Rugby has been in development for many years and finally became one of the biggest sports a couple of decades ago. The journey has many interesting stories that happened, many of which changed and made the game we have today. England and New Zealand are the leaders in this sport, and they helped a lot when it came to promoting it around the world.
It’s even a part of sports betting which means that there’s a lot of interest in it because bookmakers won’t add it to their offers if there aren’t many people playing it. There is some evidence that we will celebrate 200 years of rugby in 2023 because that was the time when William Ellis picked up a ball and started running with it.
Long Time to Go Pro
One of the most interesting things about rugby is that it has existed for a very long time, but they never had the opportunity to go pro. This means that players wouldn’t get paid by the teams until 1995, when the union decided to let the players get paid. It was only the new beginning for the sport, and it worked very well, considering how many fans started to follow rugby.
All Blacks Success
All Blacks is a New Zealand national team that was established more than 100 years ago in 1903. They are definitely the most successful teams in the world, with over 70% win rate in more than 500 games. Their famous Haka, a “ceremonial performance,” is probably the most interesting thing in sports where they seed fear in their opponents.
Even if the odds are low when they play against other teams except for England, you will win a lot of times. They have 3 World titles which aren’t too many when you have over 500 games and a huge win rate, but you can’t always win when too much is at stake.
Olympics Without Professional Players
As mentioned before, they allowed players to get paid from 1995, but there was a part of the Olympic games in 1900. The rules were much different because they didn’t have a proper ball to kick through the goal and no proper equipment. The game at that point was very similar to American football.
In 2016, the reformations happened, and we can say that the official game is in the Olympics, both men and women’s teams. A surprise happened at those Olympic games where Fiji won the tournament.
Japan’s Most Successful Asian Team
There aren’t too many great Asian teams considering that it isn’t very popular in that area. Among all betting sports, rugby became huge in Japan because they were the hosts of the World Cup in 2019. They made the best team possible, which was very successful even if they didn’t reach the finals.
Opponents usually have bigger and stronger guys compared to other teams, but Japan has a better strategy. This led them to the quarter-finals, where they lost against South Africa. No one expected that they would win against Scotland, which has had a great national team for a while now.
World Cup Whistle
This amazing fact doesn’t affect the game in any way, but the whistle that was used more than 50 years ago is still being used for the World Cup. This was a whistle from a famous referee, Gil Evans, who was using it until 69’ when he placed it in a museum, but someone decided to start the tradition all over again.
After 18 years in a museum, the association decided to use it again, and it’s still being used for some matches. They might need to clean it a few times for every game, but it’s something that is unique for this sport. It has a long history, even if it’s not in the top 5 sports in the world.
