A case of 'bottoms up' at the rugby club? (5)
I believe the answer is:
scrum
'rugby club?' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I don't understand how they can define each other.
'a case of bottoms up at' is the wordplay.
'a case of' means to remove the middle letters (outsides of).
'bottoms' becomes 'cans' ('can' can be a synonym of 'bottom').
'up' says the letters should be written backwards (in down clue: letters go upwards).
'at' becomes 'rum' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'cans' with its middle removed is 'cs'.
'cs' written backwards gives 'sc'.
'sc'+'rum'='SCRUM'
'the' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for scrum that I've seen before include "Melee" , "Scrimmage" , "lot of rugby players" , "Jostling crowd" , "disorderly group" .)