A lot of new players want to learn more about rugby and particularly to watch footage of rugby to get a better feel for the game. YouTube is a great place to start as there is a tremendous amount of top level rugby footage archived on YouTube. You want to search the internationals between New Zealand, Australia and South Africa as these are the top three rugby playing nations and they play a more expansive and fast paced style of rugby – a style we try to emulate. Likewise the Super Rugby competition (played between 5 regional franchise teams from NZ, 4 each from Australia and South Africa and one each from Japan and Argentina) features a good selection of high quality rugby. The 6 Nations competition features the best rugby from Europe (England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France and Italy). Here are some very useful links:
- Search NZ Rugby Vids on You Tube – almost all international, Super Rugby and New Zealand ITM Cup games are posted here a few days after the game sometimes full games but usually excellent highlight clips
- allblacks.com and click on Multimedia
- The 2011 and the 2015 Rugby World Cups have many games archived on You Tube under two channels (rugbyworldcup and rwc2015). Great 2011 games to watch: Australia v Ireland, NZ v Argentina, NZ v France (round robin), South Africa v Australia (quarter final) and Australia v New Zealand (semifinal). Great 2015 games to watch: NZ v France quarter final and NZ v Australia (final). These games are a great showcase for rugby.
- The official website of World Rugby worldrugby.org or www.world.rugby has a ton of information about the game along with copies of the official rules booklet that can be downloaded and an excellent guide called “Beginners Guide to Rugby” that can be downloaded at http://passport.worldrugby.org/?page=beginners
- If you are very serious about watching live (or archived) games of the best international rugby then you can subscribe ESPN Plus for $4 per month
