The sport of rugby is broken down into two codes of play; rugby league and rugby union. Rugby union has a much longer history in the US than rugby league, and it is this code that provides most of the competitive rugby in the States.
It is widely accepted that the first match took place in between Harvard University and McGill University at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
A competition between Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Columbia was created shortly afterwards. The first USA international rugby match was played against Australia in at Berkeley, with the visitors taking the spoils. Despite winning the gold medal against France in the Olympics of , rugby struggled to gain a strong following in the USA in the first half of the 20 th Century. USA Rugby, the governing body of rugby in the states, was founded in The first international fixtures since followed, with the USA hosting Australia again.
Since then, the sport has seen a steady growth in numbers both playing and supporting. Many involved in the game claim that rugby is the fasting-growing sport in the US. Data from a study between and showed that the number of people participating in rugby grew by over a million.
There are now over college teams in the country. Rugby sevens, a scaled down form of rugby featuring seven players per side has also been a hugely successful sport in the US.
The US has competed at every international rugby sevens World Series since its first season in — Rugby sevens has a huge impact on players taking up the full game, with a large percentage of players first introduced to the sport in its shortened form. Since its foundation in , major league rugby has offered a competitive format for players and fans of the game in the USA.
Beginning as part of the framework of amateur rugby clubs, the league played its first fixtures in American Football is a game that has far more specified roles, whereas rugby is a game where everyone has to be able to do at least little bit of everything. This means that NFL players can train in a way that enables them to maximise their abilities, both skill and athletic, in the areas that need to be maximised.
There is both a positive and negative to this, in terms of the argument of NFL athletes playing rugby, at least. The positive is that it would suggest that it would simply mean the players would have to take the time to train up their other areas. Rather than just focussing on short, anaerobic bursts and quick recovery, they would have to complement this with the ability to keep going for a more sustained time with less recovery. The negative is that it would mean they would have less time to train their specific areas, meaning they would become more well-rounded, but probably less proficient in their current areas of expertise.
From this point of view, we can see the differences between the two sports more easily, at least in terms of how the players would adapt. Obviously the skill sets are different. But looking at it purely from an athlete perspective, it would not be infeasible to suggest that it would not take long for elite athletes to pick up the skills required to excel at the other.
Then comes the next thing, which would cause a transition period: time. The difference between playing the top rugby teams in the world and everyone else is the pace of the game. A team like the All Blacks plays the game so quickly that there is such little time to execute the skills you have.
They are so good at disorganizing a defence, or putting an attack under pressure, that often an otherwise good team will be made to look unskilled.
They operate largely off instinct, something that has been drilled into them since they were little kids and has come from picking up cues that have become inherent in New Zealand culture. You see it whenever any team plays against someone a level above or beneath themselves. It takes a period of adjustment to get used to an opponent playing at an increased speed, no matter how good you are.
These are the two key reasons why having good athletes does not necessarily equate to having good rugby players. Sure it helps. But rugby is a game where being able to run a fast mile time is just as important as running a fast yard dash, as well as having to rely largely on instinct to operate at the top level. Ultimately rugby is a team game. A good team will wear you down, manipulating the defence so you cannot stop an attack, or do whatever they can to nullify your attacking weapons.
Being big, fast and strong does not mean you cannot be tackled. Unless you have another string to your bow, generally you are not going to get very far in the game. Jonah Lomu did it, as did Rupeni Caucaunibuca, but there have been very few others, and the chances of doing it in the modern game are increasingly unlikely.
Consider Julian Savea, probably the most destructive player in world rugby today. He was billed as a hugely talented athlete, but it was not until he developed the ability to pass, catch, kick and read a game that he became a quality rugby player. The event turned out to be a money loser for cash-strapped USA Rugby, and World Rugby had to come through with an emergency loan. For rugby in the U. The American sports graveyard is crowded with professional leagues that failed.
Add the unfamiliarity of a foreign sport such as rugby and the challenges are numerous. MLR uses the man version of the sport. The week season ends with a championship match July 7. And the league uses a single-entity ownership model, meaning teams pay wages and travel costs up front. They also pay a fee that is in exchange for equal shares of league ownership.
Everybody has a slice of the pie, and we have control over parity. Super 7s Rugby, a league that will use the trimmed-down seven-player version, is in the development stages and could debut later this year. And there is a decline in kids playing football because of the head injury issue. Rugby requires you to be fit and fast. You have to be able to tackle and catch. Sevens is high scoring, exciting and our Super 7s fits a one-hour format. Super 7s games will consist of four minute quarters.
Wendell Barnhouse started his career as a sportswriter at 18 and spent the next four decades in newspapers writing and editing. From he was the website correspondent for the Big 12 Conference producing written and video content. He has spent the last three years freelancing, most recently covering college basketball for The Athletic. HR McMaster on rugby: 'The warrior ethos is what a good team has'.
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