Rugby football is a collective name for the family of team sports of rugby union and rugby league, as well as the earlier forms of football from which both games, Association football, Australian rules football, and Gridiron football evolved. Canadian football, and to a lesser extent American football were also broadly considered forms of rugby football but are seldom now referred to as such.
The Ireland men's national rugby league team, known as the Wolfhounds, is organised by Rugby League Ireland. The representative team is dominated by players from the Super League and sometimes includes players from the Australasian National Rugby League. Ireland is also represented by an Ireland A side, which is made up of players from the domestic Irish competition.
The Scottish Rugby Union is the governing body of rugby union in Scotland. It is the second oldest Rugby Union, having been founded in 1873, as the Scottish Football Union. The SRU oversees the national league system, known as the Scottish League Championship, and the Scottish National teams. The SRU is headed by the President and Chairman, with Mark Dodson acting as the Chief Executive Officer. Bradbury became the first female president of a Tier 1 rugby nation upon her appointment on 4 August 2018.
The PRO14 is an annual rugby union competition involving professional sides from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa and Wales. The league is one of the three major professional leagues in Europe, the most successful European teams from which go forward to compete in the European Rugby Champions Cup, the pan-European championship which replaced the Heineken Cup after the 2013–14 season.
London Scottish Football Club is a rugby union club in England. The club is a member of both the Rugby Football Union and the Scottish Rugby Union. The club shares the Athletic Ground with Richmond. The ground-share is scheduled to last until the end of the 2020–21 season, after which Scottish will share Molesey Road in Hersham with Esher for at least two seasons.
The Rugby Football League is the governing body for professional rugby league in England. The name Rugby Football League previously also referred to the main league competition run by the organisation. This has since been supplanted by Super League, the Championship and League 1.
Home Nations is a collective term in sport, usually meaning the constituent countries of the United Kingdom. If a sport is governed by a body representing the whole island of Ireland, such as the Irish Rugby Football Union, the term can refer to the nations of the constituent countries on the island of Great Britain and the Irish nation.
Edinburgh Rugby is one of the two professional rugby union teams from Scotland. The club competes in the Pro14, along with Glasgow Warriors, its oldest rival. Edinburgh plays most of its home games at Murrayfield Stadium.
The Scotland national rugby league team represent Scotland in international rugby league football tournaments. Following the break-up of the Great Britain team in 2008, Scottish players play solely for Scotland, apart from occasional Southern Hemisphere tours, for which the Great Britain team is expected to be revived. The team is nicknamed the Bravehearts.
The Netherlands national rugby league team is the national rugby league team of The Netherlands in a sport that is virtually unknown in the Nederlands. It was formed in January 2003. The national team played its first international match in 2003 against Scotland A, where they lost 22–18.
The Scotland Rugby League is the governing body for rugby league football in Scotland. It administers the Scotland national rugby league teams.
Richmond Football Club is a rugby union club from Richmond, London. It is a founding member of the Rugby Football Union, and is one of the oldest football clubs. It fields teams in both men's and women's rugby; the men's first team currently play in the RFU Championship following their promotion from National League 1 at the end of the 2019-20 season, while the women's first team play in the Women's Championship.
Rugby league is a comparatively minor sport in Scotland, dwarfed by the popularity of association football, and to a lesser extent sports such as rugby union, curling, ice hockey and shinty. With the introduction of rugby league into a small number schools and the formation of youth rugby league in Scotland it has seen juniors being signed to Super League clubs.
Rugby union in Scotland is a popular team sport. Scotland's national side today competes in the annual Six Nations Championship and the Rugby World Cup. The first ever international rugby match was played on 27 March 1871, at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh, when Scotland defeated England in front of 4,000 people. Professional clubs compete in the Pro14, European Rugby Champions Cup and European Rugby Challenge Cup, while the Scottish League Championship exists for over 200 amateur and semi-professional clubs, as does a knock-out competition, the Scottish Cup. The governing body, the Scottish Rugby Union (SRU), is one of the ten first-tier member nations of World Rugby.
In sports, a loan involves a particular player being able to temporarily play for a club other than the one to which they are currently contracted. Loan deals may last from a few weeks to a full season, sometimes persisting for multiple seasons at a time.
Sport plays a central role in Scottish culture. The temperate, oceanic climate has played a key part in the evolution of sport in Scotland, with all-weather sports like association football and golf dominating the national sporting consciousness. However, many other sports are played in the country, with popularity varying between sports and between regions.
The Scottish Premiership is an amateur league competition for Scottish rugby union clubs. First held in 1973, it is the top division of the Scottish League Championship. The current champions are Ayr, while the most successful club is Hawick, who have won the competition twelve times.
Rugby league is played across England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but it's heartland in the North of England is where the sport is most popular, and is where the majority of professional clubs lie. The sport was first established in the George Hotel, Huddersfield, where 22 clubs from the Rugby Football Union split to form the Northern Rugby Football Union.
