Princeton Seven's Rugby Tournament

Rugby isn't the most popular of sports but it is continuously growing mass appeal. Whether you hear references made to the sport on television such as scrums when a group of people are amassed in a tiny area. No matter how ridiculously bad of a reference it is, rugby has risen dramatically over the past few years. World rugby has greatly contributed to the rise of rugby in America. World rugby can be viewed on the Setanta channel on Direct TV. For those of you more interested in watching the sport first hand, local rugby is all over America, you just need to find it.

On July 23rd, rugby in New Jersey took a step forward with getting the word out about the great sport that I love. The Princeton Athletic team (PAC) held a rugby tournament on an extremely hot day where many teams arrived to enter and compete in the tournament. Teams came from all over the tri-state area and Pennsylvania. Each participating team played five games, which made the tournament a very long day. PAC began the set up of the fields at 6 in the morning and the last match finished at 4 pm. But it was all worth it because the tournament was a huge success.

However, this rugby tournament wasn't your normal tournament. It was a Seven's tournament. For those of you not equipped with the knowledge of rugby, a normal rugby game consists of 15 players on each team. It also has 40 minute halves and different rules. The type of rugby that was played on this day was Seven's which there are only 7 players on the field for each team and only seven minute halves. The field size is the same size for both types of rugby, which makes Seven's a much faster pace and quicker scoring game. It also is more tactical in the way that plays are set up with a greater deal of patience for initializing a push to score a try, which is equivalent to a touchdown in football. If you ever get the chance to watch a rugby game, make sure you have someone with you to explain to you what is happening. The best way I generalize the sport to new people that want to learn about rugby is by saying that it's football without the forward passing and without blocking, but with a lot more collisions.

What was great about this particular Seven's tournament was that it was being filmed for the Channel 12 news station. It was great to have them out there and interviewing various players to get a better idea of what rugby actually is. The telecast of can be viewed at the bottom of this page or can be found on Youtube.com. As you will see, the telecast turned out wonderful. The reporter covered a great deal and the interviews with the players explained a little bit of the game to the viewers.

Well hopefully this video clip will inspire you to look into the game of rugby. On the left of the page will be a link to my local team and you can check us out on that site.