Houston Rugby Takes A Giant Step Forward

By
the time Brad Allen finished his first-half scoring run, the Houston
Athletic Rugby Club had the game in the bag. Now they’re headed to the
first Sweet 16 playoff berth in club history.

“It’s
a really big deal,” says club president Will Wornardt, who searched
records dating to the inception of Houston rugby in the mid-1960s and
couldn’t find anything to suggest it has ever made it this far.

The
United States doesn’t have a professional rugby league. Houston, along
with the club in Austin, plays in Division I, the second highest level
of amateur competition. (No. 1 is called Super League.)

Allen
is a field-engineer recruiter in Houston who played rugby at Ohio
State. He scored the team’s first try, then converted the kick
himself — and added a field goal — to give the Bulls a 10-3 lead over the
visiting Denver Highlanders. According to Allen, “our confidence
soared” from there; the Bulls went on to a comfortable 24-15 win.

If
the football term “touchdown” doesn’t make sense, that’s because it
comes from the rugby try, in which a player must forcibly plant the
ball in the end zone in order to score. While notably lacking the
forward pass and any distinction between offensive and defensive
players, rugby does also feature the scrum — a big pile-up of each team’s
heaviest players — in addition to unique elements of its notorious social
side such as boot shoots and Zulu Warriors.

Saturday’s
game took place at the Westland YMCA, where team members previously
moved out four tons of rebar and cement in order to put down a field
and erect some goal posts. The festivities then carried over to the
team bar, Ernie’s on Banks, another long-standing rugby tradition.

But
as the game becomes more popular and accessible in the US — high
schools such as St. Thomas and Strake now field teams — some of that
classic rugby debauchery is fading. Hazing and nudity are becoming less
common, for instance, and Wornardt says he can’t remember the last time
he heard a rugby song. The Bulls, meanwhile, are averaging about 50
players per practice and also have a women’s team.

Part
of the club’s newfound success can also be attributed to the influx of
expats. HARC has player from New Zealand (the world rugby capitol),
Australia, South Africa, England, Scotland and Ireland — some
naturalized, some not. A club can only have five foreign players on its
roster.

Wornardt
says the team relies heavily on British player-coach Carl Newman, who
plays eight-man — think a middle linebacker who can handle the ball — and
contributed several key plays to Saturday’s win.

The Bulls travel to Austin on May 16 to face the Las Vegas Blackjacks.

The
regular season, which started in late September, ends with the
playoffs. The club then runs a summer touch league — in which, according
to Wornardt, “the skinny young guys run around in the heat, and we sit
around with coolers and beers.”

New players are welcome at practices, which are held on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7pm at the Westlake YMCA. Visit www.houstonrugby.org for more info.