International Rugby News
The journey to Maccabiah Games gold for the USA was a long one.
The USA has won the Gold Medal at the Men's 15s rugby event at the 2017 Maccabiah Games in Tel Aviv, Israel.
The Maccabiah Games are the Jewish Olympics, a multi-national, multi-sport sporting festival that attracts world-class athletes. The rugby competition is a hotly-contested event every four years, and the USA won their first 15s gold medal since 1997.
The South 1 team is set to face Jamaica in the Rugby Americas North U19 men's competition Saturday.
Here is the South lineup. A large percentage of this team participated in last year's event, which the South won.
The USA Maccabia team is into the semifinals of the Maccabiah Games Men's 15s rugby tournament after sweeping their two pool games.
Somebody I respect asked me recently what the big deal was about the British & Irish Lions tours, and I found that my answer rambled on way too long - not a big surprise when you’re talking to a rugby journalist and history major who went to school in Britain.
Obscured within all the other rugby news this summer was the small fact that the USA U20s, after being thoroughly beaten by Canada in their opening clash June 13, won their second game.
The victory was somewhat pyrrhic as Canada easily won the two-game series (1st score was 46-12, second 25-27, leaving the aggregate scoreline 71-39).
Longtime referee David Williamson, a fixture in the game in Northern California, died late last week at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, Calif.
The USA defeated Canada 52-16 in the second leg of the two-game Rugby World Cup to take the series and qualify as Americas #1 for the first time ever.
The HS All Americans defeated Ontario's U19s Thursday evening at the University of Guelph northwest of Hamilton and southwest of Toronto.
It was a wet evening in Guelph. It rained hard until kickoff and while the rain eased off, it was still there during the game and made for some handling errors by both teams.
The Boys HS All Americans are on tour in Ontario hoping to repeat their two-game sweep of the Blues in 2016.
The lineups for Thursday's game is here. The teams play again on Saturday.
GLENDALE, Colo. – American rugby is entering a new stage of professional athletics and increasing ability to compete on the international stage. With a new professional league set to launch in 2018, the need to develop young rugby players into high-performance athletes is greater than ever.
The USA Women's Junior All-Americans have assembled for a camp to select the squad to play a two-game U19 series against Canada in August.
Head Coach Wil Snape said the goal is, as always, to prepare young athletes to be full internationals, and that means handling the rigors of assembly as well as the demands of playing at an international level.