What Is Rugby? Rugby League Explained
A beginner’s guide to rugby league: 13 players, six-tackle sets, scoring, match length, positions and how it differs from rugby union.
“Rugby” can mean more than one sport. The two main codes are rugby union, played with 15 players per side, and rugby league, played with 13. They share an oval ball, tackling, tries and goalposts, but they have separate laws, competitions and record books.
This guide is about rugby league: the international thirteen-a-side game.
Rugby league in one sentence
Rugby league is a contact team sport in which two teams of 13 players carry, pass and kick an oval ball, trying to score more points than their opponents—principally by grounding the ball in the opposing in-goal area.
Under the International Rugby League laws, players may run with the ball and kick it in any direction, but they cannot throw or knock it forward. The defending team tries to stop the ball-carrier by completing a legal tackle.
The basic structure of the game
A senior rugby league match normally lasts 80 minutes, divided into two halves, with teams changing ends at halftime. The referee can add time to compensate for time lost or wasted, and competition rules may provide extra time when a drawn match needs a winner. The timing details are covered in How Long Is a Rugby League Game?.
Each team can have no more than 13 players on the field at once. In the traditional numbering system, they are arranged as:
- seven backs: fullback, two wingers, two centres, stand-off and scrum-half;
- six forwards: two props, hooker, two second-rowers and a loose forward.
Those labels describe roles rather than fixed zones. Players attack and defend in connected lines, while substitutions allow teams to rotate personnel during a match.
What happens after a tackle?
The tackle count is the feature that most clearly shapes rugby league.
After a completed tackle, the ball-carrier gets up and restarts play with a play-the-ball. The attacking side normally has six tackles in which to advance and create a scoring chance. If the player in possession is tackled for a sixth time, a handover gives the opponents the ball.
That is why teams often kick late in the count. A kick can gain territory, force a difficult defensive restart or give a teammate a chance to regather and score. The count makes possession visibly finite: an attack cannot keep the ball indefinitely merely by recycling it after tackles.
Common ways to lose possession include:
- reaching the end of the tackle count;
- throwing a forward pass;
- knocking the ball forward;
- putting the ball or ball-carrier into touch;
- committing an infringement for which possession is awarded to the opposition.
Penalties and other rulings can change field position or restart the tackle count, so the referee’s decision—and the laws used by the competition—matters.
How scoring works
The international laws assign the following values:
| Score | Points | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Try | 4 | An attacking player legally grounds the ball in the opponents’ in-goal |
| Conversion | 2 | A kick at goal after a try |
| Penalty goal | 2 | A permitted kick at goal following a penalty |
| Drop goal | 1 | A drop-kicked goal during general play |
These values are set out in Section 6 of the International Rugby League laws. The team with more points wins; where competition rules do not require a winner, equal scores produce a draw.
A conversion is taken on an imaginary line running back into the field from where the try was awarded. Grounding the ball nearer the posts therefore gives the kicker an easier angle, which explains why a scorer may run toward the centre before putting the ball down when it is safe to do so.
A worked scoring example
Suppose a team scores three tries, converts two of them and kicks one penalty goal:
- three tries: 3 × 4 = 12;
- two conversions: 2 × 2 = 4;
- one penalty goal: 1 × 2 = 2.
Its total is 18 points.
Rugby league and rugby union are not interchangeable
Calling both sports simply “rugby” can obscure the distinction. League has 13 players per team and restarts play after a completed tackle with a play-the-ball under a limited tackle count. Union has 15 players per team and does not use league’s six-tackle system.
That difference produces noticeably different rhythms even when the broad objective looks similar. It also matters when researching history: a rugby union cap or Test does not belong in a rugby league record book.
State of Origin presents another distinction. It is elite representative rugby league, but it is not an international Test.
What counts as international rugby league?
International rugby league is played between representative national sides, but not every match involving national or representative teams necessarily belongs in the senior 13-a-side Test record. Tour games against clubs, development-team fixtures, nines tournaments and other representative matches can be historically significant without being senior Tests.
That distinction matters when counting appearances, wins and head-to-head results. A record should identify the class of match being counted rather than treating every representative fixture as equivalent.
For the played record, see international results by nation and year. The sport’s principal global tournament is the Rugby League World Cup; its changing schedules and formats are covered in the full history of World Cup winners.
How to follow your first match
Watch four things:
- The tackle count: how many plays remain in the attacking set?
- Field position: is the team escaping its own end or attacking near the opposing goal line?
- The play-the-ball: does the defence retreat and reorganise quickly enough?
- The final-tackle choice: will the team run, pass or kick?
Rugby league is, at heart, a territorial contest built around limited possession. Teams advance through carries and passes, manage the tackle count, use kicks to improve field position and try to turn that position into points.