Test match (rugby union)

A test match in rugby union is an international match, usually played between two senior national teams, that is recognised as such by one of the teams' national governing bodies.

Some teams do not represent a single country but their international games are still considered Test matches (for example the British and Irish Lions and the Pacific Islanders). Likewise some countries award caps for games between their full national teams and invitation teams like the Barbarians. The first men's international game of rugby football – between Scotland and England – was played at Raeburn Place, Edinburgh, the home ground of Edinburgh Academicals, on 27 March 1871. (This being six years before the first cricket test match, one year before the first association football international and 24 years before the first field hockey international.)

The first recorded use of the word in relation to sport occurs in 1861 when it was used, especially by journalists, to designate the most important (but at that stage non-international) games played as part of a cricket tour by an unofficial English team to Australia and it is thought to arise from the idea that the matches were a "test of strength and competency" between the sides involved. When official and fully representative Australian and English cricket and rugby teams began touring each other's countries a decade or so later the term gradually began to be applied by journalists exclusively to the international fixtures on each tour, though this was not widespread until well into the 1880s.

Although the ICC tightly controls the application of "test match" status for cricket, World Rugby (WR) has no similar rules or regulations concerning the official awarding of "test match" or "full international" status in rugby union. In rugby union test match status and caps may be awarded by either team's governing body regardless of the decision of their opponents.

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