rugby

The 2011 Rugby World Cup will be the biggest sporting event ever held in New Zealand. More than 100,000 fans are expected to travel to the Southern Hemisphere for the games and the parties that start on 10 September and end on 22 October next year.

Sport and politics united black and white South Africa during the 1995 Rugby World Cup. The story is coming to cinemas as Invictus. Clint Eastwood's film stars Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as Springbok captain François Pienaar.

When the British and Irish Lions play South Africa in Durban on Saturday, they will be carrying on a tradition that began in 1888. That was when teams from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland began touring the Southern Hemisphere.

Chet Miller, Nick Springer and Justin Patterson chase down a ball during a California Quake quad rugby training session at the Veterans' Affairs Medical Center in Palo Alto.

William Webb Ellis was the English schoolboy who invented rugby after picking up the ball during a game of soccer. The next Rugby World Cup will take place in 2011 in New Zealand; the US team hopes to win the William Webb Ellis Cup there.