March 31, 2010 Correction:
The man featured in the photo printed is not Head Coach Baird Blake, but Assistant Coach Craft. 

By Faraz Majid
<[email protected]>

Junior Dominic Deganutti joined the rugby team his sophomore year.  Like most players, he had no previous knowledge of the sport before joining the team but he quickly caught on.

“I didn’t have much knowledge at all before playing,” Deganutti said. “I had some friends play freshman year and so I joined sophomore year.”

First year rugby player and sophomore Samuel “Sam” Price joined the team for the same reason, “(I joined) because my friends were playing it,” he said.  “(I became interested) because there are not very many rules.”

Because rugby is not a common sport in elementary or middle schools, many players come into high school without any prior experience or knowledge of the sport. 

However, rugby has gained some popularity over the years.  For example, rugby is set to be an Olympic sport for the first time in the 2016 Summer Olympics.  According to Blake, rugby is played in more countries than any other sport except for soccer. But here, rugby is still a sport being learned by a bulk of the rugby players on the squad.

“The majority of the kids don’t have any experience,” Blake said.  “Especially seniors come out and a lot of them have not really played before.” In fact, more than half the team is rookies with 10 being rookies. Including the seniors, 35 out of the 69 total rugby players are rookies, which is more than half the team.  Blake said that 20 seniors from last year’s team graduated and there are only two returning starters.

New players are usually taught the basics of the game early on.  “For new players we start with conditioning,” Deganutti said, “The new and old players are separated (during conditioning) so the new players can learn the basics.”

Price said, “They split you up into experienced and inexperienced. We run drills but they (the coaches) help out the less experienced players more.”

According to both Price and Deganutti it is much easier to learn rugby in a game situation.

“We do a lot of scrimmaging, it is a lot easier to learn in a game scenario than in a drill,” Deganutti said.

Price agrees and said, “When you are actually playing the game it is less organized, and when your practicing it is all planned out and it does not work that way in a real game.”

Experienced players tend to help out the new players as well.  “If I see something blatantly wrong I’ll help them out (the new players),” Deganutti said.  “Usually when we scrimmage or in drills if they (the more experienced players) know something is wrong they will help you or the coaches will.”

Price said he has been helped by more experienced players before, “I was playing wing and I was supposed to follow a kick and I didn’t know it,” he said.  “Another (more experienced) player told me to go and get the ball.”

However, there are also indications of rugby growing in popularity.  “We actually have a program that goes down to the 5th and 6th graders, we’re actually moving it down this year and our eighth graders actually started tackling last year,” Blake said.

“I went to school here in Carmel, Carmel Elementary, Carmel Middle School, CHS,” Blake said. “Carmel’s (rugby) program has been here a long time, but there was no rugby when I was growing up, in high school at least.”

Blake said he also tries to encourage his players to watch professional rugby matches on television.

“If I find out there is a game on I’ll try watching it,” Deganutti said. “Our coach (Blake) sends out e-mails about the rugby game schedules,” he added. 

Even though there are a lot of new players on the team, Blake said the new players will catch on quickly.  “We’re in a rebuilding year, we have a lot of new and inexperienced guys,” Blake said. “But I guarantee by the end of the season they’re not going to be rookies anymore.”