What Are The Rugby 7s Rules? Everything You Need To Know To Watch Team USA & Franklin’s Kristi Kirshe

Watching rugby for the first time as an American can feel like looking into the mirror of a laughing stock.

It incorporates elements of football, which originated in 1823 when William Webb Ellis picked up a football in his hands and ran into the goal.

The sport most closely resembles its padded cousin, American football, with its egg-shaped ball and the goal of getting the ball to a space at the end of a rectangular field between 94 and 100 meters or by kicking posts. Tackling plays an important role.

That’s where the similarities end. Luckily, we’ve put together a guide to help fans better understand the game before Franklin’s Kristi Kirshe and her U.S. teammates begin their quest for a medal against Japan in Sunday’s 10:30 a.m. pool play. TV: CNBC. Current: (Peacock, NBCOlympics.com).

Rugby players wear no padding, except occasionally a cap to protect their ears. The ball may only be passed backwards or sideways and blocking is not permitted.

“I think the thing about rugby is that it’s — rugby sevens in particular — it’s an evasion game. You run and you tackle. You kick your pass,” U.S. women’s coach Emilie Bydwell said. “It combines all of these different American sports into this ridiculously fast-paced, challenging game.”

Rugby continues even after a tackle brings a player to ground. Teams use phases such as lineouts, mauls and rucks to maintain possession. The ball can be advanced with a kick and played with the feet on the ground.

Tries, the equivalent of a touchdown, are scored by grounding the ball in the end zone and are worth five points. The scoring team then takes a conversion kick from an even point where the ball is grounded. It is easier to score wide than through the middle of the field, but harder to convert kicks.

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Certain penalty infringements give the offending team the opportunity to attempt a kick, which is worth three points. Some common penalties include: violent play, barging (an elbow to an opponent in a horizontal position), failing to release the ball after a tackle, and diving over a collapsed ruck.

The half and the match do not end until the ball becomes dead after time has expired, unless there is a scrum, line-out or restart that started before the clock reaches zero.

Some useful rugby terms

Jerking: After a tackle, when the player on the ground gives up the ball and both teams try to gain possession. No one can handle the ball until it reaches the back foot of a teammate.

Hammer: When the ball carrier is held by one or more opponents and one or more teammates are included. The ball must be off the ground with at least three players involved.

Alignment: Like a throw-in in soccer, play resumes after the ball has gone out of bounds. Attackers line up on either side of the throwing team’s hooker, who throws the ball into the middle. Both teams lift players to retrieve the ball from the air.

Scrumming: Restart play after a foul. Attackers from each team bind and lock themselves. The ball is thrown into the middle by the non-offending team and the hookers try to use their feet to move the ball to gain possession and push the other team back until the ball reaches the back leg of a teammate to gain possession.

What makes 7s unique?

Rugby is formally played in two forms: 15s, the traditional version of the game, and 7s, which emerged 10 years after the game was invented in Melrose, Scotland, as a fundraiser for a local club. There are other variations such as beach rugby and touch rugby which provide other approaches to the game.

Rugby 7s made its Olympic debut in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, where the USA women finished fifth. The Eagles followed with a sixth place in Tokyo after a close quarter-final defeat to Great Britain.

“This team has worked so hard to put themselves in a position to medal. There’s no stone left unturned with this group. Tokyo was heartbreaking to lose that quarterfinal,” Bydwell said. “To have the opportunity to learn from that and say this time it’s going to be different and ‘we’re going to do everything we can to make sure of that.'”

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A rugby 7s match lasts 14 minutes divided into two halves of seven minutes. Kicking tees are not permitted for conversions and players must perform a drop kick. The size of the field and the rules remain the same, except that only seven players per team are on the field at any one time.

“The games are fast-paced, which I think is really great for the attention span of sports fans. You have that element of contact, which people love to see. It’s so electric,” Kirshe said. “That’s what it feels like to me, 14 minutes of adrenaline. That’s what people can feel when they’re watching it. Even if they don’t necessarily know what’s happening, something is always happening, and it’s happening really fast.”

Paris 2024 Rugby Tournament Format

Twelve teams will compete in the Olympic tournament, which begins Sunday with a group stage match for three groups of four. The qualifying matches and quarterfinals are on Monday, followed by the semifinals and medal matches on Tuesday.

The US qualified through the World Rugby Women’s Seven Series from November 2022 to May 2023. The Eagles are in Group C with hosts France (the reigning silver medalists), Japan and Brazil.

The top two teams from each group advance to the quarter-finals, along with the top two teams in third place.

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New Zealand, the reigning gold medallist, tops the World Series rankings, followed by Australia (second), France (third) and the US (fourth).

“One thing I’ve said to some of our debuting Olympians is that rugby, for me, is the least stressful part of the whole thing because it’s something we can do. It’s something we can control,” Kirshe said. “Once we’re in rugby, that’s where we thrive.”

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Everything you need to know about rugby rules ahead of Paris 2024