Meet Phaidra Knight: complimentary radical flanker in World Rugby Hall of Popularity Cue the cliché: if that’s a second-division football player who never ever made the NFL, envision what the U.S.A might do with an entire squad of transformed college talent, whether at their own Sevens World Cup, in San Francisco in July, or at 15-a-side in Japan in 2019 or after. Picture it if you desire. Crossover athletes do exist, from Carlin Isles to the rugby-raised Chicago Bears fullback-turned-Eagles centre Paul Lasike. To obsess about such players is to do a disservice to American rugby, which is much more extensive, dedicated and passionate than the majority of foreign observers might understand.
Baker himself found the game through a superbly called club in Florida, the Daytona Beach Coconuts. Countless club, school and college groups like them train and play and live for rugby through fall and spring and summer. Naya Tapper, the US ladies’s sevens strike runner, ran track at college but wasn’t a star prior to dropping it to play rugby with her pals.
Rugby union in the United States is basically a grassroots video game. A new pro league is due next month but it is knitted to club redoubts– Houston, Utah, southern California, next year New York and Dallas. Big league Rugby, each of its seven teams consisting ofa Baker’s dozen of prospective stars, will be remarkable to watch and cover. It will also have to be handled with care. PRO Rugby, its predecessor, lasted one season in 2016 prior to collapsing in regret and acrimony. Its owner might yet take legal action against; all may become clear as soon as MLR starts. And regardless of unprecedented success on the international field– Canada were hit for 50 in World Cup qualifying in 2015– USA Rugby, the national governing body, remains in a parlous position off it. There are rumours of imminent ructions, political As monetary. If five years learning more about the American video game– and a gloriously pleased trawl through the archives of Rugby Today magazine– is any guide, it was ever thus. Now, with foreign interests seeking to make a buck( and, some of them, assist the locals out) it is only more so.
RFK Arena in Washington DC in June On 2 June, Wales will play South Africa at RFK Arena in Washington DC. All power to the WRU and SARU, Rugby International Marketing and all who pay to see it. On the same day, the Collegiate Rugby Champion will be occurring in Pennsylvania.
The CRC is a 7s occasion, typically won by Cal Berkeley however featuring other powers such as Army, Navy, Saint Mary’s, Dartmouth and the up-and-coming Kutztown. It draws in crowds. It’s tough to escape the sensation that a lot of the fans now dealing with their hangovers in Vegas– males and females who bet or run a group and pay to fly in for the sevens– will select the CRC over a Test in DC.
America first? It’s a loaded expression nowadays, a cliche turned malign. However Baker’s display in Vegas– and those of Danny Barrett, Ben Pinkelman, Folau Niua and the other 7s stars– like those of coach Gary Gold’s team in Uruguay, show that in rugby at least it’s real.
If the sleeping giant is really going to wake, it must do so in its own method and its own time. If this weekend’s stunning success can be constructed on– and it will be a stiff challenge– that time might yet be nigh.
