USA Rugby: a Defining 2015

Any year that plays host to a Rugby World Cup can usually be described as ‘defining’ for the major rugby-playing nations, but arguably for no country is 2015 as important as it is for the United States of America.

Having qualified for rugby’s show piece event last year, the USA Eagles find themselves in a pool with South Africa, Scotland, Samoa and Japan and Eagles’ coach Mike Tolkin will be hoping they can string together a number of impressive performances and enjoy the backing of the nation, much in the way the USA soccer team did at the football World Cup in Brazil last year.

There is much more to 2015 for USA Rugby than the fortunes of their national team however, as they seek to launch the first professional rugby union league in the country’s history, The National Rugby Football League. The tournament is scheduled to begin in earnest during the summer of 2016, hopefully profiting from high levels of post-RWC awareness, but will be headlined by the inaugural ‘Independence Cup’ on the 1st August this year. The cup, which will become an annual event, will see the Leicester Tigers travel over to the US to take on the NRFL Rough Riders, who will be the NRFL’s All-Star team for all intents and purposes.

The visit of the Tigers may not garner anywhere near the levels of attention that the All Blacks game in Chicago created last year, but it will be a valuable tool to help RugbyLaw, LLC., the company in charge of setting up the NRFL, sell franchises to big American cities. Their current goal is to create six to twelve franchises in cities which have access to an NFL stadium, which they will hopefully have unrestricted access to during the NFL offseason. Chicago has already been targeted by Michael Clements, founder of RugbyLaw, as the ideal location for one of their new franchises and given the success of the Eagles vs All Blacks fixture there last year, it would not be surprising to see one of the first announced franchises to be located in The Windy City. With strong rugby followings already and clubs participating in worldwide sevens events, cities such as New York, Seattle, Houston and Denver also make a lot of sense.

Preparations for this new league and this year’s Independence Cup move up a gear this week, as the NRFL will host a combine at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles, California. The combine is expected to be attended by former NFL, NBA and NHL players, as well as former college rugby, American football and basketball players. There will be no wall-to-wall televised coverage, nor the dulcet tones of Mike Mayock commentating on the action, but the expected presence of Willis McGahee, a former NFL running back, should draw plenty of attention.

McGahee rushed for over 8,000 yards and 65 touchdowns during his NFL career with the Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Ravens, Denver Broncos and Cleveland Browns and is one of the more high-profile expected attendees. At 33 years of age, McGahee is not the prototypical target of these events, but the prospect that he could make the Rough Riders’ squad and play against the Tigers later this year would certainly add to the media awareness of the match, albeit in slightly surreal fashion.

Coaches from most, if not all, of the Aviva Premiership clubs will be in attendance this week, as they have been in the past at these combines, as they seek to find the next Blaine Scully or Samu Manoa.

This year however, their intent will not just be to scout out talent for their respective clubs, but to also help the organisers, Rugby Law, as part of a partnership between the Premiership and the NRFL, with Premier Rugby Limited pledging to help create and run this new US league. In addition, PRL is also looking into the possibility of scheduling a Premiership match in the US, potentially as soon as the 2015-16 season.

Though on the surface USA Rugby’s success this season will judged  by their performances at the RWC, the work being done by RugbyLaw should have a much more tangible effect on the future of US Rugby. With the plethora of college American football and basketball players that don’t make it to the NFL or NBA, there is a staggering amount of phenomenally physically-gifted athletes in the US who are purpose-built for rugby and could well help turn the US from a sleeping giant, into one of the most prominent sides in the rugby world.

Finding talent to fill the inaugural NRFL at events such as this week’s combine in LA and selecting the right cities to host teams will be the real legacy of 2015 in the US, not their performance at the RWC.

Sure, a win or two in England later this year certainly wouldn’t go amiss, but if the foundations for a professional and sustainable league can be successfully laid, then not only will rugby in the US be a winner, but the sport globally will be enthused and take a giant step forward.