If you’re standing on the sidelines of a local pitch or watching the Six Nations on a massive screen, you’ve probably asked yourself: how much is a try in rugby anyway?
Five points.
That’s the short answer. But honestly, it’s a bit like asking how much a car costs; the base model is one thing, but the add-ons are where the real drama happens. In Rugby Union, grounding that ball behind the goal line is the holy grail of the sport. It’s the highest-scoring single act a player can perform.
But it wasn't always five. Not even close.
Rugby has this weird, evolving DNA where the value of a try has shifted alongside how we actually play the game. Back in the day—we're talking the late 1800s—a try actually worth zero points. Yeah, zero. It just gave you the "try" at a goal, which was the conversion. If you didn't kick the goal, you got nothing. Imagine sprinting sixty meters, dodging three tackles, and diving into the mud just to be told your effort was worth a big fat donut because your kicker had a bad day.
The 5-Point Reality and the Conversion Bonus
So, today, a try is worth 5 points.
Once those five points are on the board, the scoring team gets a crack at a conversion. This is a place-kick (or a drop-kick in Sevens) worth an additional 2 points. If you do the math, a "converted try" is worth 7 points. This is the magic number coaches obsess over.
The kick is taken from a line perpendicular to where the try was scored. If a winger scores in the corner? That’s a nightmare for the kicker. They’re stuck out by the touchline, trying to curve the ball through the uprights at an impossible angle. If the flanker crashes over right under the posts? That’s a "gimme." Two easy points.
What about Rugby League?
Don't let the similar jerseys fool you. If you’re watching Rugby League (the version they play heavily in Northern England and Australia’s NRL), a try is worth 4 points.
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It’s a different beast entirely. In League, the focus is on high-speed sets and collisions. Because tries are worth less, and there are fewer ways to stall the game, the flow is totally different. But for the sake of the global standard—the Rugby World Cup, the All Blacks, the Springboks—we’re talking about the 5-point Union try.
Why the Value Kept Changing
Rugby is obsessed with balance. For decades, the sport’s governing bodies (now World Rugby) struggled with a massive problem: teams were just kicking the ball all the time.
If a penalty kick is worth 3 points and a try is only worth 3 (which it was for a long time), why would you risk losing the ball by trying to run it? It’s safer to just wait for the other team to mess up, grab a penalty, and slot the kick.
- 1888: A try was worth 1 point.
- 1891: It jumped to 2 points.
- 1894: It hit 3 points, where it stayed for nearly a century.
- 1971: The powers that be moved it to 4 points to encourage more running.
- 1992: Finally, we got the 5-point try we know today.
The goal was simple: make scoring tries so valuable that teams would actually stop kicking the leather off the ball and start passing it. It worked, mostly. By making the try worth 5 points and the conversion 2, you created a 7-point incentive. Compare that to a penalty goal or a drop goal, which are only worth 3 points each. You’d need to kick two penalties and still be trailing behind a single converted try.
The Penalty Try: The Ultimate Referee Power Move
Sometimes, you don't even have to touch the ball down to get points.
It sounds fake, but it's real. It’s called a Penalty Try.
If a team is about to score—say, a rolling maul is inches from the line—and the defending team commits a blatant foul to stop it, the referee can just whistle and point to the posts.
A Penalty Try is worth 7 points. You don't even take the conversion kick. The referee basically says, "You cheated to stop a certain score, so I’m giving them the maximum points possible right now." It’s a huge momentum swinger. It also usually comes with a yellow card, meaning the defender who messed up has to sit in the "sin bin" for ten minutes. It’s the double-whammy of rugby.
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How Tries Change Strategy in 2026
Modern rugby isn't just about the points on the scoreboard during the 80 minutes. It's about the "Bonus Point" system used in almost every major professional league like the Gallagher Premiership, the United Rugby Championship (URC), and the Six Nations.
Most leagues reward a team with an extra league table point if they score four tries or more in a single match.
This is massive. You could actually lose a game but still walk away with a point because you scored four tries. It keeps the losing team attacking until the very last second. Even if they're down by 20 points, they’re hunting that fourth try to salvage something from the weekend.
The Technicality: What Actually Counts as a Try?
You can't just drop the ball on the line. That's a "knock-on," and it results in a scrum for the other team.
To score, you need downward pressure.
You can use your hand, your arm, or even your chest. If you fall on the ball in the "in-goal" area (the end zone), it’s a try. But if the ball squirts out or you lose control before it hits the grass, no dice. In the modern game, we have the TMO—the Television Match Official. They spend ages looking at slow-motion replays to see if a single blade of grass was touched by the ball while the player had control.
It’s often a game of centimeters.
Sometimes a defender will get their arm underneath the ball. This is called "holding it up." If the ball doesn't touch the ground because a defender's bicep is in the way, the try is disallowed. In the old days, that resulted in a 5-meter scrum. Nowadays, it usually results in a goal-line dropout, giving the ball back to the defending team.
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The Physics of Grounding
Let’s get nerdy for a second. The "line" itself is actually part of the in-goal area. If you press the ball onto the white paint of the try line, it’s a try. You don’t have to get past the line, just to it.
The base of the padded goalposts is also considered part of the line. If you can jam the ball against the padding at ground level, the ref will blow the whistle for a try. It’s one of the hardest things to defend because you can’t really put your body between the player and the post easily.
Real World Example: The 2023 World Cup Final
In the 2023 Rugby World Cup Final between New Zealand and South Africa, the game was decided by the smallest margins. The All Blacks actually had a try disallowed by the TMO because of a tiny handling error earlier in the play.
The final score was 11-12.
Think about that. One try is 5 points. If that disallowed try had stood, the entire history of the sport for the next four years would have changed. South Africa won the trophy without scoring a single try in the final—they relied entirely on 4 penalty kicks (12 points). It shows that while the try is the most valuable single score, consistency in kicking can still ruin a "running" team’s day.
Actionable Takeaways for the Casual Fan
If you're trying to follow the game without getting a headache, just keep these three things in mind:
- The 5-Point Rule: A try is always 5. If they kick the goal after, it’s 7.
- Look at the Referee: If he points to the center of the posts without anyone kicking, it’s a Penalty Try (7 points).
- Check the "Tries Scored" Column: If you’re looking at a league table and wondering why a team in 4th place is doing better than expected, check their bonus points. Scoring four tries in a game is the "golden ticket" for moving up the rankings.
The next time you’re watching a match and someone dives over the white line, you aren’t just looking at 5 points. You’re looking at the result of over a century of rule changes designed to make the game faster, more violent, and infinitely more exciting.
Keep an eye on where the ball is grounded. If it’s near the corner, get ready for a tense conversion kick. If it’s under the posts, go grab a drink—those two extra points are basically guaranteed.
Next Steps for Your Rugby Knowledge:
- Watch a Match with Live Commentary: Listen for the term "phases." Tries usually happen after a team keeps the ball through 5-10 phases, tiring out the defense.
- Check the Laws: If you want the deep technical stuff, the World Rugby Laws website has 3D fly-throughs of what constitutes "downward pressure."
- Identify the Kicker: Every team has a designated kicker. Note how their body language changes based on whether the try was scored in the "bin" (the corner) or the "sticks" (the middle).