The game

What is rugby?

Rugby is a full contact sport that originates from the town of Rugby in England. Legend says that in 1823 William Webb Ellis picked up a football during a match and carried it to the end of the field – and therefore the game of rugby was invented.

 

Aim of the game

While the laws of the game are numerous and occasionally complicated, the aim of the game is simple. Place the rugby ball (a rotational elliposoid object) in your own tryzone at the end of the pitch. In order to do this you may run with the ball, kick it forwards or pass it backwards. 

The defenders try to keep the attacking team out of the tryzone by tackling the ball carrier to stop them, gain ball posession and attempt attacking themselves.

 

Rugby Scoring System

For each try the attacking team is awarded 5 points. If they manage to kick the ball in between the H-shaped post they can secure an additional 2 points.

 

Women’s rugby in Austria

In Austria, therefore at Valkyries Women’s Rugby Club, women’s rugby is usually played in the 7s rugby variant. This means that 7 players per team play for 2 halves of 7 minutes on a field approximately the size of a football field.

At the moment the league consists of clubs from Vienna, Lower Austria, Styria and Carinthia. Together they field 7 teams in the current 2024/2025 series. 

The wider known variant of 15s rugby (15 players per team playing for 2 halves of 40 minutes) is slowly emerging through development programmes set out by the austrian rugby union ÖRV (Österreichischer Rugbyverband).

 

More info and Laws of the game

For more detailled information we can recommend checking out the website and social media channels from World Rugby as well as Rugby Europe and Rugby Austria.