There is a plaque on the wall at Rugby School, commemorating the exploits of William Webb Ellis, who “with a fine disregard for the rules of football first took the ball in his arms and ran with it”. There are reasons to be suspicious about this origin myth. Like the idea, wildly implausible to anyone even vaguely acquainted with the species, that any self-respecting English PE teacher would have praised Webb Ellis’s wit and ingenuity rather than cursed him for his pig-ignorance and set him to doing press-ups in punishment. Still, that’s the story and, two centuries later, it’s Webb Ellis’s name on the trophy that they’re all playing for over here in Japan.
For a game that started with “a fine disregard” for the rules, rugby has grown into one that has become irritatingly pernickety about them. This World Cup tournament is supposed to be all about opening the game up to a new audience. One of the main sponsors is running an ad campaign about a confused man in a crowd of rugby fans who isn’t sure whether or when he is supposed to be cheering, till he finally realises it doesn’t much matter anyway. “You don’t need to know all the rules”, their slogan goes. A good thing, too, because they have grown so byzantine that even the experts don’t always seem to agree on them any more.
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Related: Referees’ job is getting harder as rugby gets faster and more furious | Robert Kitson
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