How does rugby work?

[canmore]

I used to play rugby as a teenager - union at school, league on the weekends. I never really watched rugby, but now I'm older, married, and pretty sick of football, I fancy getting back into rugby (but watching it rather than playing

So, in terms of leagues and stuff - how does it all work? Like, what's the Superleague? Is that like the premiership? What are the other divisions? Is there a list of teams and leagues etc plus what's available in each area? I live in Scotland now, and from a little bit of Google research it looks pike the closest league team is the Fife Lions - do leagues differ in Scotland from England?

Also, in case you can't tell, I'm more interested in watching league than union, but I would like to watch some union too. What's available? Does union have leagues etc like rugby league?

Sorry for the onslaught of questions - I've got a lot of catching up to do!

 

[Thingimubob]

Do you mean amateur/semi pro leagues or the top flight professional leagues?
If you mean the top-flight stuff then the 2 Scottish teams would be Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh and they play in the Magners League with 4 Irish teams (Munster, Leinster, Ulster and Connacht) 4 Welsh teams (Cardiff Blues, Llanelli Scarlets, Neath-Swansea Ospreys and Newport Gwent Dragons) and 2 Italian teams are joining next season (Aironi and Treviso). English league is the Guinness Premiership, it's different to the Magners because there is promotion/relegation between it and the RFU Championship. There's also the Heineken Cup (Rugby equivalent of the Champions League) and the Amlin Challange Cup (Rugby Equivalent of the Europa League)
Here's some Wikipedia pages if you fancy doing some reading :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magners_League
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness_Premiership
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heineken_Cup

If you didn't mean the pro stuff, and I've just made a fool of myself then I have no idea I;m afraid.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Superleague is the premiership of Rugby League, there's no promotion/demotion (much as in the Magners League in union) but there's plenty of lower leagues as well, with the highest being the Co-Operative championship, then Co-Op also sponsoring the regional leagues,
Wikipedia tells me that the Fife Lions play in the Coop Conference - Scotland Division, which is the top flight amateur teams in scotland. It's one step below the Co-Op Championship, and apparently teams CAN play in the higher league, but no teams have ever done so (not sure whether that's through choice, or they've never qualified, i'm not sure how it works)

 

[Conal]

the magers league is pretty much all on bbc now if you want to watch it the scotland home games are bbc alba i think ulster home and interirish matches are bbc ni 2 bbc wales has all the welsh home games so you could see nearly all the scottish teams matches

 

[canmore]

Well, honestly, thanks very much to all three of you for such detailed and helpful responses! I've definitely got all the info I need to get me going now... I certainly don't feel as out my depth as I did yesterday . I've no doubt I'll ask other questions later, but for now the hierarchy and locations of the different leagues really helps.

Thanks again!