Key takeaways
- Eight forwards and seven backs is not a convention - the eight is fixed because a scrum must contain eight players from each side.
- Forwards contest the ball at scrums, lineouts and breakdowns; backs are the players who turn that possession into territory and points.
- The two groups have genuinely different physical profiles, so depth in one does not compensate for a shortage in the other.
- Front-row cover is the least substitutable resource in a squad, which is why replacement benches are stacked the way they are.
- A draft pool has to decide how much forward and back talent is available at once, because an unlimited supply of either removes the balancing decision entirely.
Forwards win the ball. Backs use it. That is the whole division, and it is the most useful thing to know about rugby if you are watching a match without knowing the laws.
What is less obvious is that the split is written into the rules rather than adopted by convention. A scrum must consist of eight players from each side, so a rugby union team contains exactly eight forwards — numbers 1 to 8 — and the remaining seven players, numbers 9 to 15, are the backs.
What the pack is for
The eight forwards are collectively the pack, and their job is possession.
They compete for the ball in scrums and lineouts, and they are expected to arrive first at the breakdown after a tackle to secure it. Within that:
- The front row — two props and a hooker — provides the scrum's contact surface. Props push; the hooker tries to secure the ball by hooking it back with a foot.
- The second row — two locks — supplies height and mass. Locks are generally the tallest players in the team and are the main lineout targets, with the hooker usually throwing the ball in.
- The back row — two flankers and a number 8 — are the mobile forwards. They are expected to be first to a breakdown and to play an important role in winning possession there, and the number 8 can pick the ball from the base of the scrum to launch an attack.
Forwards are generally bigger and stronger than backs, and the reason is functional. Every one of the jobs above involves generating or absorbing force in close contact.
What the backline is for
Backs play behind the forwards, are usually more lightly built and faster, and are the players who turn possession into something.
The scrum-half retrieves the ball from the forwards and needs a quick and accurate pass to get it moving, usually to the fly-half. The fly-half generally directs the back line and is often the side's main kicker. The centres break the defensive line and link with the wings. The wings are typically among the fastest players in the team and score many of the tries. The fullback is the last line of defence, and needs to field a kicked ball cleanly and kick well in return.
The skills are different in kind, not merely in degree. A backline is built on passing, kicking, timing and acceleration into space.
Why depth in one does not cover the other
This is the practical consequence, and it is the one that catches people out when they start selecting squads rather than watching matches.
Having an abundance of quality backs does not help a side whose props are stretched. You cannot put a centre into the front row and expect the scrum to hold — scrummaging is a technical discipline with a physical requirement that does not transfer, and a scrum going backwards concedes penalties, which in union are worth three points each.
The reverse is also true, if less dramatic. A dominant pack that wins every lineout and scrum but has no backline capable of using the ball will control a match and not win it.
This is why utility players — those who cover several positions — are prized. They are not better than specialists at any one job. They reduce the number of specialists a squad must carry, which frees up selection room elsewhere.
The hierarchy of scarcity
If you are assembling a squad rather than admiring one, it helps to know which cover is hardest to replace. Roughly, from least to most substitutable:
- Front row. Least substitutable by a distance. A side without adequate prop and hooker cover is constrained before a ball is kicked.
- Fly-half. Not a physical scarcity but a decision-making one; a side with no second option at 10 loses its shape when the starter goes off.
- Locks. Height is not something you can improvise, but lock cover can often come from the back row.
- Back row and centres. The most interchangeable group in the squad, which is why so many squad plans use back-row forwards as general-purpose cover.
- Back three. Wings and fullbacks tend to cover each other reasonably well.
The general principle here is the same one depth charts sets out for other sports: cover is not measured by how many players you have, but by how quickly each of them can be replaced by the next one.
How the draft pool balances the two halves
In 24-0 Rugby Draft Pro League the pool contains more than 1,000 players — forwards, backs, specialists and goal kickers — and it rotates, so no two draft boards are the same.
The rotation is the part worth explaining, because it exists to solve exactly the problem above.
An early build had a static pool. What happened, predictably, is that experienced players learned the board. They knew which forwards were available and in what order, so the draft became a memory exercise rather than a judgement exercise, and the forwards-versus-backs balancing decision disappeared: you simply executed the sequence that worked last time.
What rotates now is which slice of the pool is available in this draft, and it rotates across positional groups as well as across quality bands. The practical effect is that some drafts open with a deep run of forwards and a thin backline, and others do the reverse. You cannot arrive with a fixed plan.
This is a designed constraint and it will occasionally frustrate you. A board that is short of props means you will pay above the odds for props, and there is no mechanism to reroll your way out of it. That is the intended experience: the balancing decision is only real if the supply is not guaranteed. What the game does not do is generate a board that is unplayable — every draft contains enough of each positional group to field a legal starting fifteen, so the constraint is about price and quality, never about legality.
Rugby draft and squad building works through how to handle a board that is short in one half of the squad, and rugby positions by number sets out the individual roles inside each group.
Player names and historical details appear in the game for informational purposes; in-game ratings and salaries are unofficial estimates, and the app is not affiliated with or endorsed by any player, club, league, union or governing organisation. For the studio's other draft and management titles, see sports GM.
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between forwards and backs?
How many forwards are in a rugby union team?
What is the pack?
Do forwards or backs score more tries?
Can a back cover a forward position?
Sources
- Rugby union positions (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia — accessed
- Lineout (rugby union) (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia — accessed
League, team and athlete names appear here only to identify the rules, records and history being discussed. Reign Creative LLC's sports games are not affiliated with, endorsed by or licensed by any league, team, players' association or athlete, and all names and marks belong to their owners.
About the author
Reign Creative LLC — The independent app studio that builds the apps covered on this site and publishes every article here. On Google Play it publishes as Reign Collective Apps.
We use AI tools to help research, draft and edit our articles. Each article lists the sources its factual claims rely on, and details about our apps come from their live Google Play listings. No article on this site has been reviewed by an independent expert unless the reviewer is named on it.
Spotted an error? Tell us — how corrections are handled is set out in our editorial policy.