Rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

Nauru Nauru ( or ; na, Naoero), officially the Republic of Nauru ( na, Repubrikin Naoero) and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country and microstate in Oceania, in the Central Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in Ki ...

is a minor but growing sport. The national team have competed in various international competitions, including the

Pacific Games The Pacific Games (French: Jeux du Pacifique), is a continental multi-sport event held every four years among athletes from Oceania. The inaugural Games took place in 1963 in Suva, Fiji, and most recently in 2019 in Apia, Samoa. The Games were ...

Governing body

The governing body is an associate member of

Oceania Rugby Oceania Rugby, previously known as the Federation of Oceania Rugby Unions (FORU), is the regional governing body for rugby union in Oceania. It was founded in 2000 to represent the interests of Oceania rugby within World Rugby, the international go ...

(formerly FORU), and has applied to become an associate member of

World Rugby World Rugby is the world governing body for the sport of rugby union. World Rugby organises the Rugby World Cup every four years, the sport's most recognised and most profitable competition. It also organises a number of other international rug ...

History

Rugby was first introduced into Nauru, by its connection with Australia and the British Empire in the 1890s. However with

Australian rules football in Nauru Australian rules football in Nauru (typically referred to as "football", "Australian Football" or less commonly as "AFL") dates back to the 1910s and quickly established itself as the national sport of the country. Today, it has an overall partici ...

booming in popularity from the 1910s and by 1954, local rugby and soccer leagues were all wound up without sufficient players. The newly formed South Pacific Rugby Union formed in 1969 and extended an invitation for Nauru to join, however there was no organised competition at the time. Rugby Union was reintroduced in 2012 sports grants from the Australian Sports Outreach Program funded by Australian government

AusAID Australian Aid is the brand name used to identify projects in developing countries supported by the Australian Government. As of 2014 the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has been responsible for Australia's official development ...

Australian Sports Outreach Program
/ref> and the

Nauru national rugby sevens team The Nauru national rugby sevens team made its international debut at the 2015 Pacific Games in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. History Nauru was introduced to the sport of Rugby sevens in 2012. They became an associate member of the Federation ...

debuted at the

2015 Pacific Games The 2015 Pacific Games, also known as Port Moresby 2015 or POM 2015, was held in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, from 4 to 18 July 2015. It was the fifteenth staging of the Pacific Games as well as the third to be hosted in Port Moresby. More tha ...

References

External links

Oceania Rugby
Sport in Nauru {{nauru-sport-stub

Governing body

History

See also

References

External links