Skip to main content

Rugby Scoreboard Guide

Score tries, conversions, penalties and drop goals on the KeepTheScore rugby scoreboard — Union or League values — with a count-up match clock, on a TV, an LED panel, or as a scorebug on your stream.

Run the score for your club fixture, schools match, or streamed game with the four rugby scoring events — try, conversion, penalty, drop goal — each worth the correct points for your code. KeepTheScore has two rugby boards: Rugby Union and Rugby League. They look and work identically; the only difference is the point values behind the buttons:

Event Rugby Union Rugby League
Try 5 4
Conversion 2 2
Penalty goal 3 2
Drop goal (field goal) 3 1

Pick the board for your code when you create it, and the arithmetic is always right. The match clock counts up through two halves and runs into stoppage time, just like the referee's watch. Show the board on a clubhouse TV or pitch-side LED panel, share a link, or drop it into your live stream. This guide walks through how it works.

Create rugby scoreboard

The control panel vs the display scoreboard

Your rugby board has two sides, and it helps to know which is which.

The control panel is where you keep score. You reach it by opening your board's admin link — the private link you got when you created the board. It shows the four scoring buttons for both teams, the match phase and stoppage-time controls, and the clock. Keep this link to yourself, or share it only with people you trust to run the match.

The display scoreboard is what everyone else sees: the clean, big-screen view with no buttons. You share it with the presentation link — a view-only link anyone can open to watch the score. Put it on a TV in the clubhouse, send it to supporters, or use it as a browser source in your streaming software. Whatever you tap on the control panel updates the display scoreboard live, on every screen at once.

There's also a scorekeeper link if you want a helper to enter the score without being able to change your settings or reset the match.

The rugby control panel showing try, conversion, penalty and drop goal buttons for both teams, match phase, stoppage time and the clock The control panel — one tap per score, with corrections and undo

Tip: always think in terms of links, not files or apps. Copy the link you need and share it — that's all there is to it.

The two layouts

Both rugby boards come with two display layouts. Switch between them any time in the Setup panel — the change shows up instantly on every screen.

Streaming scorebug

A compact broadcast-style bar with both team panels, the scores, and a centre clock block with the half indicator. It has a transparent background, so in OBS, Streamlabs or vMix it sits cleanly over your camera feed — the kind of score strip you see on a televised match. Use it for:

  • Streaming to YouTube, Facebook Live, Twitch or anywhere else
  • Adding the score as an OBS/Streamlabs browser source over your match footage

The rugby streaming scorebug with team panels, scores and the centre match clock The streaming scorebug, built to sit over a live stream

LED panel

A high-contrast layout that fills a 2:1 screen edge-to-edge: huge scores in each club's colours and a black clock strip along the bottom, readable from the far stand. On a screen with a different shape it centres itself without distorting. Use it for:

  • Pitch-side LED panels and venue screens
  • A clubhouse TV or projector where you want the score readable from a distance

The rugby LED panel layout showing both clubs' scores in team colours with the match clock strip The LED panel layout — big scores, team colours, clock strip

The most important features

Scoring a match

Each team has four buttons, one per scoring event, labelled with the points your code awards — Try +5, Conversion +2, Penalty +3, Drop goal +3 on a Union board (League shows +4/+2/+2/+1). Tap the event that happened; the board keeps the tallies and does the arithmetic.

You can also show each team's try count beside the total, broadcast-style — like 27 (3T) — with a toggle in Setup. Handy when bonus points are on the line.

A penalty try isn't a separate button: score it as a try plus a conversion (Union's 7 points) or use the correction buttons to set the exact total.

Fixing mistakes

Mis-taps happen. Two ways to put things right:

  • Undo reverses your last scoring action, exactly.
  • The −Try / −Con / −Pen / −DG buttons nudge one tally down when you just need to correct a single number.

The match clock and stoppage time

The clock counts up, like the referee's watch: 0:00 to 40:00 in the first half, 40:00 to 80:00 in the second — or shorter halves if you pick a different length in Setup. At the end of a half the clock keeps running into stoppage time, and you can show a stoppage-time indicator (like +2') next to the clock: set the number of added minutes on the control panel and toggle it visible.

Half-time and full-time

The match phase — H1 → HT → H2 → FT — is one tap on the control panel. Moving to a new half re-seats the clock at the right starting time automatically. At full-time the board shows FT with the final score.

The try animation

When you tap Try, the display can play a big TRY! animation across the board — great on a stream or a venue screen. Toggle it (and change the text) in Setup.

Starting a new match

Tap New match to clear the score, clock and match phase. Your club names, colours and settings are kept, so you're ready for the next game in a second.

Setting up your board

Open the Setup panel to shape the board before kick-off:

  • Club names and colours for both teams
  • Half length — 40 minutes is the standard in both codes; shorter presets suit school, junior and sevens-style formats
  • Which details to show — the try count, the match clock, the half indicator, the try animation
  • The board title, fonts and colours, and your layout choice
  • Enable Audio on Public View if you want the buzzer heard on shared screens

Union or League?

Pick the board for your code on the choose-scoreboard page: the Union board values tries at 5 and both penalties and drop goals at 3; the League board values tries at 4, penalties at 2, and drop goals (field goals) at 1. Everything else — layouts, clock, controls — is identical. There's no tackle counter or sin-bin timer; the board focuses on the score, clock, and match phases.

Putting it on a stream

Both layouts work as a browser source in OBS, Streamlabs, vMix and similar tools — paste the presentation link and the score updates itself, with no plugins to install. The streaming scorebug is purpose-built for this. For step-by-step setup, see the streaming software guide.

Sharing your scoreboard

Share the right link for the job: the presentation link for supporters and screens, the scorekeeper link for a helper entering the score, and the admin link for a co-organiser who needs full control.

Ready for kick-off?

Create rugby league scoreboard