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USA Rugby Announces New Collegiate Premier Division Schedule

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USA Rugby recently announced the schedule for the nation’s new Collegiate Division I Premier Schedule, expected to launch in early March 2011.  The schedule, consisting of some of the top collegiate teams in America – and of course the University of California, essentially the best collegiate team (and better than many club teams) in the nation.

This is something the U.S. has needed for a while now, there have only been a handful of strong teams that have feasted on other teams in their local unions for too long.  Now by lumping together most of the best college teams in a Premier Division and getting them to play against each other beyond the National Championship tournament, where the eventual winner might only play a handful of the top teams.

The teams facing off include:

Pacific Conference

  • University of California
  • Cal Poly – San Luis Obispo
  • Central Washington
  • San Diego State
  • Claremont
  • St. Mary’s
  • U Cal. – Davis
  • UCLA

 

Western Conference

  • Air Force
  • Arizona
  • Arizona State
  • BYU
  • Colorado
  • Colorado State
  • Utah
  • Wyoming

 

Mid-South Conference

  • Arkansas State
  • Life University
  • Louisiana State
  • Notre Dame
  • Oklahoma
  • Tennessee
  • Texas A&M

(What, no U Texas here?)

 

“RugbyEast” Conference

  • Army
  • Dartmouth
  • Delaware
  • Kutztown
  • Navy
  • THE Ohio State
  • Penn State
  • Rutgers

A complete schedule of games can be found at USA Rugby’s main Web site.

 

Are Rugby Refs “Tough Enough?” (Answer – Yeah probably)

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Recently the team over at IRB’s “Total Rugby” podcast asked the question that almost every rugby player has probably asked at least once while playing the game, although in probably not as polite terms – Are the referees really fit enough to keep up with the game? (I haven’t heard the entire podcast yet, as I’m still playing catch up with the rugby podcast world)

That’s a good question, because the game is fast enough these days that if the refereeing crew might miss important calls if they aren’t fit enough.  Keep in mind I said “might miss,” there’s no guarantee they would be able to catch those calls anyway.

Fitness is important for officials, probably more so than for the players on the field – but one question I have is – Are we picking the top, younger referees able to keep up with the play on the field, and are we keeping our top, more experienced officials in top shape?  From what I remember in our local union, there’s always been a shortage of referees, and they did a great job of keeping themselves in as much shape as possible, but at the end of the day they were responsible for keeping themselves in shape.

Some of the questions that have come to mind thinking about this are:

  • Is it worth it to have referees go through physical training with comparable level teams in their area? For example, should international-level referees be jumping in to international team fitness sessions to stay in shape for their matches?  
  • Is that even an idea worth considering at the end of the day? 
  • Will they get too accustomed to the players on the team and start to subconsciously make calls in favor of their “training mates?”
  • Would international teams even allow referees to fitness train with them?
  • Who’s responsibility is it to ensure referees are properly fit to handle a match?  The national rugby union?  International referees association? The referee themselves?
  • This might work better at lower levels of rugby where referees might be able to fit in a training session without causing as much of a disturbance as it would on a national level.

This is another reason that having an official located up in rafters of the stadium watching the game on monitors is very important.  They can catch some of those calls that the referees miss on the field, as evidenced by the Bakkies Botha headbutt earlier this Tri Nations season.  It’s a matter of these referees being able to work together as a team, each trusting what the other’s capabilities, and more importantly, limitations are.

All Blacks Pull Off Last Minute Victory, Wrap Up Tri Nations Title

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The New Zealand All Blacks clinched their tenth Tri Nations Tournament in front of over 90,000 rugby fans at FNB Stadium (formerly “Soccer City”) in Soweto, South Africa on Saturday in an exciting 29-22 comeback thanks to tries by All Black captain and flanker Richie McCaw and back Israel Dagg in the last two minutes of play.  

Playing in hostile territory, in front of one of a raucous crowd cheering on their Springboks, the All Blacks had to regain their focus after being called for offenses at four breakdowns in the first 20 minutes of play and finding themselves down 13-6 as a result of penalties.

Coming into the game, the All Blacks were one point away from claiming the title, which – barring a catastrophic breakdown in the rest of the tournament – made winning the Tri Nations almost academic. But it was anything but for the Kiwis.

According to All Black coach Graham Henry, as quoted in The Guardian:

“I just felt so proud of what they’ve achieved. The character, backed by their guts and togetherness was superb. So I think it was a very special win by the All Blacks, an outstanding result and something we will never forget as far as we’re concerned.”

The loss is the fourth in a row for the Springboks, who have to be wondering when they are finally going to hit the bottom of the well and start working their way back up.  Currently they are 0-4 in the Tri Nations, having lost to New Zealand twice in New Zealand and the Saturday’s loss at home, with one loss to Australia, who they face next.   Should the Springboks walk away from the tournament with one win, or winless, we have to wonder what their mindset will be going into their European tour, with the Rugby World Cup just over a year away.

Saving Rugby – the “Surprising Rise” of the Sevens Game (Part 2 of 2)

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Part One Here

Rugby purists, for whom the 15-a-side game means everything, might be surprised, and a bit upset, to discover that Rugby Sevens might be the best way to present rugby to a larger, world-wide audience, and thereby save the game from falling into the alluring “schoolboy charm” that has kept rugby going, but not allowed it to expand in developing markets. 

Rugby sevens can spread the sport faster because in most national teams can get 12 players together and start working on the core of a pretty good sevens team faster than getting 30-45 players for a “full game” that they will not be able to compete in anyway.

(I know 12 players means there’s not much depth to go a complete IRB Sevens Tournament, but nations can pick and choose their spots to compete in the first few years).

Rugby sevens is an incredibly exciting game, speaking as a fan of this type of rugby and as someone who loved to play sevens (again, about 65 pounds and two knee injuries ago). And, let’s be honest here, there is a lot more scoring in sevens rugby tournament than there is in most 15-a-side rugby matches. (unless you’re New Zealand playing Japan in the 1995 World Cup.

Sevens give nations that would not be able to compete in an 80-minute game of “real rugby,” like surprise sevens upstarts Kenya, sevens stars Fiji, current World Sevens Champions Western Samoa, 2009 World Sevens Champions Wales, and even the U.S. to a lesser scale, a chance to be competitive with more entrenched rugby nations, such as England, France, and even rugby powerhouse New Zealand. (These top tier rugby nations still tend to win the majority of the IRB Sevens matches, but if planned out right 

Rugby sevens was selected to be in the 2016 Olympics in England, and one reason it was picked (in my opinion) was that instead of 15-a-side rugby, sevens allows these additional nations to be competitive. (Hey, even the U.S. – current Olympic Rugby champions – can make the time to prepare a top-flight team). 

Now if this is carried on to a logical conclusion, sevens should be pushed much more in the developing rugby nations, with the inclusion and additional marketing of the Sevens World Cup, to allow Nations a real chance to compete with the powers of the rugby universe. While most top tier rugby teams still focus on 15-a-side first and seven second, smaller nations can dedicate the time to reverse those and have a better showing in the London Olympics.

 

Irish Rugby Doubles Down on Pricing

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According to this report from Scrum.com and from the Irish Times, the Ireland Rugby Union is sticking firm to its plan to sell tickets to the national team’s November test matches against South Africa, Samoa, Argentina and New Zealand only as a pack – not individually.

Quote from Scrum.com:

“(M)eaning that those wishing to attend the games at the redeveloped Lansdowne Road venue would have to fork out a grand total of €340 (£280).”

 

I understand the need for Irish Rugby to keep money coming in, especially since Rugby is (according to the IRFU) the only truly professional sport in the nation, and still has to compete with soccer, Gaelic Football and other sports for fans.  But not to offer tickets to individual games instead of the entire block of matches is a bad plan, because some people aren’t going to want to see all of those games and others can probably afford to go to one game, but not all of them (The Irish Times also points out that this is a 21% increase over tickets from last year) It’s not a good way to bolster fan support in the building to the 2011 Rugby World Cup, especially in an economic crunch.

This comes in the middle of a public relations campaign to resist proposals by the Irish Government to allow Six Nations and Heineken Cup games to be shown over the air for free.  Will this strategy work for the short or long term for Irish Rugby? We’ll find out.

 

 

 

 

 

All Blacks Set to Win Tri Nations in “Soccer City”

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The New Zealand All Blacks are on the verge of winning the 2010 Tri Nations tournament today, facing off yet again with the South Africa RFU Springboks in South Africa’s “Soccer City” – the new stadium built in Soweto for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Can the All Blacks survive in a stadium packed with 90,000 rabid Springbok fans?  That’s a stadium size usually seen in Rugby World Cup finals matches.

Can the Springboks bounce back from what must have been a disappointing start to the 2010 Tri Nations campaign?

Will the recent complaining by the Springboks about “uneven refereeing patterns” and the yearly threat to leave SANZAR finally play out on the field?

These questions, and more, to be answered soon fellow ruggers!

 

South Africa Works the Refs in Phase 2 – Springboks Threaten to Quit SANZAR?

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In a move that smacks of “taking our ball and going home since we can’t get our own way,” multiple media outlets are reporting that the South African RFU is looking to end the SANZAR relationship with themselves, New Zealand and Australian rugby unions. 

Money graphs from the Sydney Morning Herald:

This year the Springboks management have complained throughout the Tri Nations about the way referees were officiating them and the All Blacks.

There was also unrest when SANZAR pushed ahead with a misconduct hearing against Springboks coach Peter de Villiers, who said referees wanted the All Blacks to get winning results to help make next year’s World Cup a success.

When Sanzar ordered a the hearing it sent SARU president Oregan Hoskins into such a rage that he called it a “declaration of war”.
Let me say it now, if nothing else this is a really bad PR move. It does look like the South Africans are upset that the All Blacks and Australians are beating them in this year’s Tri Nations and that de Villiers was called before a SANZAR official for claiming that the officials are giving the New Zealand All Blacks an unfair advantage in order to build up more attendance at next year’s Rugby World Cup. Of course let’s also not forget that South Africa tried this last year as well, before being coaxed to back down from the ledge.  And this is really funny when you consider that SANZAR asked Argentina to join them starting in 2011. So are we going to have to call them ArgNZAR from here on out?

And far be it for me, a “New Mexico Yank in King Arthur’s Scrum” to point it out (but I will anyway) that SANZAR was partially formed in response to the push for rugby professionalism in the mid-90s.  SANZAR won the fight to take charge of professional rugby in the three most important rugby nations in the Southern Hemisphere, and now South Africa is threatening to leave their competition with two of the best teams in rugby in order to… what?

Rumor has it that the Springboks might want to switch over and turn the Six Nations into Seven Nations, since they are in more or less the same time zone as Europe.  This does make sense from a timing standpoint, and has always been a problem for New Zealand and Australia – since there are really no Northern Hemisphere teams in their time zones that can provide a challenge for them.  That said, if this were the reason for wanting to switch, South Africa picked a really bad time to announce it – cause it looks like they are doing this out of spite for not getting their way with SANZAR in this year’s Tri Nations.

Is Rugby Union in Danger of “Capping” Itself? (Part 1 of 2)

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This thought occurred to me as I cooked dinner tonight and read this story from the New Zealand Herald.  In Australia, originally thought of as a hotbed for rugby (and it still is) rugby is the fourth most watched sport in the country. falling short to Aussie Rules Football, Rugby League and Soccer.  

This got me thinking, in a lot of nations rugby is a very popular sport, but it’s not the most popular. It doesn’t have the impact in Australia or Great Britain that, say, American Football has in America.  It’s still an incredibly popular sport, but it’s not quite as popular as soccer, or even cricket in some parts of the world. 

I also started thinking that because of rugby’s provincial background, coming from the schools for “upper class” kids, or in the case of South Africa, a very definitive white-black divide between rugby and soccer (remember the scene from Invictus where the two security officers, one white and one black, discussed Soccer vs. Rugby? The white security officer was talking soccer down and the African officer was having none of it.)

You see this is true today in the United States as well, as those who see themselves as the ‘true arbiters’ of the sport and pooh-pooh most things coming from USA Rugby tend to be from Berkeley, California (home of the perennial champion University of California Bears – more on why they don’t want change in a later post), or the east coast, another bastion of this schoolhouse mentality to rugby.

This upper class mentality led to a split in rugby in the 19th century, between rugby union (which is most of what I write about here) which was played by the upper classes and rugby league, played by working class players and becoming a professional league many many years before Union picked up on it.  The reason being was that if players were not being paid, then those that were hurt playing the game had no income to replace what they would lose by missing work. 

This didn’t impact upper class and “professional” professions (barrister, banker, etc) because they didn’t rely on their backs to make money. But for the players who would eventually become league players, they were the working class – the coal miners, the farmers, the people who couldn’t afford to play without getting a level of compensation. Thus led to one of the first splits of rugby, thanks to a class on class struggle. And you’re seeing this split occur in places like Australia where League appears to be more popular than Rugby Union, and in England, the home of both codes of Rugby. 

(as an aside, I remember visiting my dad in Texas and watching Rugby on ESPN late in the evening back in the 90’s, and even back then the games they were showing were League games, not Rugby Union)

Previously I extolled the virtues of the love of Rugby in New Zealand, as this N.Z. Herald story points out, Australia has about five times the population of New Zealand, which brings a lot more sponsorship and salary dollars to the Aussie’s National Rugby League than the Australian contingent of the Australian-New Zealand-South African Super 14 competition. 

In the long run, this could decimate the game of rugby, relegating it to a third or fourth popular sport in many nations unless something is done to change it.

And what can be done to boost rugby’s image in not only the traditional rugby powers but also in other parts of the world? Tune in tomorrow to find out!

 

Quinnipiac strikes a blow for NCAA Women’s Rugby!

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In what could turn out to be a big step forward for rugby in the United States, Quinnipiac University announced a plan to add women’s rugby to the school’s athletics program to meet the school’s Title IX compliance.

For those readers who don’t know, Title IX is a federal requirement that mandates that athletics programs offer an equal number of sports scholarship programs for male and female athletes.  Since American Football tends to take up so many scholarship places in an athletics program, universities usually scramble to find enough women’s sports to balance the scholarship scales. Quinnipiac originally tried to claim cheerleading as a sport but U.S. District Court denied that, so in order to better meet the requirements of Title IX they are adding women’s rugby and golf as varsity sports.

This is an opening for rugby that I’ve seen for a while.  While many ruggers and former ruggers wanted to see men’s and women’s rugby available in colleges, men’s rugby was never going to really become a varsity sport – outside of a few unique university programs such as California. But women’s rugby, which is now considered an “emerging” NCAA sport, has had an opening for a long time since so many colleges are looking for ways to balance out the impact of America Football. 

Too few universities have taken advantage of adding 35-40 women’s athletes to an athletic department – instead they have slashed men’s sports such as gymnastics or wrestling.  Women’s and men’s rugby clubs and local unions should be contacting the NCAA and their local universities and colleges to push for women’s rugby to be included as part of their programs. This will also open up a lot of positions for collegiate rugby coaches and assistant coaches. 

Sorry guys, but you’re screwed on this little deal. Blame it on the Dallas Cowboys.

One Way to Build Youth Rugby in the U.S.

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A lot of teams in the U.S. are doing this, I’m sure – but according to the Edinburgh Rugby Web site the “Black and Red Army” has been handing out Edinburgh-branded rugby kits (gear, uniforms, etc for the Rugby-lingo challenged among the readership here) to volunteers who help out with youth rugby teams in Scotland.

It’s not a lot of additional cost, especially if you are ordering new jerseys every year or two, but if you start to connect your club with a local high school, or other youth rugby club, it might be worth it to invest in some additional gear that the coaching staff might be able to take to their own home games and sport on the sideline, or to help the team with some additional sponsorship fundraising in addition to your own.  Especially if you’re one of the high-level teams playing in the U.S. right now.