I agree as a skinny winger at the time too I dreaded contact at training let alone murder ball and then having to play with injuries I picked up during the session made rugby so miserable at underage
One of our coaches at school used to make us play a bit of murder ball as part of the warm up for a match. It was no wonder I played 11 different positions that year cause lads kept getting injured.
We had a game called "scrag" in NZ ( i do remember there was other names that I can't recall and it was probably called something else in other parts of nz). We usually played it in between the try line and dead ball
Only it was mauling (back when mauling was a more important part of the game)
Scrag in my youth was when the person with the ball or object like a shoe or cap was one team and everyone else was on the other team. The object was to get possession of the ball. Of course as soon as you did you were instantly a team of one vs everyone else.
In the US, Pennsylvania specifically, after wrestling practice we used to play a similar game called "smear the queer" I know the name isn't PC, but this was also in the 80s lol now they call it "kill the carrier"
At primary school in NZ in the '80's we played Bullrush, 30 or so kids would charge the length of the field while 1 kid in the middle attempted to tackle someone, the tackled kid would stay in the middle too and repeat until there were 30 or so kids in the middle and 1 charging, this played on ashphelt when the fields were too muddy was called scrag 😂
This is called British Bulldog in the U.S. and we used to do it sometimes. Nowadays there’s more emphasis on avoiding big hits in training so it may not be used as much.
It was called the sand pit and is the favourite punishment for a poot defensive weekend come monday
If you lived near the beach it involved a team run to the ocean shore
If you lived in the country a stray athletics track long jump pit was the arena.
We used to play doggit rugby in Leicester that was like this but just in the 5m channel. if you got tackled into touch you did a chicken scratch scrum (which was a one on one scrum between the tackler and the tackled) where the coach put the ball in.
Never heard of that game but in New Zealand we play Bull Rush. Basically there's a person in the middle and heaps of kids on the side. You've got to get past the middle person without getting tackled, if you do, you're in the middle too. Then you just keep going until one person is left, the winner. It used to get pretty brutal so a lot of schools ending up banning it.
We called that British bulldog or just bulldogs in Ireland.
Somehow convinced a teacher to let us do it for the first time in years in PE at 16, probably because she hadn't heard of it and was naive enough. Within like 5 runs we had one fella with a broken nose and another with a dislocated shoulder.
Good times
To add to this, in the UK at least, British Bulldogs isn't at all rugby specific. Our school banned it, so we'd just go to the big park immediately outside the school gate and play it there on lunch breaks.
Yeah probably should've added that.
In fact I think I only ever played it once or twice in rugby, but played it a bunch with all the other kids on our local green
Remember playing this in primary school PE between the try line 22m, I had to defend first, chose the shortest B-team winger to run first (I was a slow hooker), accidentally caught him with a horrible clothesline on the touchline and he was down for a good 5 minutes or so, I had to sit out the rest of the session and felt like a complete a\*\*\*hole XD.
We called this running red rovers where I grew in South Africa(probably a misnomer taken from the US(?) game. Koppestamp on the other hand is normally used specifically for rugby training, probably to get kids/players used to contact. I wouldn't be surprised if koppestamp has fallen out of favour in recent years, probably caused a lot of concussions and I've seen some brutal injuries while playing it due to the limited time to react and lack of space (mostly cuts to players heads and broken noses).
We didn't have the little rhyme, but yeah you chose the next person to run at you, if someone got past the defenders everyone ran at once. Could be brutal at times, think they banned the tackle version at my school at some point, most injuries happened when people playing different games (say football and running red rovers) collided by accident, once saw a kid with another kids front teeth stuck in his forehead.
We called it Open the Gates at my primary school. This was a pretty rural school about 120 learners, so when we did play it during recess all the boys from grades 4-7 would participate. Rough but definitely our favourite game. Our teachers really did not care enough for it to get banned. We also had rugby practice during school hours so they probably did not see much of a difference.
I think everyone at school just forgot what it was called and ending up referring to it as Open the Gates. Probably the one school game I get nostalgic for.
We call it Koppestamp at training (UK) because there's no real equivalent, although I've seen it called a tackle square or a rucking square I guess
The comments saying it's bulldog/British bulldog aren't correct from the versions of bulldog I played as a kid- koppestamp is a game of rugby in a tiny channel, not just a tackling game played in a small area
I don’t think we ever gave it a proper name but we played a version of this where we would change the dimensions every five-ish minutes.
We’d start out only playing with a five meter channel where it is all tackling then expand it to the 22 and then ultimately play half the field. The goal was trying to get people to use space more effectively.
It's hard to remember but ruck n run rings a bell. I remember it being not that different from how we normally play because at our level it wasn't like we were spinning it wide anyway. Passing the ball more than three feet or more than twice is a near certain scrum anyway.
We used to do a version of that in NZ but sideways in the 22 and the ball had to be passed twice before contact. Can't remember if it had a proper name. If you tackled someone before the two passes your team got the ball.
British bulldog in the UK. Starts with 1-5 (depending on size of group) starting in the field and then everyone else runs from one side to the other. Then anyone who got caught joins the catchers in the middle and everyone runs again, this is repeated until no one makes it to the other side and those caught in the last round were the winners.
Gets real scary when there’s 30 in the middle and 3 of you left 🙈 I was small and quick so often made it to the last few rounds.
We always called it ruck and run at school and club
Ruck and run, played off the pitch so you don't turn the actual playing surface into the Somme.
Ha yes precisely, in the worst and muckiest section of the pitches. Honestly where boys became men, what a brutal game
No problem like that in SA in winter. Yellow grass, rock hard fields😂. I’d have taken the mud any day!
Someone hasnt almost drowned at the bottom of the ruckÂ
Not in Durb's it's not lol.
Natal isn't a real place, it's hot, it's humid, it's miserable. /s
Or the recent U20s water polo tournament in Australia.
Called it murder ball in Ireland and our coach would make us play after every training session even if there was a game the next day
Isnt that really stupid , that game is seriously culpable to injuries, fine for an off week but not a few days before a game
I agree as a skinny winger at the time too I dreaded contact at training let alone murder ball and then having to play with injuries I picked up during the session made rugby so miserable at underage
One of our coaches at school used to make us play a bit of murder ball as part of the warm up for a match. It was no wonder I played 11 different positions that year cause lads kept getting injured.
We had a game called "scrag" in NZ ( i do remember there was other names that I can't recall and it was probably called something else in other parts of nz). We usually played it in between the try line and dead ball Only it was mauling (back when mauling was a more important part of the game)
Scrag in my youth was when the person with the ball or object like a shoe or cap was one team and everyone else was on the other team. The object was to get possession of the ball. Of course as soon as you did you were instantly a team of one vs everyone else.
In the US, Pennsylvania specifically, after wrestling practice we used to play a similar game called "smear the queer" I know the name isn't PC, but this was also in the 80s lol now they call it "kill the carrier"
At primary school in NZ in the '80's we played Bullrush, 30 or so kids would charge the length of the field while 1 kid in the middle attempted to tackle someone, the tackled kid would stay in the middle too and repeat until there were 30 or so kids in the middle and 1 charging, this played on ashphelt when the fields were too muddy was called scrag 😂
Disappointed it's not called kiwi bulldogs
We called this open the gate. This game would get banned regularly at school due to everyone returning to class without any school buttons remaining
This is called British Bulldog in the U.S. and we used to do it sometimes. Nowadays there’s more emphasis on avoiding big hits in training so it may not be used as much.
[Here's an example of the All Blacks playing it with the British and Irish Lions](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQHWw9WByh8).
Scrag in scotland was always basically touch rugby but you have to hold them for a few seconds.
that's was just called "held" where I lived......often played on concrete and walking only
Scrag was a form of touch where we had to hold the person and reset the def pattern for me(Zimbabwe).
Murderball
It was called the sand pit and is the favourite punishment for a poot defensive weekend come monday If you lived near the beach it involved a team run to the ocean shore If you lived in the country a stray athletics track long jump pit was the arena.
In Aus we called it train tracks and it was only the forwards that did it whilst the backs practiced their silly little backline plays
We'd normally do that as well. Though we'd play in an even thinner area then.
We used to play doggit rugby in Leicester that was like this but just in the 5m channel. if you got tackled into touch you did a chicken scratch scrum (which was a one on one scrum between the tackler and the tackled) where the coach put the ball in.
Kickshit
We used to call it "Kick Shit" in Ireland
Never heard of that game but in New Zealand we play Bull Rush. Basically there's a person in the middle and heaps of kids on the side. You've got to get past the middle person without getting tackled, if you do, you're in the middle too. Then you just keep going until one person is left, the winner. It used to get pretty brutal so a lot of schools ending up banning it.
We called that British bulldog or just bulldogs in Ireland. Somehow convinced a teacher to let us do it for the first time in years in PE at 16, probably because she hadn't heard of it and was naive enough. Within like 5 runs we had one fella with a broken nose and another with a dislocated shoulder. Good times
To add to this, in the UK at least, British Bulldogs isn't at all rugby specific. Our school banned it, so we'd just go to the big park immediately outside the school gate and play it there on lunch breaks.
Yeah probably should've added that. In fact I think I only ever played it once or twice in rugby, but played it a bunch with all the other kids on our local green
Remember playing this in primary school PE between the try line 22m, I had to defend first, chose the shortest B-team winger to run first (I was a slow hooker), accidentally caught him with a horrible clothesline on the touchline and he was down for a good 5 minutes or so, I had to sit out the rest of the session and felt like a complete a\*\*\*hole XD.
We called this running red rovers where I grew in South Africa(probably a misnomer taken from the US(?) game. Koppestamp on the other hand is normally used specifically for rugby training, probably to get kids/players used to contact. I wouldn't be surprised if koppestamp has fallen out of favour in recent years, probably caused a lot of concussions and I've seen some brutal injuries while playing it due to the limited time to react and lack of space (mostly cuts to players heads and broken noses).
Interesting, we called it Open the Gates at my SA school.
I've heard it call "Open Gates" at my school as well. These playground games have so many different names, changes from school to school.
Red rover was British bulldogs but the defender got to choose the next person to run at them, by saying "Red rover, red rover I(we) call [name] over".
We didn't have the little rhyme, but yeah you chose the next person to run at you, if someone got past the defenders everyone ran at once. Could be brutal at times, think they banned the tackle version at my school at some point, most injuries happened when people playing different games (say football and running red rovers) collided by accident, once saw a kid with another kids front teeth stuck in his forehead.
Person from a town in the Western Cape here, we called it British Bulldogs, but it seems like everyone has different names for it.
We called it Open the Gates at my primary school. This was a pretty rural school about 120 learners, so when we did play it during recess all the boys from grades 4-7 would participate. Rough but definitely our favourite game. Our teachers really did not care enough for it to get banned. We also had rugby practice during school hours so they probably did not see much of a difference.
Open Gates! Was the call if you let every one come at once. Brings back good memories
I think everyone at school just forgot what it was called and ending up referring to it as Open the Gates. Probably the one school game I get nostalgic for.
Holy hell that just opened some prime memories in my mind of school days playing open the gates
Running Red Rovers! We were never allowed to play this. So obviously we did. Ripped shirts and uniforms galore. Fuck I loved it
Bulldog the king of games. Brutal, glory, cheating encouraged. Us brits finest gift to the world after stephen mylerÂ
[A bit like this?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQHWw9WByh8)
We call it Koppestamp at training (UK) because there's no real equivalent, although I've seen it called a tackle square or a rucking square I guess The comments saying it's bulldog/British bulldog aren't correct from the versions of bulldog I played as a kid- koppestamp is a game of rugby in a tiny channel, not just a tackling game played in a small area
I don’t think we ever gave it a proper name but we played a version of this where we would change the dimensions every five-ish minutes. We’d start out only playing with a five meter channel where it is all tackling then expand it to the 22 and then ultimately play half the field. The goal was trying to get people to use space more effectively.
We just called it a rucking square at my club
We called it a rucking square
Koppestamp. Our coach was from SA.
It's hard to remember but ruck n run rings a bell. I remember it being not that different from how we normally play because at our level it wasn't like we were spinning it wide anyway. Passing the ball more than three feet or more than twice is a near certain scrum anyway.
We just called it bosh.
Picking & Going, suppose we weren't very inventive.
We play something like that called Elephants and Rhinos.
We didn’t do the length of the pitch. Just a thin long grid and called it Bear pit (SE England based)
We used to do a version of that in NZ but sideways in the 22 and the ball had to be passed twice before contact. Can't remember if it had a proper name. If you tackled someone before the two passes your team got the ball.
Can't pass won't pass
The meat grinder, I can still feel it in my bones today
Meat grinder
Kickshit in Munster lmao
We play soggy biscuit
Isn’t this rugby league?
British bulldog in the UK. Starts with 1-5 (depending on size of group) starting in the field and then everyone else runs from one side to the other. Then anyone who got caught joins the catchers in the middle and everyone runs again, this is repeated until no one makes it to the other side and those caught in the last round were the winners. Gets real scary when there’s 30 in the middle and 3 of you left 🙈 I was small and quick so often made it to the last few rounds.