Musings on football and rugby

Here is a link to you tube video discussing football and rugby. I recently spoke with Robbie Davis, the Oklahoma coach featured at the beginning of this clip. Many are lobbying support for him to become director of USA Rugby’s Director of Youth Development. Admittedly, I don’t have much pull on the national level, but I was interested to hear his thoughts on how to grow the game at the high school level.

Robbie is a football guy. He played the game in high school, in college (at Central Oklahoma) and has coached football for nearly a decade. He is an AD at a high school. He has only coached rugby for four years. When Robbie took over the Canton High School football team in 2005, the team was coming off an 0-10 season. Three years later Canton advanced to the state play-offs for the first time in 25 years. Last year, they made it to the state championship game. To be sure, Robbie is a fantastic coach, mentor and motivator….all traits that helped him transform a hapless team to a state power in a few years. But ask Robbie what was the number one factor that contributed to his team’s success in a football-rich state. His answer is one word: rugby.

When Robbie took over the 0-10 football program, he asked his team to take on rugby in the spring. Their teamwork, communication and tackling -- staples of both sports -- improved dramatically.

Like football, position,balance and leverage are essential in rugby. I played football in high school on a state runner-up team, even gave the game a try in college and remain a huge fan. Too often, I see football players launch themselves into players, trying to use their helmet and shoulder pads in a singular effort to bring an opposing player down. More often, they fail. In rugby there are no helmets and shoulder pads. Players are forced to wrap, use balance and drive at what I call the “break down point” the place where opposing players meet. They must make contact with their shoulders and control their opponent's hips. A good football position is a good rugby position: head up, flat back , driving with the strongest muscles in your body, your thighs and butt.

My son played football at Riverside, linebacker. He was fairly athletic but had horrible form. He couldn’t tackle his 10-year old sister. He threw his body at his opponent’s shoulders, failed to wrap and too often the better players churned right on through. With much extolling, he is learning to become a decent tackler through rugby, though he occasionally slips back into bad habits.

In rugby, the person winning the battle at the breakdown point is not the player who arrives there with the most force. It is the guy who arrives there with his body and balance under control who wins the day.

Some years ago one of my Furman teams lost a national championship game to Bentley, a team in Boston. Bentley was a small team, our guys were bigger and had been coached in the fundamentals. But Bentley held the advantage at the break down point. I was flummoxed because we had a taken such pride in winning that crucial part of the game. But we could not push around the smaller Bentley team. I asked the winning coach afterwards what his secret formula was. Was there a drill or off-season regiment he followed? His answer was simple: most of his players were wrestlers. They understood balance, leverage and body position. Wrestlers make awesome rugby players. They understand leverage and have grit.

Too often football coaches see rugby as a threat. Their players could get hurt. (the injury rate in rugby about the same as in football, statistics show) Some of their best athletes could be siphoned off, opting to play the sport that actually spawned football. But rugby is a spring sport.

Robbie has a novel idea to grow the rugby in the U.S. Through clinics and outreach, he wants to conduct a nation-wide campaign to convince high school football coaches to embrace rugby in the spring. Rugby, he says, makes better football players. He’s seen it work at Canton. And who can argue with all those wins.

Here are some great resources related to football and rugby:
can rugby make me a better football player
Rugby and Football
Injury rate: football and rugby