1. A rugby match consists of two 40-minute halves and a 10-minute halftime.
2. According to legend, rugby was created at Rugby School when, during a footie game in 1823, a pupil named William Webb Ellis suddenly picked up the ball and started running with it. Sadly, there's no evidence to back this up. It's almost certain that the game actually evolved slowly as different generations of pupils tinkered with the rules of football.
3. The field, called a pitch, is 100 yards by 75 yards.
4. There are 15 players per team on the pitch during a match.
5. Being out of bounds is called "touch."
6. The ball is advanced by running or kicking. Forward passes are illegal. All players can run with or kick the ball.
7. A scrum consists of packs of players gathered in a tight huddle where they battle for control of the ball.
8. The place of a penalty infringement is called the mark.
9. The oldest rugby club in the world is Dublin University Football Club. Founded in 1854, it is also happens to predate the first ever soccer club, Sheffield FC, by three years.
10. A tackle does not stop play.
11. A "try" is so-called because the act of running over the line and touching the ball down originally carried no points and merely allowed the team to try for a kick at the goal. The rules were eventually changed to make trys, rather than goals, the best way to score points.
12. Rugby balls are shaped the way they are because the original balls, made by a cobbler near Rugby School, were fashioned from pigs' bladders. These bladders naturally became oval-shaped when inflated – a grisly process which literally involved blowing into them like balloons.
13. The world's first international rugby game was played in 1871 between Scotland and England. Scotland won it, but England got their own back by winning at their next confrontation.
