Rugby Explained for American Football Fans
If you’re an American football fan and have wanted to know about Rugby, this video is for you. We go into the basics including the …
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February 26, 2026
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"Harmony in Every Heartbeat
If you’re an American football fan and have wanted to know about Rugby, this video is for you. We go into the basics including the …
source
Couple of important things you omitted:
– No blocking in rugby.
– Placement of the ball when kicking a conversion following a parabolic curve.
– Rugby 'tackles' , and penalises hits.
Canadian rules football is far more entertaining than American in my opinion. 12 people per side, all Running Backs in motion prior to snap, 1 yard between the ball and Defensive lineman. The Canadian field is 110 yards by 65 yards. The end zones are 20 yards deep. And only 3 downs or you give up the ball. Much faster, wide open game! than the Americans with four downs. Personally, I prefer Rugby to either. Less injury, more athletic game, far less specialists. And far cheaper for high schools and colleges. Football has become Big Business! 🍁🍁🍁
As an American who has enjoyed rugby since I first saw Jonah Lomu with the All Blacks, I appreciate the explanation.
I always enjoyed the physical skill on display, but could never discern why a scrum would happen at times of a stoppage and not others.
This was very helpful, and I'll be headed to your Cricket video next, as I have just started to see the appeal of the game via an Amazon Prime show featuring the Australian Cricket team.
Thanks for the informative video!
Scott van pelt calls it pitchy pitchy woo woo
I recommend the 2023 world cup semi final either FRANCE V RSA or IRELAND V New Zealand
https://youtu.be/RQUy1eyns_Y?si=YzEEaapD39uot_BM
Can we pleeeeaaaasssee see netball explained for basketball players??
A penalty or drop goal has never been called a "Field Goal".
😅Not wishing to be too offensive, but what on earth is punt??. Rugby players "kick".
Rugby is life. #GoBokke
One very important point is the respect for other players and the ref. Generally this is obvious, but players sometimes lose it. If you loose it with the ref in rugby, your are gone.
Rugby…better than American football. pads? How about Australian Rules…..NO Pads! Canadian Football is better….only 3 downs.
Hernandez Brian Hall Donald Anderson Sharon
Lopez Cynthia Wilson Mark Harris Maria
Rugby League > Rugby Union any day
1:09 in section IV, 3RD line, new sentence beginning on the 5th word it clearly says "In cunting the ball…" and ima need a real in depth explanation as to what that means.
Lol 18 plus minute video explaining is a problem in itself.
Historic question: Shouldn't "TRY" actually be "TRI" because dotting the ball down behind the line originally gave you three points i.e., "a tri-pointer". In 1971 it changed to four points, but mathematically that gave too many chances for draws. so in the 90s it changed to five.
There is another explanation for "TRY" but I like this one.
lol we don't give a F
Rodriguez Jennifer Thomas Kimberly Martinez Melissa
Well done, mate! Like a lot of Americans, I discovered the game in college-age years, and am still playing well into my 6th decade! (It hurts more now, but hey, everything does). You did a very good job of explaining the similarities, of which there are many, and highlighting the differences. I still enjoy US football after growing up with it, but nowadays it's a slog to get through an NFL game. 3+ hours of players encased in tons of gear, 5 seconds of action followed by a huddle or commercials, and halftime that goes on for half an hour or more while we try to sell more trucks. Zzzzzzz…. Give me the non-stop action of Union any day!
This is a pretty good video, but I think you miss a few key differences between rugby and American Football…
1. The fact that in rugby, unlike American Football, you are strictly forbidden from tackling or blocking players who do not have the ball. One consequence of this is that, whereas American Football may well involve most of the team following some kind of pre-set plan or play, often dictated by the off-field coach (very few quarterbacks these days call their own plays), rugby is much more intuitive as players come up with tactics spontaneously, on the fly.
2. The fact that, like many other US sports (but very few British ones) a player may return to the field after being (in effect) substituted off. In other words, the players on the field are almost entirely different when a team is on the offence, compared to when it is on the defence. Similarly with "special teams" and the like. The way in which players come off and repeatedly back onto the field (as also happens in basketball and hockey, and to some extent also baseball) is very foreign to British viewers/spectators, for whom once a player is off the field, they are permanently substituted. (The sole exception here being a game of cricket with two innings; but even this is much more restricted than baseball's multiple at bats.)
Very good educational video all around! Good, relatable intro for the intended audience, and it feels like you made wise choices about which details to include and which to leave as further reading for the students. I particularly appreciate the game recommendations and plan on watching those next.
Rugby > American football
Did you mention no blocking?
Im familiar with both codes of Rugby. I live in the north of England, which is Rugby League land, but i prefer watching the more fluid rugby union code. Living in the north of England i find that most RL people here detest RU. A combination of rugby snobbery and jealously. Whereas the RU people dont really give the RL a second thought. International matches of the two codes are miles apart with tv viewers and stadium crowds. Although RU do have a small group of elite teams (i would say 10 maybe 11 teams) It is generally a more competitive international scene with some very good match ups in a World Cup tournament. International RL can only really say it has 3 teams that can compete at any great level. Some might say its only 2 teams. RL World Cups have only been won by 3 teams (Austrslia, New Zealand & Gt Britain). I enjoyed your breakdown guide of both codes. But i would imagine that someone who had no idea, but wanted to learn more, would find all the information being fired at them a confusing watch. Maybe after 3 or 4 more veiwings it might be easier. Keep up the good work with tour guides.
Sorry no need to explain it to American football fans as we don’t care
Sooo… how does rugby league and rugby union differ from Australian rules football? As an American, they seem pretty similar…
I would only add one thing. In rugby, a player can use kick to "pass the ball forward", however, the receiving player HAS to be behind the kicker when he kicks the ball. So the kicker can not just kick the ball to a player that is positioned forward. The receiving end has to be behind him when the ball is kicked, which makes the thing a whole more difficult thing to do, and most of the time, it has to be "announced" in advance… It is not a "random" thing to do, otherwise you risk to give the ball back to the opponent, which is not a good thing to do in rugby. Rugby is very hard to explain, so many rules, and sometimes very "odd" rules. Good job in trying to do so in such a short video !
Brown Matthew Clark Kenneth Gonzalez Larry
Anderson Linda Jones Jeffrey Garcia Melissa
Rugby reminds me more of regular football (Soccer) in combination with American football, and other handball games rules hybrid together as your constantly moving the ball. Lol.
I remember years ago when I was a kid they used to occasionally show Rugby on ABC's Wide World of Sports, but if you are familiar with the format of that show they used to cut in & out of different events and wouldn't show the whole game, so it was impossible to follow if you didn't know the game, which I didn't. But I still found it interesting… Another thing about Rugby vs. American Football is that while they don't wear protective equipment in Rugby, the injuries are much worse in American Football which convinced me long ago that the real purpose of "protective" equipment in American Football was to injure players on the other team. For example, if you dive into an opposing player's knee with your head in Rugby you're going to break your head because you're not wearing a helmet, so you don't do it (at least not intentionally) but if you do it in American football you're not only going to break the opposing player's knee but you're probably going to end up with a concussion yourself, creating two serious injuries in American Football where you get none in Rugby. So if they really want to get rid of the worst injuries in American Football they'll actually take off the pads instead of adding new ones, but we know they really don't care about that.
Robinson Brian Brown Edward Thomas Carol
You forgot to mention the oranges.
Some players wear a form of padding under their shirts (although not nearly as elaborate as what you guys in Amerika wear) and you'll notice occasionally some guys wear a cap which is called a scrum cap
Rugby in Australia is the poor cousin of Rugby League.Rugby and rugby league are two different sports.Rugby is a stop start boring game whereas rugby league is a fast paced game.This is reflected by the popularity of the two sports in Australia.
Thank God for this. I played on a rugby team in Canada at a very low level in 1990, and never actually understood the rules. 😀