Comparison of Canadian football and rugby union "rouge" and the receiving team gains possession of the ball but give up a point to the punting team for failing to advance the ball out of the endzone. An important difference between the two sports involves the aftermath of a score. In Canadian football, the scoring team kicks off, except after a safety. In rugby union, the team scored upon kicks off (in rugby sevens, a variant of rugby union featuring seven players per side, the scoring team kicks off). Canadian teams have twelve players on the field per side. Different players may be interchanged at will for offence
Comparison of American and Canadian football and half Canadian/U.S. rules. Thus, many of the similarities and differences between the Canadian and American games indeed came out of this original series where each home team set the rules. For instance, Harvard, because of a lack of campus space, did not have a full-sized rugby pitch. Their pitch was only long by wide with undersized end zones (slightly less than the 53⅓-yard width of the current regulation-sized field for American football). Because of the reduced field, the Harvard team opted for 11 players per side, four fewer than the regulation 15 of Rugby Union. To generate more offense,