Has anyone gone to one of these rugby matches yet? I just did the today and it was actually a lot of fun.
Pretty brutal though, some guy on the Dallas team was throwing up because he got his so hard.
Here are the highlights of their first three games:
vs. Reigning champs, New England Free Jacks
vs. NOLA Gold
vs. Dallas Jackals
The purpose of the team is to improve the quality of rugby in the US. We’re hosting the 2031 Rugby World Cup and our best result is one win in the group stages since 1987.
The team is almost entirely American, which is unique in MLR. The games are 15v15 and MLR allows 10 players of each team to be international, which is why Anthem isn’t very good right now.
The team is also owned and operated by World Rugby and USA Rugby with partnership from MLR.
The games are also free to watch on some streaming service called The Rugby Network. So if you don’t want to dish out the money to go to the games, there’s a free option for home.
Anthem just lost to the other win less expansion team in Miami. So it seems we truly are the worst rugby team in the league.
As the years go on, they should be much better.
Next home game is next weekend though if any of yall want to check it out.
Earlier today, I met some of the players on the engineering side of campus!
Apparently they use the performance center in the PORTAL building and have their practices on the field above the softball stadium.
So if yall think that NIL makes college sports a professional sport instead, then in a way, this is kind of like out pro team. It’s a bit of a stretch but a funny thought.
I don’t know if anyone reads these or cares or is annoyed that I made this thread. I made it because it seemed like there were threads for all the other pro sports in the city. I also don’t really know what’s appropriate to throw in this thread for this forum board.
If yall find this annoying, then let me know, it’s hard to gauge.
But in any case, if any of you are interested, here are the highlights from their last game. They traveled to Miami to play the other brand new team. The were both 0-3 going in, and Anthem lost, and lost pretty bad.
The scrums seem to be one of the biggest difficulties with this team. They seem to lose most of them, and this game really accentuated that. The tight and loose heads just don’t seem strong enough, even the backups are similarly poor at the scrums. I hope that this has more to do with form than strength, because form can be adjusted a lot easier than making somebody bulk up.
The other big difficulty is defense. They seem to get faked out from fake tosses and then don’t have the strength to stop bigger guys from bulldozing through.
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Not up to speed on Rugby but am all for any new topics of interest from anyone.
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I find the posts very interesting. Although I do not have enough energy to become fully-invested in another sports team, it will be cool seeing their growth in the coming years (considering they are starting from rock bottom). May make one of their matches an excuse to go further into the city than I’m used to. Definitely will need to freshen up my knowledge on the gameplay prior, I have forgotten everything I learned back in middle school rugby club lol.
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Alright cool! Just wanted to check and make sure this was fine to have here. Thanks!
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Appreciate the thread and hoping to make it to a game!!!
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For anyone that wants to know the rules of rugby/relearn the rules, USA Rugby has a great website that details the broad strokes of the sport.
This video by Major League Rugby is also a good briefer on the rules, but has the added benefit of being in a more visually appealing format.
There are only two professional rugby leagues in the USA. There is Major League Rugby (MLR) and The Women’s Premier League (WPL). There aren’t any WPL teams anywhere near the Charlotte area, so I don’t bother with it, unfortunately.
I also found out that our school has a men’s and women’s rugby club which play 15s. Both are sanctioned by USA Rugby. One of my close friends played on the women’s team a few years back. They play in the Fall and against other schools nearby, like NCSU, UNCCH, Davidson, etc.
If you want to know a little fun fact about rugby then here you go. In the early 1900’s there were two codes of rugby (rulesets), one was called Rugby Union and the other is Rugby League. Rugby League was the first sport to go pro and pay players to play on teams. Because they had to start funding players, their version of the sport has had to change to make it more entertaining for spectators to pay money to watch. So they made the game more fast-paced and play 13s instead of 15s. Oddly enough, this is not the rugby code that the biggest professional teams around the world play, nor is it what they play in the Six Nations cup or the Rugby World Cup. The game that is most popular is Rugby Union, which is 15s.
I find it ironic that we have Major League Rugby but they play Rugby Union instead of Rugby League.
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Hey Harryman.
Have you ever watched Rugby 7s?
Really entertaining because of the fewer players and more space.
Higher paced and higher scoring from what I’ve seen.
All the versions are cool to me.
I have not but it sounds neat! My friend who played 15s said they once had to play 7s because not enough people showed up. She hated it because she had to be a prop haha.
I know we have club 15s at school, is there a club 7s to watch?
Anthem played SO WELL earlier today!! It is the first time in their history that they’ve lead at half, although they did stumble in the second half in a 46-32 loss to Old Glory DC.
I’ll post highlights when they’re on YouTube.
Earlier this morning I was supporting a friend running a half marathon. We ran into some guys that play for a rugby club in Charlotte that we hadn’t known about. Apparently we’ve had an amateur circuit in northwest Charlotte since 1971. From what I can tell they field D2 & D4 men’s alongside D2 women’s. They’re called the Charlotte Rugby Club. I believe they field some players that currently play rugby club sports on campus.
So if you live in northwest Charlotte and want to watch rugby, and/or want to see women’s rugby, then yall should check it out! The men’s D2 team just won a national championship in 2022, and the women in 2018!
Here are the highlights to that aforementioned loss to Old Glory DC
Charlotte traveled to Utah for their match against the Warriors a couple of days ago. After a strong showing in the first half leading 19-15, they fell apart in the second half scoring 0 points.
Anthem lost 19-44.
Anyone know why these tickets are so dang expensive? Cheapest GA is over $30. Was thinking of going but almost definitely will not now. I would think they would make them way cheaper to try and grow a fanbase
It’s the only professional men’s rugby league in the USA. This team isn’t necessarily prioritizing growing a fan base, however. This team is co-owned and operated by USA Rugby and MLR to give young American players professional play time. Otherwise, they would more than likely be benchwarmers for international players on other pro teams.
The lack of experienced play is also why the team went 0-16-0 on the season. It’s a great first step for a stronger national team, especially since the USA is hosting the Rugby World Cup in 2031.
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