March 27 is a BIG day for Rugby! France v. Scotland in "Super Saturday" Play on the Anniversary of the First International Match in 1871.

The Six Nations Championship (known as the Guinness Six Nations for sponsorship reasons) is an annual international men's rugby union competition between the teams of England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. 

The tournament begins on the first weekend in February and culminates with Super Saturday on the second or third Saturday in March. The format of the Championship is simple: each team plays every other team once (making a total of 15 matches), with home ground advantage alternating from one year to the next.

The tournament was first played in 1883 as the Home Nations Championship among the four Home Nations of the United Kingdom – England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. However, England was excluded from the 1888 and 1889 tournaments due to their refusal to join the International Rugby Football Board. The tournament then became the Five Nations Championship in 1910 with the addition of France. The tournament was expanded in 2000 to become the Six Nations Championship with the addition of Italy.

Here's a little history of the game itself...

The game of Rugby got it's name due to the fact that it was "invented" at the Rugby School, located in the town of Rugby, in the Midlands of England in 1823.

There is a plaque at Rugby School that commemorates this. It says: "THIS STONE COMMEMORATES THE EXPLOIT OF WILLIAM WEBB ELLIS WHO WITH A FINE DISREGARD FOR THE RULES OF FOOTBALL, AS PLAYED IN HIS TIME, FIRST TOOK THE BALL IN HIS ARMS AND RAN WITH IT, THUS ORIGINATING THE DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF THE RUGBY GAME A.D. 1823"

My introduction to Rugby was at Villanova University in the early fall of my Freshman year. I was invited by a classmate to "watch" a match between Villanova's Club and the Rugby Club of Lehigh University.

As it was a Saturday morning and relatively early- 9:30 AM - the Villanova Club was a few men short for the start of the match. As my colleague and I were simply "standing around" we were asked by Villanova's "coach" (an upperclassman who knew the game and enjoyed sharing what he knew) if we would be willing to "suit up" for the Wildcats!

Villanova's "Old Style" Rugby Jersey.

When I shared that I had never played before he said "no problem" you'll pick it up pretty quickly. For that first game I was able to manage to hold my own. That said, the game is a little more complicated than "coach" let on.

My playing days continued during my time with the Marines as all of the Service Branches field Rugby teams and regularly stage matches in "ev'ry clime and place!" One game of note took place overseas during a monsoon in Japan that delayed our ship's movement back to Okinawa. Marines v. Navy... I don't remember who won, but our USMC white jerseys (pictured) were completely brown with mud and a grand time was had by all!

To really "pick up" the game you have to look at the evolution of the various codes of football.

Here is a breakdown of that "evolution"

Rugby League - often called League, an offshoot of rugby.

Association Football - Soccer. Soccer came from the word association. In the late 19th century in England, the two dominant football codes were called soccer and rugger. Neither looked very much like the current versions of rugby and soccer.

Australian Rules. Came from Gaelic, which is played by a small number of people in Australia 

Gaelic Football - Essentially Rugby as played in Ireland

Gridiron or American Football The game in this format is played almost exclusively in the United States.

There is a saying that goes: Soccer is a gentlemen's game played by ruffians, Rugby is a ruffians' game played by gentlemen, Rugby League is a ruffians' game played by ruffians.

People played games with inflated pig (or cow or some other animal) bladders through most of history. The games were usually played once a year at some sort of harvest festival. In 19th century England, people (at least the rich) had more leisure time. A direct benefit of the industrial revolution.

The English were very organized, good at writing rules and had an extensive school system (for the upper classes).

There were boarding schools that boys were sent to around age 8 through what we would now call high school. After graduating, it was off to Oxford or Cambridge. The public schools include Rugby, Eton (where Prince William and Prince Harry attended), Harrow, Charterhouse, etc.

In 1857, Thomas Hughes wrote a book about life at Rugby School called "Tom Brown's School days".

The most famous alumnus of Rugby School is a mathematician name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He is better known for a book he wrote under the name Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

What came out of Rugby School was a set of written rules to play their version of football. Most, if not all, of the public schools played some sort of a kicking game that can be lumped together as football. All had their own rules, influenced by the field they could play on, the number of students, etc. In most, if not all, versions of football around 1800, you could use your hands. You could catch a ball that had been kicked. You could not run with it. You had to kick it yourself or place it for someone else to kick.

Teams were big and not always even - you could have a game of 60 against 200 players. What happened between 1820 and 1830 at Rugby School was that some players began to run forward with the ball before kicking it. It was OK to run backward before kicking but running forward was considered unfair.

Keep in mind, there was no referee. The students made up the rules and played as they wanted. After 1830, running became more common. It was legalized in 1841-2. Once running became accepted, it also was OK to tackle the person with the ball or "hack" him (kick him in the shins).

Rugby School published its Laws of Football on August 28, 1845.The public school students saw no reason why they could not keep playing their games once they got to University. After University, they formed clubs to keep playing. The problem was, each school had its own set of rules. At both Cambridge and Oxford, there were competing football clubs. Rugby made bigger inroads at Oxford. Cambridge developed its own set of rules that led to soccer. The Football Association was formed in November 1863 at the Freemason's Tavern in London. They were to develop a universal football code. The first draft included rules that allowed the distinctive features of the Rugby game, specifically running forward and allowing a player who is running forward with the ball to be charged, held, tripped, hacked, etc. (However, the rules adopted by the FA were largely based on the Cambridge rules and excluded the Rugby rules. So clubs who played under the Rugby rules stayed out of the FA and continued to develop their own code. On January 26, 1871, the Rugby Football Union (RFU) was formed. This led to a consistent set of rules for all clubs that played a version of football under the Rugby School laws.

On March 27, 1871, the first International Rugby match was played. Scotland beat England in Edinburgh by a goal and a try to a try (I don't think points were set yet). There were 20 players on each team (15 today). Rugby football spread to all the "Home Countries" - England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland - then on to the colonies.

Rugby remained an amateur sport until 1995. It became an open game (i.e. the players could be paid) after the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Nothing great about amateurism - it was designed to keep the working class and other riff raff out of the games played by the upper classes. The working class could not afford to take the time off from work to play sports. This became an issue in the 1890's.Clubs in the north of England wanted to give their players "broken time payments" - pay them what they would have gotten by working instead of playing rugby. The RFU said no and in 1895, the northern clubs split away to form the Northern Football Union. This developed into the game called Rugby League. League is popular in the north of England and in Australia.

The first Rugby World Cup was played in Australia and New Zealand in 1987. New Zealand beat France 29-9 at Eden Park, in Auckland, New Zealand to win.

Other significant dates:

1843 - The first official club, Guy's Hospital Rugby Club (London, England), formed.

1863 - The first recorded club game - Richmond Vs Blackheath - played in London

1869 - First intercollegiate football game in the USA - played under something close to the Cambridge rules adopted by the Football Association. Rutgers beats Princeton 6-4.

1870 - First rugby game in New Zealand

1871 - On March 27, 1871, the first International Rugby match was played. Scotland beat England in Edinburgh

1873 - Scottish Football Union established

1874 - First rugby game in America - between Harvard and McGill University of Montreal, Canada, played in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A rugby coach at McGill by the name of James Naismith later goes on to invent basketball in 1891.

1882-1883 - First Home International Championship played (England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales). Becomes a regular annual event in.

1886 - International Rugby Football Board (IRB) established. First members were Ireland, Scotland and Wales. England joins in 1890. Today has 91 member countries

1891 - Walter Camp of Yale resolves the differences between the various football codes in the USA by making up his own set of rules - introduces the line of scrimmage, cuts the team down to 11 players and narrows the field to 53 1/3 yards (rugby is 75). Thus American football is born.

1892 - Amos Alonzo Stagg arrives at the newly opened University of Chicago. Stagg came from Yale and brought along Camp's football rules. American football spreads rapidly. University of Chicago is a founding member of what becomes the Big Ten conference. The Yale code quickly becomes dominant in most of the USA except on the West Coast where rugby survives. It survives enough to provide a team for the USA in the Olympics.

1910 - France joins the competition. Gets tossed in 1931 by the Home Nations who say France is paying its players and they do not want to travel in any event. France rejoins in 1939 but play is halted by WW2.

1924 - Rugby is played in the Olympics for the last time. USA wins its second consecutive gold medal in rugby by beating France 17-3 in front of a hostile crowd in Paris. None of the big rugby countries participate.

October 13, 1972 - a plane carrying 45 people (primarily the traveling squad to the Old Christians Rugby Club) takes off from Montevideo, Uruguay en route to a game in Santiago, Chile. It crashes high in the Andes Mountains. 72 days later, 16 survivors are rescued. They stayed alive by eating those who had died. Leads to a book and movie ("Alive") and to the bumper sticker "Rugby players eat their dead"

1975 - The United States of America Rugby Football Union and the Chicago Area Rugby Football Union are established

1976 - The Eagles, the USA National team, plays it first match. Lose to Australia 24-12 on Jan 31, 1976 in Anaheim. CA.

1987 - First Rugby World Cup

1991 - First Women's Rugby World Cup - USA beats England 19-6 in Wales to win

1993 - First Rugby Sevens World Cup. Sevens is a version of the game with only 7 players instead of 15. England beat Australia 21-17 at Murrayfield in Edinburgh, Scotland to win the Melrose Cup. The trophy is named after the town in the Scottish Borders where the game of sevens started as an off season training tool.

1994 - Second Women's Rugby World Cup - England beats USA 38-28 in Scotland in the final

1995 - Rugby is made an open game, the Declaration of Amateurism is dropped from the Laws of the Game. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) gives provisional recognition to the IRB as the international governing body for rugby.

1996 - First Annual Tri-Nations Tournament held - South Africa, New Zealand and Australia

1996 - First Epson Cup tournament held - USA, Canada, Japan and Hong Kong. In 1999, Hong Kong drops out, Samoa, Fiji and Tonga join and the tournament becomes the Epson Cup.

1997 - IOC gives permanent recognition to the IRB Fiji win the Rugby Sevens World Cup with a 24-21 win over South Africa in Hong Kong

1998 - Third Women's Rugby World Cup, New Zealand beats USA 44-12 in Amsterdam, Holland to win

2000 - Italy joins the competition and it becomes known as The Six Nations.

The Six Nations is the successor to the Home Nations Championship (1883–1909 and 1932–39), played between teams from England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, which was the first international rugby union tournament. With the addition of France, this became the Five Nations Championship (1910–31 and 1947–99), which in turn became the Six Nations Championship with the addition of Italy.

Since the Six Nations era started in 2000, only Italy and Scotland have failed to win the Six Nations title.

The team that finishes at the bottom of the league table is said to have won the Wooden Spoon, although no actual trophy is given to the team. A team that has lost all five matches is said to have been whitewashed. Since the inaugural Six Nations tournament in 2000, only England and Ireland have avoided the Wooden Spoon award. Italy are the holders of the most Wooden Spoon awards in the Six Nations era with 15, and have been whitewashed 11 times. However, each of the other five nations has accumulated more than that through competing in previous eras.

Grand Slam and Triple Crown

A team that wins all its games wins the "Grand Slam".

The Triple Crown may only be won by one of the Home Nations of England, Ireland, Scotland or Wales, when one nation wins all three of their matches against the others. The Triple Crown dates back to the original Home Nations Championship, but the physical Triple Crown Trophy has been awarded only since 2006, when the Royal Bank of Scotland (the primary sponsor of the competition) commissioned Hamilton & Inches to design and create a dedicated Triple Crown Trophy. It has since been won four times by Ireland and Wales, and three times by England.

Here's to a great match on Saturday!

Sources: Rugby Union, Sixnationsrugby.com, Britannica

About the author - Paul McBride is a former Marine, and RVP at ZeOmega Population Health Management Software and the Founder and President of American Military Society Press. You can contact him at [email protected]

NB: This article originally appeared on the AMSP1775 website on March 27th, 2017