I’m getting away more and more from the NFL. Watching many rugby clips on YouTube has peaked my interest in finding out more.
So, how do I find out more about rugby? Do I want rugby league or rugby union? What’s a good team to root for? Is there a particular site that can explain how rugby works?
It’s “piqued your interest”, unless you’re stating that your interest in rugby can never go higher than it is now.
Here’s a brief explanation of rugby
The main differences between Rugby League and Rugby Union are:
Also Union is more popular world-wide.
However there is a form of rugby that is easy to understand and incredibly exciting - Rugby Sevens!
Here there are only 7 players per side on a full-size pitch. The ball is in play practically continuously and there is a score almost every minute.
The game is so demanding that a typical match only lasts 14 minutes (with a 1 minute half-time.)
With so few players on the pitch:
Here are some videos.
There is an annual world-wide circuit involving 17 countries, played at 10 venues.
Also Sevens has been accepted as an Olympic Sport and will be at Rio.
Don’t miss that!
Rugby league is simpler and more exciting, tries are scored frequently - shares the NFL ideas of yardage and downs (sort of - the game doesn’t stop but you have 6 oppotunities to move the ball forward and then it has to be relinquished to the opposition).
The Australian National Rugby League (NRL) would be the highest standard to watch - international rugby league is not that big of a deal as only three teams play it to any sort of level.
Rugby union is more strategic, a lot of set plays - one million rules but you can understand the basics OK. The international game is huge (six nations on at the moment, world cup, rugby chamionship), domestic game more of a niche sport. Really hot and cold sport, IMHO - a good game of RU is prob the best to watch, as you get the speed and flow of RL combined with a deeper, tactical game. Problem is so few teams play good RU - here in Europe the teams have evolved to play a really dull, attritional game that is often decided by penalties. You can still admire the physicality of this - two behemoths deadlocked, until a scrum collapses and they all jump up and down high-fiving each other, because they won a penalty.
The Australia and NZ national RU sides would be the opposite of this, being known to play a more expansive and attractive style.
Six nations is on now, Ireland play Wales today, so you might be able to pick that up somewhere to watch depending where you are - it will be on in a pub somewhere in any decent sized US city.
Huh, well that has me a bit interested. I have watched a bit of Ruby sevens and always thought it seemed fun but hard to find regularly to watch. What is Six Nations all about? What are the National teams involved like. Who would be a good team to follow obsessively for a while?
The Six Nations is basically the annual European rugby union championship tournament.
Six teams - England, Scotland, Ireland (includes North and South), Wales, France, and Italy. Each team plays all the others once, they alternate home and away each year.
Pick your own side to follow, really. It’s a good open competition, no one country ever dominates for too long. Scotland haven’t won for a while though mind, and Italy never (they only joined in 2000).
Unless you’re local to one of the teams, don’t bother and just enjoy the action.
Six Nations is the North European National championship. The teams are England, Scotland, Ireland (the whole island), Wales, France and Italy. They play each other once in a season.
The Southern Hemisphere equivalent features New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Argentina.
Although I’m English, I’d suggest you follow Wales. They are a small country, but passionate about rugby. Also the singing of the Welsh crowd is a total pleasure. (turn your sound up and click on these youtube links!)
Is there a good website to use to keep up with various leagues, both local and international?
Although Rugby League has a lot of skilful players, it’s less exciting than Rugby Sevens! 
Also League may not stop like American Football, but it certainly pauses after every single tackle. The tackled player has to get to his feet to play the ball, whilst both teams move back into position.
Union may have had a lot of penalties a decade ago, but now teams play for tries. Here’s the English Premiership table: 260 tries scored after just 11 rounds of matches!
Also you’re on shaky ground talking about scrums. Union has real contests, whilst in League they might as well not bother:
Here’s the English Premier League.
I gave you a link to the International Sevens circuit in an earlier post…
Find your local club and go watch some games. Make yourself known and your local rugby folks will almost certainly let you know where to catch the big games in your area. Hell you might even play a few games yourself.
Rugby Sevens is a gateway drug. 7 person teams, two 7 minute halfs. It’s fast paced action. It will be a “demo” event at the Rio Olympics.
And if you ever get a chance, go to see the Hong Kong Sevens in person. It’s a total event (some folks call it life changing with only a small dash of hyperbole) lasting the whole weekend.
It’s a full Olympic sport in Rio.
ESPN’s rugby page (www.espnscrum.com) is my go-to site. If you want “local” coverage of England / Scotland / Wales, I suggest you find a British newspaper site that’s still free (examples: the Guardian, the Telegraph), or you can search bbc.co.uk for its sports coverage (note that if you do a search, search for “sport” instead of “sports,” as the British use the singular to refer to sports in general).