Team members in the Monmouth Rugby Football Club compete for possession of the ball. The sport is gaining in popularity, and the Monmouth club, based in Red Bank, is expanding its youth programs. COURTESY OF MONMOUTH RUGBY FOOTBALL CLUB As the Monmouth Rugby Football Club prepares to enter the spring rugby season, the nation is perhaps becoming more familiar with the sport than at any other time in recent history.
The sport of rugby was once a rarity in North America, but American youth and collegiate clubs have recently experienced unprecedented growth.
Pat Moroney, director of rugby and men’s head coach for the club, has been involved in the sport for 35 years in five different countries.
According to Moroney, who also serves as head coach at Christian Brothers Academy (CBA) in Lincroft, the depth of the club and the potential for the future have never been stronger.
“I think we’re looking far healthier right now than at any time while I’ve been coaching in the club,” Moroney said. “I was very lucky when I started coaching that I had a very experienced group of players and had an incredible amount of success. … But, unfortunately, at that time we weren’t really seeing the growth in the younger players.”
Now, things are different. Not only has Monmouth been finding success on the pitch — in 2014, the men’s team won the Empire Geographical Union championship, and the women’s team was promoted to Division 1 in the Empire GU — but the club has also made great strides in expanding its youth programs.
“The club has a plan in place to grow the youth system,” Moroney said. “We now have an U19 girls team as well as boys, and we’re going to look toward even younger programs over the next couple of years.
“I’m very excited that we can help grow the sport in an organic way in Monmouth County.”
The Monmouth Rugby Football Club was formed in 1973 with the name of Brookdale Rugby Club. Within three years, the club adopted its current name and has since expanded into the robust organization it is today.
The traditional version of the sport, Rugby Union, is played with 15-player sides on a 100-meter pitch, or field. A try, or score, is worth five points after a player grounds the ball across the try line, similar to American football’s end zones. A kicker then attempts to “convert” the try — worth two points — by booting the ball through a pair of uprights. Rugby Union is an 80-minute game, divided into 40-minute halves.
Rugby Sevens is similar, following the same rules and scoring system, but with only seven players per side. This distinction is significant, as it changes strategy and increases the pace of the game. Sevens is aptly named, as the seven-player sides play for seven-minute halves.
Fall 2015 marks the start of the Rugby World Cup, which will be brought to audiences in the U.S. by NBC Sports Group and Universal Sports Network. Rugby Sevens will make its Olympic debut in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
In short, rugby isn’t so foreign as it once was, and Moroney expects the increased visibility will lead to even more growth for the Monmouth Rugby Football Club.
“If you look at soccer and the way [it grew] from being able to see the men and the women perform on the world stage, I think we’ll see the same thing with rugby,” Moroney said. “We can really get a lot of kids playing. If we do that, then we’ll be successful at the men’s level and the women’s level later on.” He called Rugby Sevens’ entrance into the Olympics a “massive window of opportunity.”
Monmouth Rugby Football Club participates in both versions of the game.
Moroney, who was once a self-described “15s purist,” has embraced Rugby Sevens since he began coaching it, adding that it’s a great way for players and spectators to become acquainted with the rules of the game and get excited about rugby.
“The thing that is great about sevens is the adrenaline,” Moroney said, adding that CBA parents often tell him that sevens is the game they look forward to the most.
“Parents will come up to me and say, ‘I know the boys love playing 15s, but I love sevens because I can actually understand exactly what’s going on,’ ” he said. “Now that they understand sevens … they’ll understand 15s way better because it’s literally just adding eight more players onto the field.”
In the past month alone, Moroney said 35 new players have stepped onto the pitch with the rugby club during their open practices, which take place Tuesdays and Thursdays for men and women, and Mondays and Wednesdays for the U-19 teams. More information is available at monmouthrugbyclub.com. But beyond the pulse-pounding excitement of hard-earned tries and big hits is a community based on camaraderie and respect.
“Rugby is not just what happens between the white lines, but equally important is what happens off the field,” Moroney said. “The second the final whistle blows, you become friends with the guy playing opposite you.
“There are two parts to growing rugby. There’s the part on the field, where you get to run around for 80 minutes and tackle and pass and score. But then you have the off-the-field experience where you socialize with the people you played against.”
Through the social aspect, which Monmouth Rugby Football Club maintains at its Red Bank clubhouse, the history of rival clubs is learned and a respect for one’s opponents is developed.
“The community is just that tight,” Moroney said.
Optimism within that community as to the sport’s future on American shores is palpable and real. As Moroney put it, “Rugby is at a tipping point now.”