The Rugby Outsider

A Muppet Movie reference in a rugby blog? Yes a Muppet Movie reference in a rugby blog. Sung by Dave Goelz as Gonzo The Great from the 1979 movie.   Follow along, you'll see where it's going. As a sport, Rugby has a welcoming culture.  Players, coaches, administrators, owners, family, friends and fans are the lifeblood of rugby.  New to the sport?  No problem!  Welcome, join us and  learn about the original oval-shaped football game.  There are definite similarities--a good many differences too--but if you have watched American football, you do have the basics to understand rugby. Offload, conversions, penalty goals, tries--these are a few terms that if you say Option play, extra-point, field goal and touchdown, a football fan will instantly know what that means.  It's a start, and football fans definitely have the basics even though it is a completely different game. This looks familiar, vaguely familiar Almost unreal yet, it's too ...

Hello, Rugby readers, With 2011 being a World Cup year , it's time to start publishing again. The original post of this blog, with my assertion that Americans can take to Rugby like we did with soccer back in the 1970's. November, Planet Rugby published this article in which IRB Chief Mike Miller says that the question is "when and not if" the United States will one day host a Rugby World Cup. The article goes on to talk about Rugby Sevens being added to the Olympic games in Rio de Janiero in 2016 as a crucial stepping stone to re-establishing the game in the US. Additionally, should the US qualify in men's sevens, they would go to the Olympics as the defending champion (even though it was 1924 and the XV version). More to come.

Rugby is not even a blip on the radar screen as a sport in the USA. That's not to say that people here aren't trying to introduce the sport to the masses--and have been playing it for quite some time. We have a domestic rugby league, the Rugby Super League , and College Rugby , and the sport is played in probably thousands of small parks across the nation, including this one less than a mile from my house (as the crow flies.) Where does that leave us? Well, seemingly with a long way to go towards respectability for us fans of the sport. I have to admit that I have never played or watched a rugby game in person. I have seen a few books, read a few articles, and generally keep up with the game through the Internet and, as I have found out, through iPhone apps . OK, I am too cheap to buy the "official" USA app--I have a bunch of freebies. But you can, if you wish in the information age, keep up with the sport in general terms in a way that was never possible 20 ...