Subbuteo Rugby was first produced in the Mid 1950's, it came in two basic sets only, there were no teams or accessories sold separatley.The product was totally different from what we know Subbuteo Rugby today. There were no 3D figures, there were instead small coin like plastic tokens with a sticker of a rugby player on the side, you had to role the tokens at the ball to move it around the pitch. The goalkicker was a flat figure on a standard flat style base with a little metal triangle at the rear, you had to place the ball in the triangle and flick the flat figure to propel the ball towards the goals.

There is no definative record as to when it was stopped being produced. Subbuteo Rugby was revamped and re-issed in 1968, with 00 scale 3D Figures on a solid one piece base.It came in one set The New International Edition, the first version had 2 teams, balls, goals, scrummer, kickers and pitch. The story behind the figures used for the Rugby, they are commonly known as 'Chunky Type', is as follows. When Subbuteo eventually bought out Newfooty after a long and bitter battle for want of a better word, Newfooty had designed a 00 Scale 3D figure for their table football, it was the Chunky figure, Subbuteo took this and used it for the Rugby.

The new version saw the sales rise and soon after a range of Accessories and Teams were launched. Three years later the word New was dropped from the Sets and other litreture. The range of teams covered the then top/famous Union and League teams. An off spin was issued a seven a side rugby version, which came as Rugby Display Edition, it was around for 4 or 5 years.

The Accessory list incuded things already sold as football accessories, pitch side figures, floodlights and the likes, however Rugby had its own individual accessories, teams ref nos 1-37, kickers in the same ref nos, Brown Fence surround, Scrummer, Goals, Balls, Rulebooks, Scoreboard, Pitch.

The International edition only changed in its packaging, a green inner tray, brown inner tray and a polystyrene inner tray in a slightly smaller box. In 1978 the art work on the lid was changed, this version only came with a polystyrene inner, and a new edition was issed, Rugby Sevens, which was an updated Dispaly edition, except this time you got a pitch in the set.

The Teams were as mentioned above listed as Reference Numbers 1 to 37, however several of those numbers had variations, some never listed in any catalogues. On top of those were 12 teams produced for the Italian market, these did not have reference numbers they were sold by name. There is a rumour, still to be confirmed that some club sides were done in France in the 1970,s.

The teams to start off with were only done in the Chunky type figures, but after a few years the heavyweight football figures on the one piece rugby base. From 1977 to 1981 the range of figures used expanded, both Lightweight and Lightweight Zombie Figures were used on two piece bases, all hand painted. Also some if not all teams were done using heavyweight football figures on two piece bases.

Subbuteo Rugby was dropped in 1982 due to poor sales, it was listed in Italian Catalogues for a couple more years. The problem with the product was that it was very hard to play, Rugby League was suited to it due the lack of Rucks, mauls etc.