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Would there be interest in resolving some ongoing conflicts regarding the suggested layout for player biographies? Over my years of editing rugby union articles, I’ve noticed that many editors, myself included, have strong views on how these biographies should be structured. Reaching a consensus on the points listed below could help reduce the recurring editing disputes.

I think we should take inspiration from the Manual of Style used for association football player biographies. I’ve outlined three possible approaches for writing the lead: one for players representing their country of birth, another for those representing a different country, and a third for players who have represented both codes of rugby. This area has been the source of frequent conflicts and edit wars, so reaching a clear resolution would go a long way toward tidying up many articles.

• Andrew John Kellaway (born 12 October 1995) is an Australian professional rugby union player who plays as a wing for Super Rugby club New South Wales Waratahs and the Australia national team.
• Jamison Ratu Gibson-Park (born 23 February 1992) is a professional rugby union player who plays as a scrum-half for United Rugby Championship club Leinster. Born in New Zealand, he represents Ireland at international level after qualifying on residency grounds.
• Joseph-Aukuso Sua'ali'i (born 1 August 2003) is an Australian professional dual-code rugby player who plays as a centre for Super Rugby club New South Wales Waratahs and the Australia national team.

I’ve experimented with several different templates for player statistics, but the result has become increasingly messy. Many sports now use a more standardised, universal template for player stats. Establishing a clear format here would help reduce clutter and avoid overly complex tables. Below is a rough draft based on the way most rugby statistics websites present player data. I believe including a dedicated references section is important to ensure the accuracy of the information provided.

Kidsoljah (talk) 08:56, 24 August 2025 (UTC) [reply]

On leads I think both the Kellaway and Gibson-Park articles are perfectly acceptable as they are clear and concise. On Sua'ali'i I don't think we should be including dual-code in the lead as this may confuse the reader into thinking he is playing both at the same time. Personally I would prefer it to say he's a rugby union player who previously played rugby league. On statistics, we shouldn't be including sevens with rugby union as that's confusing but simple statistics tables are fine but we should try and keep club/region/franchise separate from international. Also, I keep seeing tables of every try that someone has scored in a test and I think these are complete overkill and should be removed (you can easily see this in the infobox and text) and I think there was discussion on it before as well suggesting not using them but they seem to be in use on a large number of articles depending on nation the player represents. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 09:10, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

From List of dual-code rugby internationals, A dual-code rugby international is a rugby footballer who has played at the senior international level in both codes of rugby. That does not necessarily mean they played at the same time, and I'm not sure how many people would be confused about that. Primefac (talk) 19:23, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I absolutely support removing the tables of every international try scored by a player. Primefac (talk) 17:05, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How is this for duel codes

• Joseph-Aukuso Sua'ali'i (born 1 August 2003) is an Australian professional rugby union player who plays as a centre for Super Rugby club New South Wales Waratahs and the Australia national team. He previously played rugby league for Sydney Roosters, New South Wales and the Samoa national rugby league team.

Louis (talk) (contribs) 18:59, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally that is what is currently in the lead of his article. Primefac (talk) 19:23, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That would be my preferred lead for dual code or dual sport players. Current sport/code first, previous sport/code in the second sentence. Louis Rees-Zammit's article (as an exmaple) uses all in once sentence, but I think it reads much better as two sentences. Though only time I'd differ was if a player has played rugby sevens predominantly I still think we should lead as rugby union player (i.e. John Smith is a xx professional rugby union player who plays as a xx for xx club xx. He previously/has also represented xx rugby sevens team, participating at the xx Olympics/World Cup). Rugbyfan22 (talk) 19:33, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The consensus so far appears to support using the Kellaway and Gibson-Park formats for leads. One for players representing their country of birth, and another for those who don’t. For Sua’ali’i, the approach would be to list their current code of rugby first, with their previous history in other codes included further down in the lead.

As for career statistics, it seems we agree that the current tables need an overhaul. My preferred structure would be one table for club and another for international. I’d suggest we create a template to avoid different styles, similar to what most major sports on here have already done. Kidsoljah (talk) 20:47, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, we need a standardised statistics box for all players, whether that's a template or just a simple table. Using the Corey Toole example we have things such as try ratio and win and loss percentages in there. These are complete overkill. The example as of above is my preference, simple and effective and easy to read, just remove the international bits, or have a subsection of the table for these. I think if we come across articles with every international try listed as well we should start BOLDly removing these also. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 21:33, 24 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

would agree in most cases, I think for ones like Rory Underwood where it could be spun out into a stand alone article (similar to List of international rugby union tries by Shane Williams) as a record scorer it should be retained, but for every player it should not be a feature. Skeene88 (talk) 13:48, 29 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There should have been more time to respond to this before going to a vote; it has only been three days and the fact that editors live in different time zones also means more time is needed to be able to respond to each other's comments.

I still have a few comments and questions. First of all, I don't think editors should be bound by the exact wording proposed here: "... who plays as a wing for Super Rugby club New South Wales Waratahs ...", because the word "club" isn't always accurate. Super Rugby clubs aren't really clubs. Most, if not all, are franchises. Also, extending the proposed sentence to the National Provincial Championship is problematic, because the teams aren't clubs either, but provinces (provincial union teams). That's why in many player biographies we have been using "X is a New Zealand rugby union player, who currently plays as a fullback for the Blues in Super Rugby and for Auckland in New Zealand's domestic National Provincial Championship competition." That's far more accurate. So I hope the proposal doesn't suggest rigidly following these examples; some flexbility with respect to this part of the opening sentence is in my opinion needed. I have no problem with the "nationality part" of the Kellaway and Gibson-Park examples.

Second, how many player biographies actually do contain statistics boxes and how often are they updated? Keeping the infoboxes up-to-date is enough work; keeping statistics tables is way more work. I assume if we agree here on a standardised statistics box for all players, that doesn't create an expectation that all player biographies contain a statistics box? And I also assume that this new standard only applies to the future, unless someone is willing to update all existing statistics boxes if they don't comply with this new standard? Ruggalicious (talk)

I’m not suggesting it needs to be followed word for word. For instance, you’re right that some competitions treat teams as franchises, unions, or use other terms depending on their system. In those cases, “club” should be replaced with whatever is most accurate. If a player is associated with two teams, the one they’re actively playing for should be shown in the lead to avoid confusing readers. As for nationalities, I think it’s important to stick to Wikipedia’s guidelines, which is why I’m pushing for this approach—there have been so many edit conflicts on the matter. Regarding player statistics, the goal is simply to establish a template for handling these cases in future edits. This helps keep player articles tidy and ensures editors have a clear framework for removing unnecessary content, especially in tables. Kidsoljah (talk)

Can we now move toward a conclusion by voting agree or oppose. Below are the changes I propose to be added or changed to the Wikipedia:WikiProject Rugby union/Style for each subsection.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Kidsoljah (talk • contribs) 13:21, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Support Happy to support these changes. Obviously for some sides and nations seasons only occur over one year, so for Super Rugby players for example we should just list the year as 2025 in this example above. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 14:54, 25 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment this already is the MOS from a consensus discussion 8 years ago? [1] I can't see what is actually changing?Skeene88 (talk) 09:17, 27 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Good point. See the WikiProject rugby union style guide at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Rugby_union/Style, specifically the section titled Nationality in Player Biographies. I don't think we need to re-invent the wheel here. Is there something about the existing guidance in the WP:RU style guide that needs to be changed? CUA 27 (talk) 21:46, 18 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. I support separating the number of tries, conversions, and penalties, as proposed in the above table as the current bio box is misleading when it only shows the number of appearances and number of points. For example for Owen Farrell it shows him scoring 1,237 points in 112 appearances which may mislead readers into thinking he’s a record try scorer, yet he has only scored 10 international tries, accounting for just 50 of those points.

I do not agree with removing the list of International Tries as they tell a very different and more complete story to just a list of tries, whether in the whole of their international career or broken down year by year. It’s relevant who those tries were scored against, for example for Louis Rees-Zammit who plays for first-tier Wales, half of his 15 international tries were scored against second-tier nations, whereas of the 48 international tries scored by former Welsh player Shane Williams the majority were scored against first-tier nations. It is also relevant to know whether a player scored multiple tries in a particular match. Also interesting to know the outcome of the game. All this detail is lost in just a list of points.

As well as supporting separating the players scores in rugby league and rugby union if they are a dual code player, I also agree that for rugby union there should be separate listings for 7 a side and 15 a side, and that a player’s yellow and red cards should be listed.

MrArmstrong2 (talk) 15:23, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose. Some further thoughts on this. The proposed table including consolidated figures over a year would seem to have some practical issues:

· Firstly, at what point in the year would it be compiled, as Northern and Southern hemispheres have different playing seasons?

· Secondly, who is going to keep a tally of all the statistics for each player and then consolidate them at the end of the year? There’s no point in more than one person doing this. And how can the statistics be checked when they are consolidated?

· Thirdly, it won’t show up-to-date statistics, as the list of international tries provides. In an ideal world, if the list of international tries were to continue, the total could be calculated automatically and entered in the bio box. MrArmstrong2 (talk) 15:55, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like there are now two articles about the Barbarians club - Barbarian F.C. and Barbarians F.C.. Assume that one of these needs deleting, but which one? The second appears to be a copy of the first. Anyone have any thoughts on the one to go? Bcp67 (talk) 17:37, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

speedy delete per CSD A10. I've nominated it already. Louis (talk) (contribs) 19:12, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Second one is clearly a copy. Have had issues with some of the creators edits before (not major, just unexplained) Rugbyfan22 (talk) 19:14, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks both for the replies and for raising the speedy. Bcp67 (talk) 21:19, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Mark Hammett has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 03:58, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For WikiProjects that participate in rating articles, the banners for talk pages usually say something like:

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History of rugby union matches between France and New Zealand has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 19:38, 26 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, orgive me if this has been mentioned, had a quick search but couldn't find out if there is a consensus on this. Is there a reason why premiership and top 14 clubs have a different squad template to URC and Super Rugby? Would it not be best to have a standardisation across the domestic leagues? The premiership and top 14 lists seem quite old fashioned in comparison. SmartVandelay (talk) 13:19, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this has been mentioned before. The URC and Super Rugby ones are just in a wikitable where as the ones used by Premiership and Top 14 is a template (Template:Rugby squad start). I don't mind either to be honest but I think if we were to use the one like on the URC pages, it should be intergrated into a template some how. Louis (talk) (contribs) 14:33, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think this was discussed before a number of years ago, but I can't remember when or where. Don't think consensus could be reached on which to use. I much prefer the URC/Super Rugby ones as they're much cleaner and user friendly on computers (but probably not on smartphones). As long as each competition use the same templates I don't see it as a major issue. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 19:10, 16 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Huh... in comparing Toulouse and Leinster, I kind of prefer the latter, mainly because it means we don't have Prop linked 8 times. I'd be fine converting that (somehow) into a template if people feel it's easier to edit/update. On the whole, however, I do agree that some measure of standardisation (regardless of method) is a Good Thing. Primefac (talk) 00:13, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If we can work it into a template so there's little change similar to the Leinster one I'd support. I'd guess we would have to do the same with international side templates as they are similar to the former ones, although in one long list rather than two. Not sure how we would include number of caps though. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 09:53, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I did find this, Template:Rugby squad indented. The comment from Primefac about having the positions multiple times is another reason why I brought it up, does seem like overkill. Re the phones Rugbyfan22, does seem to be a much of a muchness between the two, more bunched up but just as readable. SmartVandelay (talk) 12:22, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with the template is that it doesn't account for players who divide their time between multiple positions. I suppose we would defer to whatever the club or national team's website lists them as, but I struggle to know where Ryan Jones would have been listed: lock or back row? – PeeJay 23:39, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see a template or style that alleviates this issue though. All list a playing position them. Unlike football or cricket we can't list by squad number, so the only other way of organising would be alphabetically or by nationality, which I think would be worse than what we have now. Rugbyfan22 (talk) 19:31, 27 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

We could use a table with columns for name, nationality and position. That would allow us to break free from having to list a player under just one position. Or we could do something like the NFL do and list players under a primary position group and then specify their exact positions via an optional template parameter (see Template:NFLplayer). – PeeJay 17:34, 28 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think that’s where best discretion has to come into play, and editors use their most frequent position as best can be determined (allrugby for example divides it). I am partial to the URC style as it is a bit cleaner and easier to read as @Rugbyfan22 said. RodneyParadeWanderer (talk) 17:16, 8 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Of questionable notability and chock full of OR, this needs reliable sources. Please add some references. Bearian (talk) 15:58, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If anyone has time, it appears most of the url links have rotted at John Ryan (rugby, born 1948). It could use some updating to its sources. I'm not well versed in archive link formatting, or I would attempt to fix it. Best.4meter4 (talk) 22:00, 26 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Please resolve the issues tagged, by adding reliable sources. Bearian (talk) 20:38, 9 February 2026 (UTC)[reply]