The house

The name is two halves of the same idea. A ruck is the part of the game where everyone arrives at once and nobody looks elegant. Roe is what the very young of almost anything are called, and it sounds like a name you would actually give a child.

We started with a simple frustration: everything made for babies in team colours is either a shrunken replica shirt in thin polyester, or a cartoon. Nothing was made the way the clothes we keep are made — heavy cloth, a real collar, a crest stitched rather than stuck on.

One cut, nine sets of colours

The pattern does not change between nations. It is a long-sleeved romper in 280gsm brushed cotton jersey, with a woven twill collar, rib-knit cuffs and nickel-free poppers running down the inside leg so it comes off without a wrestling match. It is cut roomy through the body to layer over a vest.

What changes is the colour of the cloth, the trim, and the crest. We draw each crest ourselves rather than reproducing a union's mark, so what you get is our reading of a rose, a thistle, a clover, a cockerel — recognisable without pretending to be official.

Small runs, on purpose

We cut a limited number of each nation and then stop. It keeps the sewing careful, keeps the cloth good, and means nothing ends up discounted into nothing. It also means that when a nation sells out, it is genuinely gone until the next run.

Which nations we cut next is decided almost entirely by which ones people ask for. If yours isn't here yet, telling us is the fastest way to change that.