PRP Season Began January 31
by Charles C. Bonniwell
The Glendale Raptors Rugby Football team has high hopes for the upcoming Pacific Rugby Premiership (PRP) season that kicked off with an away match against the San Diego, California team Old Mission Beach Athletic Club on January 31 and potentially ends with the league championship game on May 16. The Raptors lost in last year’s championship game at Infinity Park in Glendale, before a packed crowd in heartbreak
ing fashion by the score of 39-38 to the San Francisco Golden Gate Rugby Football Club.
West And East Leagues
The PRP league was formed last year after the demise of the Super League in 2013 and all of the clubs (five from California and two from Colorado) are former Super League teams with the exception of Glendale. A five team American Rugby Premiership was formed this year with eastern teams and there is talk of the top teams in both leagues to square off on May 30.
The two Colorado teams (the Raptors and the Barbarians) have all of their early matches away to take advantage of the mild California weather with their schedules back loaded with home games as Colorado weather begins to warm up. The Raptors’ first three games will be in California with the home opener at Infinity Park on February 28 against Belmont Shore.
The Raptors hoped to bring home a championship trophy to match the national title won by the ladies team who took the Women’s Premier League national championship by the score of 16-15 over the Twin Cities Amazons.
During the fall the men’s team was able to take the Aspen Ruggerfest championship after four prior tries and the team has undergone a rigorous off-season training program. With 90 percent of the team returning, the men’s coach, South African Andre Synman, has high hopes but notes, “If we want to win the PRP this season we’ll have to improve on all aspects from last year. Our skill level has to be higher, our physical level needs to be higher, and our defense needs to improve.”
In addition the team will not be able to sneak up on teams like last year when “everyone picked us to finish last and that was a driving force throughout the season,” noted team captain Zach Fenoglio, who is a member of the USA men’s national team, the Eagles, as a hooker. The Denver native who is 6’2” and weighs 245 pounds also noted that the team needed to “prove to the competition that we’re a tough team and tough to play against.” Other members of the Raptors who have been on the national team include James Paterson, a 6’2” wing from Colorado Springs, and Chad London, a center from Johannesburg, South Africa, who was named Club Player of the Year by Rugby Today.
Joining the team for the 2015 season is Mose Timoteo, another former Eagle, who represented the United States in 2003 Rugby World Cup. The 38-year-old scrum half, born in American Samoa, headed up the San Francisco club that beat the Raptors in the season finale last year.
One player who will not be returning is 6’9” second row man Casey Rock. Rock was on the original Raptors team in 2006 while still in high school. He responded to an ad in The Denver Post looking for players for the new team. He retired this fall at age 27 due to repeated injuries. “I tore my LCL, MCL, ACL, patella tendon, all of my meniscus and shredded all of the cartilage in my tibia and femur,” noted Rock. “The doctor told me that because of all the bone damage, contact spots are done for me.”
Rugby did allow Rock to travel the world playing for teams in Australia and New Zealand, with his high point being the Division I national championship garnered by the Raptors in 2011.
American Rugby In State Of Flux
The world of American rugby remains in flux. The prior attempts to create a professional league have not come to fruition with another effort being mounted this summer by the National Football Rugby League that recruited various former NFL players in players combines. The effort is being undertaken by Mac Robertson and Mike Clements, but many in the rugby scene are deeply skeptical as plans have been delayed several times.
The national governing body of American rugby, USA Rugby, has not unified rugby in the country. By way of example, the PRP is not under the egis of USA Rugby but the ARP is. The top collegiate post season championship, the Varsity Cup, is also not part of USA Rugby. Various colleges have indicated that USA Rugby has been unable to obtain top dollar sponsorships and national television contracts for a collegiate championship which they were able to obtain on their own.
World Cup And Olympics
The quadrennial showcase for international rugby union, the World Cup, is scheduled to be played in London this fall and the United States qualified by defeating Uruguay in head to head matches in 2014. The United States will be an underdog to make the quarterfinals, an important feat it has yet to achieve in a World Cup.
USA Rugby was thrilled by the sellout crowd of 61,500 that showed up at Chicago’s Soldier Field in November where the Eagles played the world’s dominant team, the New Zealand All Blacks in an exhibition. The game, however, demonstrated how far American rugby still has to go as the All Blacks crushed the American team 74-6.
Seven-man rugby will be an Olympic event in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, which American enthusiasts hope will help jump start the sport in the United States, as well as increase the awareness of rugby across the globe. But for the Glendale Raptors first things first, which means taking the PRP title this spring.