Free Rugby scoreboard

Why score Rugby with ScoreZen

• ✓One-tap scoring, built for Rugby
• ✓Share the live score by QR code or link
• ✓Free for spectators — no app to install to watch
• ✓Keeps working if the connection drops
• ✓34 sports, tournaments and standings included

How Rugby scoring works

A try is worth 5 points and earns the chance at a 2-point conversion kick. A successful penalty kick and a drop goal (drop kick in open play) are each worth 3 points. A penalty try, awarded when a foul prevents a probable try, is worth 7 points with no conversion.

Match format

A match lasts 80 minutes, split into two halves of no more than 40 minutes (effective playing time), separated by a break of up to 15 minutes as set by the organiser. If a knockout match is tied, extra time may be played according to the competition's rules.

How to win

The team with the most points at the end of regulation time wins the match. A match may end in a draw, unless the competition provides for extra time or another tie-breaking procedure.

Recommended ScoreZen setup

Set up rugby union with points-based scoring: dedicated buttons for try (+5), conversion (+2), penalty (+3) and drop goal (+3), across two timed halves. For a penalty try (7 points), tap try (+5) then conversion (+2). No target score: end the match when time runs out. The Casual preset shortens the period length.

How rugby scoring actually works

Rugby union has five entries on the sheet and they are not interchangeable. A try is five points, the conversion that follows is two, a penalty goal is three, a dropped goal is three, a penalty try is seven (Law 8.1). The penalty try is the one people get wrong: it is awarded between the goal posts and no conversion is attempted. Seven points, once, with nothing after it (Law 8.3).

A match lasts no more than 80 minutes, two halves of not more than 40 minutes each plus time lost, unless the match organiser has authorised extra time in a drawn match within a knock-out competition (Law 5.1); half-time is an interval of no more than 15 minutes, as decided by the match organiser (Law 5.2). The referee is the sole judge of fact and of law, keeps the time and keeps the score (Law 6.5). You keep the record; he decides what happened.

A half does not end on the hooter. It ends when the ball becomes dead after time has expired, and Law 5.7 lists the exceptions, including a try scored, in which case the referee allows time for the conversion. That conversion, place kick or drop kick, must be taken within 60 seconds of the try being awarded (Law 8.8); a penalty kicked at goal, within 60 seconds of the team indicating its intention (Law 8.21). And the team awarded a free-kick cannot score a dropped goal until the ball next becomes dead or an opponent has played the ball, touched it or tackled the ball-carrier (Law 8.29) — the same applies if that team opts for a lineout instead.

(World Rugby, Laws of the Game 2026, Laws 5.1, 5.2, 5.7, 6.5, 8.1, 8.3, 8.8, 8.21 and 8.29; sevens variations in the same book.)

The score sheet mistakes that cost rugby matches

First mistake: the penalty try written as a try, then a conversion, then a second conversion because someone was waiting for a kick that never comes. Seven points, once, no kicker. If your board only offers a try button and a conversion button, enter both and stop there.

Second: the two threes. Penalty goal and dropped goal are both worth three, but they are not the same action, and the difference resurfaces in the match report and in your club statistics. Write P or D beside the minute, every time. Third: two points for a conversion that missed. The kick goes over or it does not, and a miss leaves the try at five. Fourth: the scorer is the player who grounded the ball, not the one who made the break, and a penalty try has no scorer at all.

Note the minute a yellow card is shown: the suspension is ten minutes (Law 9.29), and the law book's own definition of the yellow card makes them ten minutes of playing time, so the opposite bench will count them out loud. Then reconcile the score with the referee at half-time, while the interval lasts — up to fifteen minutes, as the organiser decides, often ten at club level. Three points of drift found at the interval is a correction; the same drift found at the final whistle is an argument, and the referee has the last word, not the sheet (Law 6.5).

Tries, margin, bonus points: your sheet writes the table

In most competitions a win is four points, a draw two, a defeat none, and the bonus points make the season. The Six Nations awards an extra point for four tries or more — to the winner, to the loser and to a drawing team — plus one for losing by a margin of seven points or fewer, so a beaten side can leave with two bonus points, and a Grand Slam is worth three more. The French professional competitions run by the LNR, Top 14 and Pro D2, award the attacking bonus for scoring at least three more tries than the opponent and the losing bonus for a defeat by five points or fewer. The FFR federal competitions keep the same three-try attacking bonus but set the losing bonus at a defeat by seven points or fewer (FFR general regulations, article 341-1.1), and Nationale follows its own published regulation. Read your own regulation in September, not in March.

The sheet therefore writes the table, not just the result. A try noted as a penalty goal costs a bonus point and two points of difference, and nobody notices until the standings are published.

The level changes the frame around the same laws. In non-international matches the organiser may shorten the match, and if it does not decide, the teams agree (Law 5.3); in the under-19 game the law variations already set 70 minutes, two halves of not more than 35, with no extra time. At club level there is one referee plus two touch judges or assistant referees (Law 6.19), no video, and your sheet is the only record. In elite competitions a television match official may be called on to clarify grounding, touch, whether a kick at goal was successful, an infringement leading to or preventing a try, and foul play including sanctions (Law 6.15) — the referee still makes the decision — and a sent-off player may be replaced after 20 minutes of playing time except for intentional and highly dangerous acts (Law 9.30, elite rugby only).

Sevens is another animal on the same sheet: seven players, 14 minutes split into two halves of not more than seven, a half-time interval of no more than two minutes, and a competition final of up to two halves of ten; every conversion is a drop kick taken within 30 seconds; a yellow card is two minutes, not ten. Play plus interval already fills a quarter of an hour, so a festival runs its fixtures back to back on every pitch and your scoring has to keep up.

What ScoreZen changes for rugby

You score from your phone with the real rugby entries: try +5, conversion +2, penalty +3, drop +3, over two halves, running total on the same screen. For a penalty try, enter the try then the conversion and the total lands on seven. No chalk, no numbers shouted across the pitch.

Then you share the match with a link, or a QR code taped to the clubhouse door. Parents, the injured second row, the grandmother who no longer travels to away games: they open it and follow the score live. Spectators are free, unlimited, and never need an account. TV mode fills the clubhouse screen, the transparent overlay drops the score into OBS if the club streams, and on the far pitch it keeps counting without a network and resyncs when the signal comes back.

For a tournament, ScoreZen runs knockout with an optional third-place play-off, home and away championship, pools then a final bracket, Swiss system, best-of-3 and best-of-5 series, and rotating teams. One QR code covers the whole tournament: every player scans the same code and finds their own fixture, which is what a sevens festival on six pitches needs.

The A4 score sheet prints before kick-off, the calendar feed carries the fixtures, results export to CSV, the public read-only API needs no key, and the widget embeds the table in the club website. After the whistle, the Replay summary and the vertical Story are made to be shared. 34 sports, 25 languages. Three trial matches free for life, then one payment of €1.99, for life.

Frequently asked questions