Monmouth Rugby Club set to host 29th Jersey Cup
40-team competition
is largest one-day
tournament in Northeast
By doug mckenzie
Staff Writer
Rugby players from throughout the New York-metropolitan area will flock to Sea Girt this weekend to take part in the 29th annual Jersey Shore Rugby Tournament, hosted by the Monmouth Rugby Club.
Over 40 teams from all over the nation will compete for the Jersey Cup, including some of the top teams in the Northeast area.
"It’s the largest one-day tournament in the Northeast," said Monmouth Rugby Club Vice President Brian Muller. "It usually draws around 40 teams, and has attracted teams from as far as England and Jamaica.
"This year the Division II national championship team from New Haven (Conn.) is coming down," he added. "They passed up on a local tournament in Hartford to come down here because we’re offering the better competition."
The tournament will get under way Saturday morning at 8:30 a.m. at the Sea Girt National Guard Armory, with the championship round expected to start around 5:30 p.m. All games in the Premier Division will have 25 minute halves, while games in the other brackets will have 22-minute halves. The finals for the Premier and Club divisions will be 30 minutes, while the finals for the B, Social and Women’s divisions will remain 22-minute halves.
The tournament is being sponsored by the Red Bank-based Monmouth Rugby Club, and Bud Light, although no alcohol will be permitted on the premises.
Following the championship finals, a trophy presentation will be held, followed by a party at the Boathouse in Belmar, sponsored by the Monmouth Rugby Club.
Muller, who is in charge of fund raising and is the tournament’s director, said that the tournament is generally very successful, with some fierce competition throughout. As for the local boys, their success in the tournament itself is somewhat secondary.
"Sometimes we do well, other times we do poorly, depending largely on what our goal is coming in," he explained. "Our primary purpose for this tournament is to raise money for the club. It is by far our largest fund-raiser. Our secondary goal is to play rugby."
In addition to raising money, the club is always looking for new members.
"Our membership is continually growing, and is now at about 200 members," he said. "We have about 60 active, young players, with the rest being what we’ll call social memberships."
The club members come from throughout central New Jersey, stretching from Middlesex County down to Ocean County.
"We have some players who travel up to one and a half hours to play with us because of the high level of play," Muller said.
Although the Jersey Shore Rugby Tournament is the club’s largest event of the year, it is simply one of many highlights for the members. The club plays two seasons, a fall and a spring season. The fall season is the league season, with the schedule determined by USA Rugby.
The schedule for the spring season depends on how well the team performed during the previous fall. If the team did well, it is entered into the national playoffs, whereas if the team struggled in the fall, the schedule is open, so that a team can play just about anyone.
Last fall, the Monmouth Rugby Club team struggled a bit after going on an impressive run of qualifying for the national playoffs four of the previous five years, and even earning a ranking of fifth in the nation at one point.
"After rebuilding through the fall season, it was an interesting spring season for us, where we got to play a lot of teams that we wouldn’t normally see," Muller said.
During the fall season, the Monmouth squad regularly faces teams from nearby communities such as Princeton, Union County, North Jersey and Bayonne. Montclair also has a team, but rarely faces the Monmouth squad.
Monmouth plays its home games at Thompson Park in Middletown on Saturdays. In addition, the team practices behind the Middletown Village School on Tuesday and Thursday nights.
With interest in rugby growing, the Monmouth Rugby Club is hoping to continually expand. The club was founded as the Brookdale College Rugby Football Club in the fall of 1973 by Doug Coyle and Steve Barberio, who were teachers at the college. Brookdale suffered, as all young clubs do, through several undistinguished seasons, even changing its colors several times so as not to be recognized the next year.
As the years passed, the club players and leaders developed, and the club eventually found itself playing in the Metropolitan Division I in the late 1970s.
In 1978, the Royal Renegades Rugby Football Club, a women’s rugby club, was founded, as a team without a home. They bounced from place to place, playing in Princeton, Blackthorn and in Monmouth County. In the fall of 1983, they decided to stop roaming and put their roots in Monmouth County. The name was changed to the Monmouth Renegades, and shortly thereafter, they became affiliated with the Monmouth Rugby Football Club.
With the marriage of the two teams, the Monmouth Rugby Club became the first club in the tristate area to have both a men’s and a women’s side.
The Renegades have also been very successful of late, even winning the 2000 Northeast Division II championship. This past season, they, like their male counterparts, went through a bit of a rebuilding process, but expect to return to the competitive ways quickly.
The Renegades will also be participating in this weekend’s tournament, playing in a four-team bracket.
For more information on the Jersey Shore Rugby Tournament, log on to the MRC’s Web site at www.monmouth rugbyclub.com, and click on the tournament link.