Club sports have slowly become a thing of the past for some time now. Back in the “good ole days”, flag football, powder puff, and all sorts of intramural sports were an integral part of students’ college experience. There were a number of season games, playoff games with implications, and everyone was competitive.
Nowadays, seasons have been cut short and different rules have been in place for safety purposes. Safety precautions are, of course, a necessary condition to protect participants, but they perhaps decrease the entertainment of the game and discourage people from participating.
However, rugby is not one of those sports. Rugby has been, is, and will continue to be a physical, smash mouth sport; involving carrying, pitching, tackling, and wrestling of and for the ball. Not to mention, a tremendous amount of strategy is required.
Essentially, rugby seems to contain all of the fun elements of football; meaning, almost everything except blocking in the trenches. Everyone can score. It’s high speed, requires toughness, and in every sense of the word, bravery.
The Auburn rugby team played around the beginning of school until late fall in the Southeastern Collegiate Rugby Conference. This year, the team went 2-4. After losing their first four games, the team finished the season strong with two wins over Mississippi State and Ole Miss.
Scheduling works largely the same as it would in other sports.
Basically, the team represents the University in the SEC West division during the season, and then a playoff takes place later between the eastern and western divisions.
But despite the success to close out the season, the club wants to get more competitive.
Senior team member Nick Magnella commented on what they look for in future players and who is usually recruited to be on the team.
“The Auburn Rugby club wants anyone who wants to learn a new sport, hit some people, win an SEC title and most importantly become part of great team and have fun while being at Auburn University,” said Magnella.
“It is a very fun sport where everyone has a chance to score points…plus, you get really cool gear with the dues that you pay”.
But what the senior standout really emphasized about the team is the camaraderie, similar to what he experienced in high school sports.
“There is no better feeling than putting the jersey with the AU on (it) ... I joined because playing rugby was how I got to represent the University.”
Magnella encourages anyone who is interested in joining the team to check their Facebook page (Auburn University Men’s Rugby) or looking them up on the campus recreation website.
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