The men’s rugby team had a home game on Sept. 22, 2012 against St. John’s, where they had the opportunity to work together as a team and improve their game. The team was scheduled to play Luther on Sept. 29, but Luther cancelled last minute, and the team scrimmaged for some extra practice. The men will be competing against St. John’s once again on Oct. 10, and to finish off the season, the team will travel to play St. Mary’s on Oct. 20.

Starting the season off with a loss is not ideal, but the men have been looking forward. A few seniors graduated last year, and the team is smaller than it has been in previous years.

“This season the goals are really to get the guys comfortable on the field. We’re about half way through this season and we’ve already seen a lot of improvement,” Junior Josh Phillips said.

With a smaller team, the men have been working hard to keep up with the larger teams they will be competing against.

“Our goal is to win. We know we’re a smaller team, so we’re going to have to accomplish that goal by working on fitness. We’ve been conditioning hard,” Sophomore Benjamin Williams said.

With such a small number of guys on the team, some of the players are out on the field for the whole game. Playing for the full eighty minutes is tough, but the guys have managed to continue working well together as a team to push through the inconvenience.

“I suspect the rest of the season will go well, but I will admit, we need more people. The guys that are out now are spirited and into the game, and it’s great. We just don’t have that many alternates,” Junior Stetson McAdams said.

This year, the main goal of the men’s rugby team is to recruit new players.

“We have a wide range of guys that come out and play, different sizes and athletic abilities, so if you are interested in playing come out to a practice,” Sophomore Hayden Goldstien said.

Many are convinced that rugby is a rough and vicious game. According to both Goldstien and McAdams, this is not true.

“There are really few to no injuries over the course of the season because both teams realize that there is a limit to that roughness. You want to beat the other team, not beat them up,” McAdams said.

Rugby is a fair game, played with plenty of sportsmanship and can be found enjoyable by many athletes.

“There is a famous saying that rugby is a hooligan’s sport played by gentlemen; I like to think of it more like that. We don’t wear pads, and we go hard on every play and tackle, but at the end of the day we have an extreme amount of respect for the sport and ruggers and don’t see it as a vicious activity,” Goldstien said.

The general public does not have a very strong understanding of rugby. For those who don’t know, rugby is played over an eighty-minute time frame. The game is split into two forty-minute sections. There is generally about a ten-minute break for half time in between. The forwards are similar to linemen and linebackers in football. There are also players positioned as a back. These athletes are just like the backs in a football game. The ball can be carried or kicked at any point during a play. A scrum is when the number of situations is restarted and both team’s forwards get together at the shoulders over the mark to get the ball back to their team’s side.

The main principle is to score as many points as possible. The team can gain points scoring by tries, which are worth five points. Tries are similar to a touchdown in football. The try zone of the opponent is the area between the try line and dead ball line. A try can also occur as a penalty. A team is also able to score points by conversion, which is awarded to the team when a try is scored. The conversion allows the team to gain two more points by kicking the ball between rugby goal posts. A penalty kick is a way to score three points. It is awarded to a team if a serious foul has occurred. A drop goal is when the ball is kicked towards the goal during a running play, and can also award a team with three points.