Rugby league or rugby is a 13 players team sport played by two teams, whose goal is to score points in the scoring zone with the ball or kicking it between the clubs. Along with Rugby 7 is a variant of rugby, although rugby union and the rugby league are considered as two different sports.
Unlike the other two variants of rugby, rugby league is managed by a different entity than the World Rugby League, the Rugby League International Federation.
It is a sport that enjoys good popularity in Australia, Fiji, England, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea (the only country where it is the most popular sport), Samoa and Tonga, and is also practiced in other countries of the world (Canada, Scotland, United States, France, Wales, Jamaica, South Africa, etc.).
History
It emerged in the north of England during 1895 due to problems of payment to players, as Rugby Football Union decided to stop making money available to some teams in that country because the sport was amateur. Following this event, the North Rugby Football Union emerges. After this, the NRFU, in search of a more dynamic game, canceled out the band kick and reduced the value of the conversions from 3 to 2 points. Since then it carried out many changes in the sport, including reducing the number of players per team in the field of 15 to 13.4
By 1910 the competition was already known in New Zealand and Australia who created associations known as Rugby Leagues and used the already existing rules, with some modification of the Northern Union. So later, the North Union, in 1922,, changed the name to the Rugby Football League.
In 1948 the International Rugby League Board was established in Bordeaux, France. In 1954 the first edition of the World Cup was held in France, where the United Kingdom became champion after defeating France 16 to 12.
The teams were composed mainly of miners from the north, for whom it was tough to take time off from work; refunds or other compensations were not game, and it was very complicated for clubs to form competitive teams. Clubs in southern England, however, had upper-class players, so those players had no work problems. In 1892, there were accusations of lack of professionalism, first against Preston, who had offered money to two players to have changed clubs. Then there was the ism with the clubs of Bradford, Leeds, and Yorkshire, after the players that had been absent necessarily work for the play were rewarded.
Laws and rules
- Dimensions of the field.
The rugby league is played by two teams in a rectangular field of varying dimensions between 110 and 122 meters long, and with a fixed width of 68 meters. The finish areas, located at the end of the field, with dimensions of 5 to 11 meters, are used to mark a try, this reduces the playing field to 100 meters between areas. At the intersection between the field of play and each goal, the area is a few posts in the form of H, which are located equidistant from both bands and have 5.50 meters wide and 3 meters high at the crossbar of the H.
- Team
Each team has 13 field players and four replacements. The two sides are, in turn, divided into attacking players and defensive players. The numbering is from 1 to 13, from 1 to 7 for the defensive, and from 8 to 13 for the attackers.
- Start of the party and duration of the party
The match starts with the kickoff, where one of the two teams kicks the ball to the opposite ground. The match is divided into two 40-minute beats with a 10-minute interval.
- Tackle limit
In 1966, the four-tackle rule was introduced, changed to six placates in 1972, whereby the team loses possession if the opponent achieves that amount of placements.
Every time a team plays the ball the other must be ten meters or is charged outside of the game, except for two players called “markers” that are the ones that are left at the side of the ball when a player is tackled. If they did not score any points for the last tackle, the team generally kicks the ball to the opposite field to gain a territorial advantage if the ball goes out without bouncing on the pitch of the opponent, winโs possession from where kicked.
Unlike the rugby to 15, in rugby league, there are no rucks to contest the ball after a tackle, but the player tackled delivered the ball to a teammate rolling on the floor, and at the same time that the rivals should go back.