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By BRIAN CARROLL
Cronkite News
TEMPE – Arizona State has fielded a club rugby team since 1975, and the program is booming, part of a global uptick in the sport.
After an 82-year wait, rugby returns to the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro this summer. Rugby is the fastest growing sport in the United States, according to a report by Sport & Fitness Industry Association.
At ASU, participation has grown to 100 players, with three teams across skill levels.
But there is one growth step ASU has not yet made. The club has not won a national championship in its 41-year history, but it is hoping to change that this weekend.
The Arizona State Rugby Sevens began a long weekend today in Cary, North Carolina, looking to win the 2016 USA Collegiate 7s National Championship during a three-day tournament.
Sevens is a fast-paced game played with seven players on each side for seven-minute halves.
“Sevens takes a lot out of you. It’s 14 minutes of straight sprinting and tackling over and over,” junior Matt Greveler said.
In sevens, every player on the bench tends to see a significant amount of playing time.
“About day two is when the legs start feeling the burn and it’s important to have depth to cover the positions across the board,” sophomore Bailey Stringer said.
The depth of the squad becomes key for a sevens side, but also making sure that the performance level does not drop off after making in-game changes or lineup adjustments before each match.
“It’s obviously difficult to stay focused over a three-day period as fatigue sets in both mentally and physically, and the ability for our team to rely on every member of the squad to perform at the top of their game really allows us to rotate responsibility evenly,” junior Pete Akerele-Ale said.
The free-flowing nature of sevens may seem disorganized, but as coach Ian Gregor said it’s all part of a plan.
“We have some basic rules if we give the pass you follow, which means you always position yourself to be an attacking threat,” Gregor said.
“I give the boys a lot of freedom, but we have rules too, like you always have to work in groups of threes – that’s non-negotiable.””
Earlier in the sevens season, ASU finished as runners-up to Calfornia at the 2015 West Coast Sevens, so they needed an at-large bid to qualify. With at-large bids in the last two USA Collegiate 7s National Championships, ASU finished in sixth place in 2015 and ninth place in 2014.
In the pool stage, ASU beat Wyoming 35-7 in its first match today. They will play North Texas at 5:40 p.m., then Notre Dame at 9:00 a.m. Saturday.
Gregor believes that even though the team is favored by some in pool play, his players cannot underestimate the fact that this weekend will be the first time they are seeing many of their opponents.
“(Pool play) is always weird because last year we were in Denver and we had a lot of weather issues, and I think weather can be a great neutralizer of size and speed,” Gregor said.
The free-flowing, structured game deployed by ASU has made them one of the premier teams in collegiate sevens rugby.
“Honestly, it’s because our core group of guys are just really talented, athletic, and/or extremely hard working, “ junior Davaughn Foster said. “It’s cocky, but I would say that we have the best culmination of those types of players on our team than anywhere else in the country.”
Last year after one loss cost ASU a chance to play for the championship, the sevens team know what it needs to do in order to bring a cup back to Tempe.
