do a pitch back.
What initiates the scrum?
Outside of the forward pass, are there other common penalties?
Touche. Having a rough day I reckon. Felt like being an azz.
The rules on how long the ball can be held if the player is on the ground have varied through the years. The last few, you have a moment or 2 to place/present the ball on the ground to your side of the LOS. If the player is not on the ground there is no time limit, though if the ball isn't moving for too long the ref can blow the play dead and order a scrum.
Players breaking from pack with daylight ahead, the passing is about support and ball movement to make it more difficult for the defense. If you have a speedster with an open field and no defender in a position to catch him he is not going to pass. But if you aren't fast you are far more likely to get caught, even from behind by someone faster. Passing the ball can put pressure on the defense to cover-the-field, which is very important because the nature of defense in rugby is one-on-one tackling, because every player has an area of responsibility, especially the back line. If a defender abandons his area to attempt a tackle on one outside his area the area he vacated is now susceptible to a pass back to that area and/or a situation where the offense has what is referred to as "having numbers", meaning your team has more guys in the area than the defense, each of your guys capable of receiving, running & passing. Think of it in terms of a basketball fast break when you have 2-on-1. 3-on-1, etc.
The scrum is the way play is initiated after a stop in play, say after a forward pass. The defending team gets to "put the ball in", which is usually a very big advantage unless the other team's scrum is badly dominating the other.
Other common penalties include offsides, unsportsmanlike conduct, taking the ball to the ground and not releasing it in time, kicking the ball directly out of bounds when you are not behind your 22 meter line, holding in a lineout, delaying play, typically by holding an opposing player down on the ground after you have tackled him and he doesn't have the ball, and a couple more.
You have to actually tackle. You can't lunge and push someone down.
You can't throw your shoulder into a tackle.
You can't go for the head.
When you get tackled, you have to let the ball go as best as you can. The pile-up over a tackled player that looks like a mini scrum is called a ruck and it sucks to be the guy on the ground. You are the line of scrimmage and you are being kicked, stomped by cleats. Let go of the ball and cover your head!
No blocking. So, like someone alluded to earlier, when you get the ball it's you against the other team.
There are more but I don't remember them. I played one season at state 28 years ago when I was 30. OMG at the running! We'd run 2 miles before practice, practice for 2 hours then run sprints!
FIJI was all white when i was at State.
I played for the club team from 03-05. It was fun a hell.
I was backup wing and outside center. First 5 minutes of the season in 03, our 8 man separated his shoulder….so our OC moved to 8 and I slid out to OC. I had no clue what the hell I was doing for at least 3 matches.
It was humbling.
LOL I didn't either for a while. I played in the first game I ever saw. In high school I was way too small to play football although I did my Jr. year. By 30, as Jack would say, I was 6 tall, 195. And, I wanted to hit somebody. When I went out to join the team, they told me "You're not fast enough to be a back and you're not big enough to be a fatboy but we need more fatboys so you're going to be a fatboy". I was #5, the RH Lock. I learned to electrical tape my ears pretty quick. LOL
I agree. It was fun as hell. The first couple of weeks were rough but after you got used to being a walking bruise, it was fun. You got banged up all the time but nothing bad. I may be the only person to ever get injured playing touch rugby. On Tuesdays, we knocked the crap out of each other in practice. On Thursdays we played touch so as not to get hurt before a Saturday game. Well, except for me. I had the ball and tried to juke a smaller guy and something popped in the bottom of my right foot and I couldn't run or jump for 2 weeks. The irony is, if we were playing contact, I would have put my shoulder down, rotored him and kept going.
ETA: When we sang, we sounded NOTHING like the Fiji team.
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