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Rugby union, or simply rugby, is a contact team sport which originated in England in the first half of the 19th century.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Origins of Rugby – Codification "The innovation of running with the ball was introduced some time between 1820 and 1830." )〕 One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its most common form, a game is between two teams of 15 players using an oval-shaped ball on a rectangular field with H-shaped goalposts on each try line. In 1845, the first football laws were written by Rugby School pupils; other significant events in the early development of rugby include the Blackheath Club's decision to leave the Football Association in 1863 and the split between rugby union and rugby league in 1895. Historically an amateur sport, in 1995 restrictions on payments to players were removed, making the game openly professional at the highest level for the first time. World Rugby, originally the International Rugby Football Board (IRFB) and from 1998 to 2014 the International Rugby Board (IRB), has been the governing body for rugby union since 1886. Rugby union spread from the Home Nations of Great Britain and Ireland, and was absorbed by many of the countries associated with the British Empire. Early exponents of the sport included Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and France. Countries that have adopted rugby union as their ''de facto'' national sport include Fiji, Georgia, Madagascar, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga and Wales. Rugby union is played in over 100 countries across six continents; there are 101 full members and 18 associate members of World Rugby. The Rugby World Cup, first held in 1987, takes place every four years with the winner of the tournament receiving the Webb Ellis Cup. The Six Nations Championship in Europe and The Rugby Championship in the Southern Hemisphere are major annual competitions. Major domestic competitions include the English Premiership in England, Top 14 in France, the ITM Cup in New Zealand and the Currie Cup in South Africa. Other transnational competitions include the Pro12, involving Irish, Italian, Scottish and Welsh teams; the European Rugby Champions Cup, involving the top European teams from their respective domestic competitions; and Super Rugby, involving Australian, New Zealand and South African teams and set to add teams in Argentina and Japan in 2016. ==History== (詳細はEnglish school football at Rugby School in 1823, when William Webb Ellis is said to have picked up the ball and run with it.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url = http://www.rugbyfootballhistory.com/webb-ellis.html )〕 Although the evidence for the story is doubtful, it was immortalised at the school with a plaque unveiled in 1895. Despite the doubtful evidence, the Rugby World Cup trophy is named after Webb Ellis. Rugby football stems from the form of game played at Rugby School, which former pupils then introduced to their university. Old Rugbeian Albert Pell, a student at Cambridge, is credited with having formed the first "football" team. During this early period different schools used different rules, with former pupils from Rugby and Eton attempting to carry their preferred rules through to their universities. A significant event in the early development of rugby football was the production of the first written laws of the game at Rugby School in 1845,〔("Six ways the town of Rugby helped change the world" ). BBC. Retrieved 29 January 2015〕 which was followed by the 'Cambridge Rules' drawn up in 1848.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Early Laws )〕 Other important events include the Blackheath Club's decision to leave the Football Association in 1863〔(【引用サイトリンク】History of Football - The Global Growth )〕 and the formation of the Rugby Football Union in 1871.〔 The code was originally known as "rugby football"; it was not until after the schism in England in 1895, which resulted in the separate code of rugby league, that the sport took on the name "rugby union" to differentiate it from the league game. Despite the sport's full name of rugby union, it is known simply as rugby throughout most of the world. The first rugby football international was played on 27 March 1871 between England and Scotland.〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Historical Rugby Milestones 1870s )〕 By 1881 both Ireland and Wales had representative teams, and in 1883 the first international competition, the Home Nations Championship had begun. 1883 is also the year of the first rugby sevens tournament, the Melrose Sevens, which is still held annually. Five years later two important overseas tours took place: a British Isles team visited Australia and New Zealand—although a private venture, it laid the foundations for future British and Irish Lions tours; and the 1888–89 New Zealand Native football team brought the first overseas team to British spectators. Between 1905 and 1908, all three major Southern Hemisphere rugby countries sent their first touring teams to the Northern Hemisphere: New Zealand in 1905, followed by South Africa in 1906 and Australia in 1908. All three teams brought new styles of play, fitness levels and tactics, and were far more successful than critics had expected.〔 ''"When they arrived in this country () they were regarded as an unknown quantity, but it was not anticipated that they would give the stronger British teams a great deal of opposition. The result of the very first match against Devon was regarded as a foregone conclusion by most British followers."''〕 The New Zealand 1905 touring team performed a haka before each match, leading Welsh Rugby Union administrator Tom Williams to suggest that Wales player Teddy Morgan lead the crowd in singing the Welsh National Anthem, ''Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau'', as a response. After Morgan began singing, the crowd joined in: the first time a national anthem was sung at the start of a sporting event. In 1905 France played England in its first international match.〔 No international rugby games and union-sponsored club matches were played during the First World War, but competitions continued through service teams such as the New Zealand Army team. During the Second World War no international matches were played by most countries, though Italy, Germany and Romania played a limited number of games,〔(Italy tour – Bucharest, 14 April 1940 ) Romania vs Italy, Scrum.com〕〔(Italy tour – Stuttgart, 5 May 1940 ) Germany vs Italy, Scrum.com〕〔(Romania tour – Milan, 2 May 1942 ) Italy vs Romania, Scrum.com〕 and Cambridge and Oxford continued their annual University Match. Rugby union was included as an event in the Olympic Games four times during the early 20th century. In 1973 the first officially sanctioned international sevens tournament took place at Murrayfield, one of Scotland's biggest stadiums, as part of the Scottish Rugby Union centenary celebrations. In 1987 the first Rugby World Cup was held in Australia and New Zealand, and the inaugural winners were New Zealand. The first World Cup Sevens tournament was held at Murrayfield in 1993. Rugby Sevens was introduced into the Commonwealth Games in 1998 and has been added to the Olympic Games of 2016.〔 Rugby union was an amateur sport until the IRB declared the game "open" in 1995, removing restrictions on payments to players. However, the pre-1995 period of rugby union was marked by frequent accusations of "shamateurism", including an investigation in Britain by a House of Commons Select committee.〔 〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】url = http://www.talkrugbyunion.co.uk/guides/history_of_rugby_union.html )〕 Following the introduction of professionalism trans-national club competitions were started, with the Heineken Cup in the Northern Hemisphere and Super Rugby in the Southern Hemisphere. The Tri Nations, an annual international tournament involving Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, kicked off in 1996.〔 In 2012, this competition was extended to include Argentina, a country whose impressive performances in international games (especially finishing in third place in the 2007 Rugby World Cup) was deemed to merit inclusion in the competition. As a result of the expansion to four teams, the tournament was renamed The Rugby Championship.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 work=rugby.com.au )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rugby union」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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