Just out of curiosity has anyone on the forum personally or had any friends play any Rugby in the US ? And if yes what clubs? Curious to hear about the club competition over there and the standard, and how far they may be off from having a fully professional competition? Seems like there are plenty of Aussies over there or that have been over there
Yup! For a couple years now
Started playing my senior year of secondary school for Doylestown U-19 (2008-2009). Since then I've played the bulk of my rugby for Temple University Men's Rugby (2009-2012) with scattered games for Doylestown Men's as well as a few invitational sides and 7s stuff. I'm currently on an indefinite sabbatical due to a pretty nasty back injury (stress fractures in my lower back and a few herniated discs to boot). I've got connections at both of the major local Men's clubs (Media and Schuylkill River Exiles) and will be out with SRE if and when I'm able to play again. At the moment I'm helping coach Unionville High School, former (and future!) Pennsylvania state champs.
I'm very far down the road to recovery (pretty much no pain and at most minor discomfort in lower back/hamstrings in day-to-day) but I'm still having issues with the way my back is responding to training and weights, so not totally sure if I will ever be able to make the step back up to playing full-contact Men's rugby again. Time will tell I guess. Anyway, back on topic.
The only areas I can really speak about with confidence are the Mid-Atlantic and California, as well as the Northeast to a slightly lesser degree. My knowledge of Midwest and South teams is pretty cursory. I think @Workingclassrugger and @SevensPHD may have some insight there, though.
In the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast there are a handful of quality clubs (NYAC, Old Blue, SRE, PAC, Marlyland Exiles, Boston Irish Wolfhounds off the top of my head - don't take that as a complete list because it's not even close). But even within those clubs there absolutely are tiers, with NYAC resting pretty comfortably on top of the dog pile right now. The further north you go up the coast the more likely you're going to see European-style play due to the weather. NYAC plays with a lot of structure but execute very well on those structures. This seemingly has not translated all too well to the Eagles (current Head Coach and halfback pairing are from NYAC) but that's a whole different story (Shaun Davies at 9 and we beat the Maori All Blacks comfortably..don't get me started).
I have the most internal knowledge of Schuylkill River and they are definitely the prototype for what a lot of amateur clubs in the USA should be moving towards. Excellent coaching with a deep understanding of the game, playing with an attacking mindset on both sides of the ball, a very dedicated playing group who are hungry to win titles and improve themselves as players/athletes, and an emerging coaching structure beyond the training sessions themselves (S&C coach, nutrition stuff, etc). It's still very much amateur but they are really on the right path as far as I've been able to identify.
Weather does hinder skill development at times though, especially when you consider how late in life many players begin playing (this is changing though, high schools are starting to pick up the sport more than ever before). When you can't play for 4-5 months of the year it does make it difficult to achieve the proper volume of game exposure for some of the guys.
California, Washington, Utah and Colorado are the future of the game in the United States right now and I'm very pleased with the way things are shaping up out there.
The Pacific Rugby Premiership is in the middle of it's first season and has produced some very good games to far. Some of the players are being paid (so I've heard, likely on Shute Shield level but this is a
huge step up relatively) and most importantly, the competition is being run outside of the jurisdiction of USA Rugby.
This match (video below is just highlights) gives you a good taste of the skill level of some of the teams in the PRP, definitely not up to higher-level Australian clubs yet but I think it's higher than most foreigners would expect:
USAR does some things well, but running and supporting the club competitions has never been one of them.
As much as I would like to bury Nigel Melville and most of the executive staff of USA Rugby alive things on the whole are looking upward for rugby here. The emergence of elite 7s programs (hey, it's a start folks) like Serevi (although they operate through USAR they have done a ton of really great work) and Tiger Rugby amongst others (Atlantis Rugby comes to mind) is another shining light in the USA Rugby scene. They're doing a ton in terms of developing players from a young age and exposing them to an elite training environment. It might be 7s but honestly I don't think it's doing anything to detract from the growth of the 15s game right now. If anything, it's having the opposite effect.
I'm worried about what will happen if we don't qualify for the Rio Olympics, as there is a very real chance of this happening.
On the whole, we've gone from crawling to making baby steps in the past 5-10 years as rugby-playing nation. A few tweaks and we could be walking on our own soon. As long as we keep moving forward, I will be happy.
