History Main / RugbyIsSlaughter

* Verse one of "Football" by Eric Idle and Neil Innes from their ''Rutland Weekend Television'' sums it up in a nutshell:

* Rugby, most of the time, is a matter of NonLethalWarfare, especially in internationals. It helps that most of the time the principal teams in the world's rugby élite are from old allies, or from nations who have not been to war with each other for centuries (cf France and England). However, there is an exception. The British Lions'[[note]]while the team has included players from both Britain and Ireland since 1910, the current name of "British & Irish Lions" didn't become official until 2001[[/note]] 1974 tour of UsefulNotes/SouthAfrica became effectively [[UsefulNotes/TheSecondBoerWar the third Boer War]], played out on the [[RugbyIsSlaughter rugby fields]]. The animosity between the two teams reached a peak where Lions captain Willie John [=McBride=], fed up with the over-robust play of the Springboks, devised the ''Ninety-Nine Call''. This meant "forget the game. Run at the nearest [[AmoralAfrikaner South African]] player, and punch him." The reasoning for this was that if all thirty players started a fistfight at once, the referee would not know whom to send off and would lose control of the game for just long enough for the Lions to make a point about dirty play by the Boers. The Battle of Ellis Park has gone down in rugby history.

* ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombiesGardenWarfare'': All-Stars are already hulking brutes clad in american football armor and wielding {{AbnormalAmmo assorted-sports-themed-junk-firing}} ChainsawGripBFGs, and the Rugby themed variation cranks it up with shots that ''{{SplashDamage explode.}}''

* Amusingly, despite the well-earned reputation for bloodiness and violence, and the sheer size of the players (from about 2010 onwards, even the wingers tend to be built like industrial fridges), unlike football, there tends to be very little harassment of the comparatively diminutive referees. Instead, the referee will usually beckon over the two captains and give them a telling off if things get out of hand, getting earnest and chastened responses of, "yessir. Nossir. Very sorry, sir." In other words, anything goes, but only until the whistle blows.

** In the case of Shelford, he famously had his scrotum ripped in a ruck, playing for New Zealand against France in 1986. It is "famous" because, with one testicle dangling free, he calmly asked the doc to stitch him up [[RatedMForManly and went back out to play.]] He ended the game with four teeth knocked out and a concussion, [[LaserGuidedAmnesia and has no memory of the match.]]

* Rugby, most of the time, is a matter of NonLethalWarfare, especially in internationals. It helps that most of the time the principal teams in the world's rugby élite are from old allies, or from nations who have not been to war with each other for centuries (cf France and England). however, there is an exception. The British Lions'[[note]]while the team has included players from both Britain and Ireland since 1910, the current name of "British & Irish Lions" didn't become official until 2001[[/note]] 1974 tour of UsefulNotes/SouthAfrica became effectively [[UsefulNotes/TheSecondBoerWar the third Boer War]], played out on the [[RugbyIsSlaughter rugby fields]]. The animosity between the two teams reached a peak where Lions captain Willie John [=McBride=], fed up with the over-robust play of the Springboks, devised the ''Ninety-Nine Call''. This meant "forget the game. Run at the nearest [[AmoralAfrikaner South African]] player, and punch him." The reasoning for this was that if all thirty players started a fistfight at once, the referee would not know whom to send off and would lose control of the game for just long enough for the Lions to make a point about dirty play by the Boers. The Battle of Ellis Park has gone down in rugby history.

For this reason, much media depicts rugby as an agonizing slaughterhouse that will put you in Ward 4. This depiction is not confined to American media either. Nations where rugby is played a lot tend to compare it to other football codes and often come to the same impressions. Furthermore, the global rugby community seems to revel in their sport's reputation, taking perverse joy in the fact that the very mention of its name is enough to make football ([[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball association]] and [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball American]]) fans squirm.

There are elements of truth in this. In every single rugby game, players have to leave the field because of an injury. There is even a system concerning bleeding players - they have to leave the field immediately to be replaced by a teammate, but the original player can return within 15 minutes if the bleeding stops without it counting as a substitution. They have afforded the same luxury to suspected head injuries due to long-running concerns about the long-term effects of concussion.

In the end, the truth of the matter is that both American football and rugby are about equally as dangerous to the players per minute of the match played. It's the ''risks'', and the type of fitness needed, that are different. Namely, American football often revolves around players making headlong sprints into one another, which are the main reason why padding is necessary. In rugby, on the other hand, hard hits of that sort are less common, with tackles generally involving pulling the other players to the ground as opposed to knocking them down. The result of this is that, owing to the strict rules about forward passing and the lines being in much closer proximity, meaning that players usually don't pick up much speed before being tackled - and only players with the ball can be tackled. Also, historically, those who do tend to pick up speed, the backs (especially the wingers) tend to be smaller and slighter - however, this is now changing, with many wingers now weighing over well over 100 kg (220 lb), and collision speeds approaching 20 mph. As a result, historically, rugby has tended to have a higher rate of scrapes, cuts, and gashes than American football, the concussion rate is lower (though it does seem to be increasing - whether this is simply increased diagnosis or a trend remains to be seen) -- a fact that isn't lost on many rugby organizers, especially those in American youth leagues seeking to market it as an alternative to football that won't cause the concussions that that sport is notorious for. A short truism is that American Football has lots of padding and very few restrictions on what you can do to people, while Rugby has no padding and lots of restrictions about what you can do to people (admittedly, most of those have been instituted since the turn of the millennium).

For reference, most games that involve a ball and an attempt for a team to get it from point A to point B share the same broad origins as a medieval peasant game played, in various forms, through much of Europe that was half CaptureTheFlag, half BigBallOfViolence.

Ironically, despite the violence of the game and the testosterone levels of the players, who are very rarely much less than six feet tall and even more rarely weigh less than eighty kilograms, they tend to be very polite to the referee. It can be very amusing to see a pocket-sized referee call over the Captains, usually [[LargeAndInCharge two men the size of small tanks]], each of whom could probably rip him in half with only minimal effort, and give them a stern talking to while they stand looking thoroughly humble and contrite, mumbling, "Yes sir", "No sir", "Sorry sir", "of course, sir" and "won't happen again, sir." This is in sharp contrast to Association Football where harassing the referee seems to be an unofficial part of the sport. This is in part down to the ref being much more willing and able to further penalise teams if they start annoying him, for instance by moving penalties 10 yards further up the field, and the greater power of the yellow card in comparison to Association Football (name goes in a book vs 10 minutes off the field, often a game-changer).

* The rugby-centered manga ''Manga/NoSide'' starts with the main character dying by breaking his neck against the goalpost. Then he comes back to the sport as a girl. Later chapters use war images and much violence.

* Back during the 2007 Rugby World Cup, one French player (Sébastien Chabal), nicknamed "The Caveman" when playing in England, went through MemeticMutation as a violent, hairy lunatic who [[EatsBabies ate babies]] and wore a ManlyFacialHair.

* An infamous example is the fate of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Brito Max Brito,]] a winger for the team of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_Coast_at_the_Rugby_World_Cup Côte d'Ivoire in the 1995 World Cup,]] who was crushed under a ruck of Tonga players and ended up paralyzed below the neck.

* Rugby, most of the time, is a matter of NonLethalWarfare, especially in internationals. It helps that most of the time the principal teams in the world's rugby élite are from old allies, or from nations who have not been to war with each other for centuries (cf France and England). however, there is an exception. The British Lions' 1974 tour of UsefulNotes/SouthAfrica became effectively [[UsefulNotes/TheSecondBoerWar the third Boer War]], played out on the [[RugbyIsSlaughter rugby fields]]. The animosity between the two teams reached a peak where the Lions' captain, fed up with the over-robust play of the Springboeks, devised the ''Call Ninety-Nine''. This meant "forget the game. Run at the nearest [[AmoralAfrikaner South African]] player, and punch him." The reasoning for this was that if all thirty players started a fistfight at once, the referee would not know who to send off and would lose control of the game for just long enough for the Lions to make a point about dirty play by the Boers. The Battle of Ellis Park has gone down in rugby history.

In the end, the truth of the matter is that both American football and rugby are about equally as dangerous to the players per minute of the match played. It's the ''risks'', and the type of fitness needed, that are different. Namely, American football often revolves around players making headlong sprints into one another, which are the main reason why padding is necessary. In rugby, on the other hand, hard hits of that sort are less common, with tackles generally involving pulling the other players to the ground as opposed to knocking them down. The result of this is that, owing to the strict rules about forward passing and the lines being in much closer proximity, meaning that players usually don't pick up much speed before being tackled - and only players with the ball can be tackled. Also, historically, those who do tend to pick up speed, the backs (especially the wingers) tend to be smaller and slighter - however, this is now changing, with some wingers both weighing over 100 kg (220 lb), and collision speeds approaching 20 mph. As a result, historically, rugby has tended to have a higher rate of scrapes, cuts, and gashes than American football, the concussion rate is lower (though it does seem to be increasing - whether this is simply increased diagnosis or a trend remains to be seen) -- a fact that isn't lost on many rugby organizers, especially those in American youth leagues seeking to market it as an alternative to football that won't cause the concussions that that sport is notorious for. A short truism is that American Football has lots of padding and very few restrictions on what you can do to people, while Rugby has no padding and lots of restrictions about what you can do to people (admittedly, most of those have been instituted since the turn of the millennium).

Compare BloodSport. See also UnnecessaryRoughness, with which this trope ''sometimes'' overlaps. For information on the game, see UsefulNotes/RugbyLeague or UsefulNotes/RugbyUnion. Yes, there are two different versions. Rugby Union is more widely played, while Rugby League is more popular in a few regions such as [[OopNorth Northern England]], [[UsefulNotes/AustralianStatesAndTerritories New South Wales, and Queensland]]. Non-Australians also sometimes confuse rugby with UsefulNotes/AustralianRulesFootball, which has a similar reputation and all the more so because the players wear only ''singlets'', and many believe that rugby was a major influence in the creation of Aussie Rules football. Believe it or not, James Naismith actually adapted some elements of rugby when he created UsefulNotes/{{basketball}}. In the US and Canada, UsefulNotes/IceHockey has a similar reputation as the [[HockeyFight most violent]] of the four major sports played in those countries, though the [[UsefulNotes/NationalHockeyLeague NHL]] has tried to crack down on the violence and tone down this part of the sport's image.

* ''Anime/FullMetalPanicFumoffu'' has the hilarious Rugby episode -- which is something of a subversion due to the clear indication that it was excessive violence, which got Sousuke immediately kicked out. Sōsuke gives TrainingFromHell to a sissy team of rugby players. The ending result is... [[HilarityEnsues highly amusing]].
* The rugby-centered manga ''No Side'' starts with the main character dying by breaking his neck against the goalpost. Then he comes back to the sport as a girl. Later chapters use war images and much violence.
* ''Manga/YuYuHakusho'' at one point features a set of demons with a sports theme, one of them called Rugby. It's teased whether he picked the name because of the human sport, or whether humans named the sport after him. At one point he says he likes the game because it's basically organized violence.

* France has (at least) two comic series on rugby: one is about a rural village team (where rugby is SeriousBusiness), and the other is on France's national team and is titled ''Barbarians''. Yeah. Could be a nod to the stereotypical player of the game or the name of the sport's most famous invitational side.
* Creator/WarrenEllis's word on rugby:
-->'''[[ComicBook/{{Thunderbolts}} Doc Samson]]:''' It's better than football. No padding or helmets, no stopping every minute, none of the dumb stuff. Two teams of gnarled, scarred freaks pounding the blood out of each other with a ball somewhere in the middle. It's awesome.
* In the [[BritishComics British]] AnthologyComic ''ComicBook/TheBeano'' playing rugby, beating up tough rugby players or just scaring them by being there is a common gag used in comic strips, especially ''ComicStrip/MinnieTheMinx'', to show how tough the characters are.

* Wal's dreams of rugby glory in ''ComicStrip/FootrotFlats'' always end with him a bloodied heap being trampled into the mud.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* ''Film/MontyPythonsTheMeaningOfLife'' has a scene with a pretty brutal game of rugby, and to emphasize the violence of it all, it leads into a scene in a war zone. As if it weren't bad enough, it's a game being played by students of a private school against their teachers, and the kids are being brutally roughed up. One of the professors watching the game even trips a student as he runs by so he can be tackled.
* ''Film/{{Invictus}}'': Averted; the worst any player gets is a hamstring injury, and it heals up in time for the World Cup.
* The opening scene of ''Film/TheFourFeathers'' has the junior officers from two British regiments playing rugby. In the rain. And the mud. And the sweet young English girls in their white linen leg-of-mutton-sleeved dresses standing on the sidelines under their umbrellas obviously getting--in a very understated, ladylike way--quite worked up over the sight of all those big, strong, handsome, muscular men beating the stuffing out of one another.
* The Indian movie ''Film/{{Sye}}'': Granted, the writer was apparently a bit unclear about certain rules. He was convinced that a rugby match implied rivers of blood. The most ridiculous moment comes when the scrum-half wiggles inside the channel between the two packs during a scrum, and starts punching the opposing team's hooker straight in the face. (If you don't play rugby, this sentence is most likely lost on you, go watch the scene from the movie if you're curious, it can be found online).
* In ''Film/TheHole'', Mike, who is American, is shown throwing the rugby ball gridiron style. As he does so, he is viciously tackled by one of the opposing players. Mike then hauls off and punches the guy in the face, which starts a brawl between the two sides. It is later shown that Mike does know how to play rugby and was just mucking about when he decided to throw the ball.

* A traveller enters a local watering hole in the Irish countryside/South African veldt/New Zealand tablelands, and says to the bartender, "Nice part of the world this is." "Couldn't agree more," the publican responds. The blow-in asks, "So how do you pass the time here?"

* A gag in Literature/JeevesAndWooster novels.
** Tuppy Glossop finds this out to his cost in "The Ordeal of Young Tuppy" in the collection ''Very Good, Jeeves'' when he gets involved in a local village [[SmallTownRivalry grudge-match]].
--> "[...] Besides," he went on, in a quiet meditative voice, "there is no power on earth that could get me off this field until I've thoroughly disembowelled that red-haired bounder. Have you noticed how he keeps tackling me when I haven't got the ball?"\\
"Isn't that right?"\\
"Of course it's not right. Never mind! A bitter retribution awaits that bird. I've had enough of it. From now on I assert my personality."\\
"I'm a bit foggy as to the rules of this pastime," I said. "Are you allowed to bite him?"\\
"I'll try, and see what happens," said Tuppy, struck with the idea and brightening a little.
** In ''Literature/StiffUpperLipJeeves'', Major Plank says he tried to teach the natives of West Africa to play rugby, but there were "too many deaths."

* Though he went to Rugby, the school where the sport was codified, Harry {{Literature/Flashman}} stayed well away from the game due to this trope. He did feature in the game in ''Tom Brown's Schooldays'', but he and his chum Speedicut both took great care to look as though they were playing really enthusiastically while avoiding any risk of getting hurt.

* ''Literature/JourneyToChaos'': One of Eric's clients is an orc who thinks humans are fragile things and he supposes that the humans of [[CulturalPosturing Eric's homeworld must be even more so. Eric argues against this by saying they have many brutal, full contact, sports]]. The only one he mentions is Rugby.

* In ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'', Giles comments about gridiron as it compares to rugby, summing up the traditional British view:
-->'''Jenny:''' I don't know what it is about football that does it for me. I mean, it lacks the, the grace of basketball, the, uh, poetry of baseball. At its best it's [[UnnecessaryRoughness unadorned aggression]]. It's such a rugged contest.\\
'''Giles:''' Rugged. American football. Heh.\\
'''Jenny:''' And that's funny because?\\
'''Giles:''' No! Heh. I just think it's rather odd that a nation that prides itself on its virility should feel compelled to strap on forty pounds of protective gear just in order to play rugby.

* An episode of ''Series/{{ER}}'' had a haggard-looking English patient being treated, and when asked if he has hit his head or blacked out, he cheerily answers, "Of course I hit my head, it's rugby."

* An AltText in ''Webcomic/{{Housepets}}'' describes Aussie Rules as a combination of every sport, and then rugby again.

* Mr. Barken plays Rugby in ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible''. In one episode he gets glued to Ron and, well, Barken enjoys himself...

** William de Worde attended a private university for OldMoney, where he enjoyed great success in gesticulating wildly and expending great amounts of energy without actually approaching the ball.

** This is particularly true for private schools, many of which have a proud rugby-playing tradition (7% of the British population is privately educated. So is 50% of the England rugby squad. This is probably the reason for the quote "Football is a game for gentlemen played by hooligans and Rugby Union is a game for hooligans played by gentlemen"). The main difference is that the players tend to be better trained and thanks to better training facilities and dietary guidance, much, much larger.
** City of London Boys, a well-regarded and extremely old private school, stopped playing rugby after one boy was killed. The scrum collapsed and his neck snapped. The South African headmaster, though from a culture where rugby is SeriousBusiness, immediately stopped the game. Considering the size of the players in the modern game (supposedly 14-year-old players have been known to comfortably top six feet and be similarly wide), it was far too dangerous.

* ''Radio/BleakExpectations'' manages to take this UpToEleven (and then some), with the amazingly violent Bastardball, played by the students of St. Bastards. It's rugby, but with absolutely no concern for anyone's safety or continued existence. The rules are simple; two teams with no set number of players, divided into five groups (hitters, kickers, punchers, pitchforkers, and shooters) whose goal is to get the ball (i.e. the youngest person around) to the other side of the field and shove their head in a bucket of dung, which counts as one Bastard (or point).

* ''TabletopGame/BloodBowl'' is set in an alternate universe ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'', where a rugby/American football-esque sport has become SeriousBusiness and everyone wants to play that instead of [[WarIsHell the usual Warhammer thing]]. Of course, it's the ''Warhammer'' universe, so they take this trope and [[UpToEleven ramp it up past eleven]]. Inflicting injuries on the other team is encouraged in the official rules, chainsaws and flame pits are features built into the average pitch, and players ''dying in the middle of games'' is a startlingly frequent occurrence. In an example of GameplayAndStoryIntegration, there are several playable teams who aren't particularly good at running with, throwing, catching, or even picking up the ball (which is a big problem because dropping it ends your turn), and are instead encouraged to give themselves an advantage by hospitalising enough opposing players that there aren't enough of them to get in the way of a touchdown attempt. The rulebook itself [[LampshadeHanging points out]] that any world where this sport is popular must [[CrapsackWorld suck HARD]].

There are elements of truth in this. In every single rugby game, players have to leave the field because of an injury. There is even a system concerning bleeding players - they have to leave the field immediately to be replaced by a teammate, but the original player can return within 15 minutes if the bleeding stops without it counting as a substitution. They have afforded the same luxury to suspected head injuries due to long-running concerns about the long-term effects of concussion.[[note]]The mandatory medical test for concussion that happens at this point is seen as a bit nanny-state by South African players, who dismissively refer to "the ding-dong check". You get a distinct impression the Bokkies consider this superfluous and unnecessary. That said, even in Rugby playing circles the Boks are considered a particularly special brand of maniac.[[/note]]

Ironically, despite the violence of the game and the testosterone levels of the players, who are very rarely much less than six feet tall and even more rarely weigh less than eighty kilograms, they tend to be very polite to the referee. It can be very amusing to see a pocket-sized referee call over the Captains, usually [[LargeAndInCharge two men the size of small tanks]], each of whom could probably rip him in half with only minimal effort, and give them a stern talking to while they stand looking thoroughly humble and contrite, mumbling, "Yes sir", "No sir", "Sorry sir", "of course, sir" and "won't happen again, sir." This is in sharp contrast to Association Football where harassing the referee seems to be an unofficial part of the sport. This is in part down to the ref being much more willing and able to further penalise teams if they start annoying him, for instance by moving penalties 10 yards further up the field, and the greater power of the yellow card in comparison to Association Football (name goes in a book vs 10 minutes off the field, often a game-changer.)

* The "[[http://buxompiratewench.comicgenesis.com/d/20090316.html Rule Brittannia]]" arcs of ''Webcomic/{{Witchprickers}}'' concern an extremely brutal sport known as "Scrumby", all that has been revealed about it is that the death toll is extremely high and it's popular everywhere but America.

* An infamous example is the fate of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Brito Max Brito]], a winger for the team of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_Coast_at_the_Rugby_World_Cup Côte d'Ivoire in the 1995 World Cup]], who was crushed under a ruck of Tonga players and ended up paralyzed below the neck.

# You get far fewer breaks in play. Well, time-wise...

* ''TabletopGame/BloodBowl'' is set in an alternate universe ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'', where a rugby/American football-esque sport has become SeriousBusiness and everyone wants to play that instead of [[WarIsHell the usual Warhammer thing]]. Of course, it's the ''Warhammer'' universe, so they take this trope and [[UpToEleven ramp it up past eleven]]. Inflicting injuries on the other team is encouraged in the official rules, chainsaws and flame pits are features built into the average pitch, and players ''dying in the middle of games'' is a startlingly frequent occurrence. The rulebook itself [[LampshadeHanging points out]] that any world where this sport is popular must [[CrapsackWorld suck HARD]].

For this reason, much media depicts rugby as an agonizing slaughterhouse that will put you in Ward 4.[[note]]"I hope not, Bill. That's a maternity ward."[[/note]][[note]]And Wards Three, Five and Six, depending on how thorough a stomping you got in the [[DogPileOfDoom maul]][[/note]] This depiction is not confined to American media either. Nations where rugby is played a lot tend to compare it to other football codes and often come to the same impressions. Furthermore, the global rugby community seems to revel in their sport's reputation, taking perverse joy in the fact that the very mention of its name is enough to make football ([[UsefulNotes/AssociationFootball association]] and [[UsefulNotes/AmericanFootball American]]) fans squirm.

* Parodied with ''[[ComicBook/{{Asterix}} Asterix in Britain]]'': a rugby game is made more "interesting" when it turns out that the players' drink has been spiked with [[SuperSerum magic potion]]. It was already pretty violent without the potion, what with one player jumping up and down repeatedly on another player's head. [[BloodKnight Obelix]] [[DamnedByAFoolsPraise enthusiastically comments]] "We must take this nice game back to Gaul!"

Compare BloodSport. See also UnnecessaryRoughness, with which this trope ''sometimes'' overlaps. For information on the game, see UsefulNotes/RugbyLeague or UsefulNotes/RugbyUnion. Yes, there are two different versions. Rugby Union is more widely played, while Rugby League is more popular in a few regions such as [[OopNorth Northern England]]. Non-Australians also sometimes confuse rugby with UsefulNotes/AustralianRulesFootball, which has a similar reputation and all the more so because the players wear only ''singlets'', and many believe that rugby was a major influence in the creation of Aussie Rules football. Believe it or not, James Naismith actually adapted some elements of rugby when he created UsefulNotes/{{basketball}}. In the US and Canada, UsefulNotes/IceHockey has a similar reputation as the [[HockeyFight most violent]] of the four major sports played in those countries, though the [[UsefulNotes/NationalHockeyLeague NHL]] has tried to crack down on the violence and tone down this part of the sport's image.

There are elements of truth in this. In every single rugby game, players have to leave the field because of an injury. There is even a system concerning bleeding players - they have to leave the field immediately to be replaced by a teammate, but the original player can return within 15 minutes if the bleeding stops without it counting as a substitution. They have afforded the same luxury to suspected head injuries due to long running concerns about the long term effects of concussion.[[note]]The mandatory medical test for concussion that happens at this point is seen as a bit nanny-state by South African players, who dismissively refer to "the ding-dong check". You get a distinct impression the Bokkies consider this superfluous and un-necessary. That said, even in Rugby playing circles the Boks are consider a particularly special brand of maniac.[[/note]]

Ironically, despite the violence of the game and the testosterone levels of the players, who are very rarely much less than six feet tall and even more rarely weigh less than eighty kilograms, they tend to be very polite to the referee. It can be very amusing to see a pocket sized referee call over the Captains, usually [[LargeAndInCharge two men the size of small tanks]], each of whom could probably rip him in half with only minimal effort, and give them a stern talking to while they stand looking thoroughly humble and contrite, mumbling, "Yes sir", "No sir", "Sorry sir", "of course, sir" and "won't happen again, sir." This is at a sharp contrast to Association Football where harassing the referee seems to be an unofficial part of the sport. This is in part down to the ref being much more willing and able to further penalise teams if they start annoying him, for instance by moving penalties 10 yards further up the field, and the greater power of the yellow card in comparison to Association Football (name goes in a book vs 10 minutes off the field, often a game changer.)

** Note that the players emerging is the only time in the entire story that the [[StiffUpperLip extremely Briton]] Anticlimax gets worked up about something. In fact the look on the heroes' faces when an entire stadium of (up to this point) extremely stiff upper lipped Britons suddenly goes wild is priceless.

* France has (at least) two comic series on rugby: one is about a rural village team (where rugby is SeriousBusiness) and the other is on France's national team, and is titled ''Barbarians''. Yeah. Could be a nod to the stereotypical player of the game or the name of the sport's most famous invitational side.

* Football came to the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' in ''Literature/UnseenAcademicals''. Reasoning that the fifteen-a-side code came from the same roots as the eleven-a-side, author Creator/AAPessimal decided there was mirth to be mined by introducing a [[UsefulNotes/{{Wales}} Llamedosian]] religious ritual involving two teams of fifteen men chasing a lemon-shaped ball (this is vaguely alluded to in the original ''Discworld Mapp''). The idea spread, and Ankh-Morpork now hosts a Llamedosian Rules Fifteen-A-Side Foot-The-Ball league. Fixtures in the top flight in this League include representative sides from [[UsefulNotes/{{Ireland}} Hergen]], Llamedos, [[UsefulNotes/{{Australia}} Fourecks]], [[UsefulNotes/NewZealand The Foggy Islands]], and possibly the most cheerfully violent national side of all, [[UsefulNotes/SouthAfrica The Rimwards Howondalandian Springboeks]]. An observer ponders the accuracy of Fourecks and her own Rimwards Howondaland naming their teams after two essentially pacificistic and placid animals, the Wallaby and the Springboek. She considers the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasmanian_devil Purdeighsislandian Demon]] and the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_badger Rattel]] would be far more zoologically accurate as animal avatars.

* ''Film/MontyPythonsTheMeaningOfLife'' has a scene with a pretty brutal game of rugby, and to emphasizes the violence of it all, it leads into a scene in a war zone. As if it weren't bad enough, it's a game being played by students of a private school against their teachers, and the kids are being brutally roughed up. One of the professors watching the game even trips a student as he runs by so he can be tackled.

** ''Literature/UnseenAcademicals'', where the form of football that exists is known for violence and the wizards are tasked with reforming it.

** In episode "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The One With All the Rugby]]", Ross plays rugby to impress Emily, and ends up in agony.

** ''Series/MashinSentaiKiramager'': The very first [[MonsterOfTheWeek Jamenshi of the Week]] was Rugby Jamen. He used explosive rugby balls to wreak havoc on an amusement park. The negative energy obtained by him was used to summon the [[{{Kaiju}} Rugger Ligany]]. It picked up a massive round gas tank which it decided to use it like a rugby ball and quickly went on a rampage, causing several massive explosions on the city.

* The satiric TV show ''Series/LesGuignolsDeLInfo'' depicts rugby players as senseless brutes whose training consists in bashing down brick walls and drinking fresh blood. A particular example come to mind: a French team had to fight-play against the "All-Black" known for being quite good. The strategy include Military support and they don't expect every player to survive. In another episode, former French coach Bernard Laporte said "The first rugby game was a wedding in Brive (that's a French city), the ball only came 30 years later."

* ''Radio/BleakExpectations'' manages to take this UpToEleven (and then some), with the amazingly violent Bastardball, played by the students of St. Bastards. It's rugby, but with absolutely no concern for anyone's safety or continued existence. The rules are simple; two teams with no set number of players, divided into five groups (hitters, kickers, punchers, pitchforkers and shooters) whose goal is to get the ball (i.e. the youngest person around) to the other side of the field and shove their head in a bucket of dung, which counts as one Bastard (or point).

** City of London Boys, a well regarded and extremely old private school, stopped playing rugby after one boy was killed. The scrum collapsed and his neck snapped. The South African headmaster, though from a culture where rugby is SeriousBusiness, immediately stopped the game. Considering the size of the players in the modern game (supposedly 14-year-old players have been known to comfortably top six feet and be similarly wide), it was far too dangerous.

* John Sattler in the 1970 Grand Final for the Australian Rugby League. Suffered a broken jaw only ten minutes in, to which he reacted to be refusing to be taken for treatment or even be shut out of plays to avoid further injury. He finally agreed to go to hospital, after remaining on-field for most of the match, accepting the winner's trophy and making the acceptance speech.

* As mentioned above, for non-Australians, UsefulNotes/AustralianRulesFootball sometimes gets confused with rugby, and has a similar reputation. This made worse by an exhibition match in London in 1987 between Carlton and North Melbourne, dubbed "the Battle of Britain", which is still infamous for the brawling that occurred today. Apparently, an ad campaign in England in the leadup to the game emphasised the game's violence.

* Technically the Haka performed by New Zealand's national team, the All Blacks, just before a match starts is not a war dance. However, you could be forgiven for mistaking it for one. Tonga, Samoa and Fiji have their own versions.

* Rugby, most of the time, is a matter of NonLethalWarfare, especially in internationals. It helps that most of the time the principal teams in the world's rugby élite are from old allies, or from nations who have not been to war with each other for centuries (cf France and England). however, there is an exception. The British Lions' 1974 tour of UsefulNotes/SouthAfrica became effectively [[UsefulNotes/TheSecondBoerWar the third Boer War]], played out on the [[RugbyIsSlaughter rugby fields]]. The anomosity between the two teams reached a peak where the Lions' captain, fed up with the over-robust play of the Springboeks, devised the ''Call Ninety-Nine''. This meant "forget the game. Run at the nearest [[AmoralAfrikaner South African]] player, and punch him." The reasoning for this was that if all thirty players started a fist-fight at once, the referee would not know who to send off and would lose control of the game for just long enough for the Lions to make a point about dirty play by the Boers. The Battle of Ellis Park has gone down in rugby history.

** Tuppy Glossop finds this out to his cost in "The Ordeal of Young Tuppy" in the Literature/JeevesAndWooster book ''Very Good, Jeeves''.

* Back during the 2007 Rugby World Cup, one French player (Sébastien Chabal), nicknamed "The Caveman" when playing in England, went through MemeticMutation as a violent, hairy lunatic who [[EatsBabies ate babies]] and wore a BadassBeard.

* ''Anime/FullMetalPanicFumoffu'' has the hilarious Rugby episode (pictured above) -- which is something of a subversion due to the clear indication that it was excessive violence, which got Sousuke immediately kicked out. Sōsuke gives TrainingFromHell to a sissy team of rugby players. The ending result is... [[HilarityEnsues highly amusing]].