The English Lesson 25 theme is RUGBY

Part One: Learn English Skills

Read the following text and answer the questions that follow:

Rugby Rugby looks like a bizarre game to anybody who doesn’t understand the rules. An outsider watching a rugby match is likely to see two teams of 15 players running after an oblong ball that can be picked-up, carried, thrown and kicked. Amongst all the kicking, which is usually aimed at the ball, there is also a lot of pushing and falling onto the ground.

This game was invented in England more than 100 years ago, when a soccer player decided to pick up the ball and run with it during a match. As a result, rugby has been described as a combination of soccer and American Football.

Other people say that rugby originated in the Middle Ages, when people from one town would try to carry a young pig to another town's village square. They would use various methods of dodging, passing, or just barging through crowds to achieve this. These contests eventually developed into games like rugby and soccer. To the casual observer, it might seem that there wasn’t much development when it came to rugby though.

Nevertheless, rugby is more complicated than it looks.

Basically, players move the ball forward by running with it or kicking it towards the tall H-shaped goalposts at each end of the rugby field. Points are scored when a player puts the ball on the ground in the area behind the opposing team’s goalposts. This is called a "try" and is similar to a "touchdown" in American Football. Points are also scored by kicking the ball between the goal posts.

Rugby has many other unique features - like the "scrum". The biggest players in the team bind together in a unit and push against their counterparts in the other team. The ball is then put on the ground between the opposing players who use their feet to scoop the ball to one of their team mates standing outside the scrum.

Even though it sounds like a complicated and confusing game, rugby is very popular in South Africa and people get very upset when the national team loses. This means that South African rugby fans are often very upset.

Your Turn

Rugby has been described as a combination between which two sports?
What did some people in the Middle Ages do for entertainment?
Name the 2 ways that rugby players can move the ball forward.
How does a rugby player score a try?
Which players in a team make up the scrum?
What one word in the text means the same as "peculiar", "odd" and "strange"?

Part Two: Learn English Structure

GAME and PLAY

GAME is a noun that refers to something like rugby, chess or Monopoly.

Rugby can be a very confusing GAME. (NOT: rugby can be a very confusing PLAY).

PLAY can be used as both a noun (a thing or object) and a verb(an action).

When used as a noun, a PLAY is a piece of literature that is written for theatre and usually performed on stage.

Hamlet is a PLAY written by William Shakespeare.
John Travolta acts in a PLAY on Broadway.

As a verb, PLAY is generally used together with GAME: people PLAY games.

Do you PLAY rugby?

NO MORE, NOT ANY MORE, NO LONGER and NOT ANY LONGER.

We use NO MORE to say "how much". In other words, we use it to talk about quantity or degree.

There’s NO MORE bread. (The bread is finished).
He’s NO MORE a good rugby player than I am. (He’s not any better at playing rugby than I am).

When we talk about time, we do not use NO MORE. We use NO LONGER instead.

I NO LONGER support the Stormers rugby club. (NOT: I NO MORE support the Stormers).

Remember that NO LONGER usually comes before the verb in a sentence. We can use NOT...ANY LONGER in the same way.

This can NOT go on ANY LONGER.

Finally, we can also use NOT...ANY MORE, which is more informal.

Steve does NOT play rugby ANY MORE.

Your Turn

The OWLS student went to the theatre to see a _______.
Many children in South Africa _______ rugby.
Rugby is a very exciting ________.
I don’t like watching rugby any more, so I am ______ a fan.
The bread is finished. There is ______.

Part Three: Funnies

A South African rugby fanatic went to watch a rugby test between the South African and
Australian teams. In the packed stadium, the only empty seat was next to him. "To whom does that seat belong?" asked the man sitting behind him. "It's for my wife." "But why isn't she here?" "She died." "So why didn't you give the ticket to one of your friends?" "They've all gone to the funeral."

Part Four: Quotations

The game may only be to move a ball forward on a field, but the task can be accomplished with an unshackled joy and its memories will be a permanent delight. The women and men who play on that rugby field are more alive than too many of us will ever be. The foolish emptiness we think we see in the game is only our own. - Victor Cahn

Sport is the only entertainment where, no matter how many times you go back, you never know the ending. - Neil Simon

Part Six: Links

If you are interested in learning more about rugby, the Scrum website has a lot of information about the rules of the game. There is even a dictionary to explain some of the more confusing words. The site also has all the latest rugby news from around the world and much other interesting content.

http://www.scrum.com

Answers

Answers to Part One

Rugby is a combination between soccer (football) and American Football.
People from one town would try to carry a young pig to another town's village square.
They can move the ball forward by running with it or kicking it.
A try is scored when a player puts the ball on the ground in the area behind the opposing team’s goalposts.
The biggest players in the team make up the scrum.
"bizarre"