Rugby Indiana is playing high school rugby in the form of touch 7s this fall, but this season will require a massive effort from the State Governing Body (SGB) and entire membership. State, county, high school and rugby authorities regularly update Covid-19 directives, especially early in the school year, and Rugby Indiana has accepted the challenge of constant adjustments in order to provide competition for its members.
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“The board has put in a lot of hours – there’s a sub-committee meeting every other day – and part of that is because Covid makes things change by the minute sometimes,” Rugby Indiana Executive Director Wayne Eells said. “The board is passionate about putting something together for our kids who want to play. That’s the very positive thing that is often overlooked and needs to be acknowledged: People have their opinions [on what the fall should look like], but the board understands and is trying to manage the risk and liability.”
Rugby Indiana began hosting a fall 7s season in 2015, and the typically four-week series takes a friendlier tone. For example, game results are not recorded during the first three weeks. The competition names champions at the final tournament but in the interim serves as a nice recruitment tool. Eells indicated that the girls’ participation numbers increased 60% since the competition’s creation. Had the pandemic abated, Eells was expecting approximately 500 players for the fall.
When considering competition options for the fall, Rugby Indiana first tracked high school football for a potential preview of a rugby season’s trajectory. The board watched as teams reactivated, recorded Covid-19 cases, quarantined, cancelled that weekend’s match, restricted travel to locations with high caseloads, and withdrew from competition.
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“We’re watching this all go on,” Eells prefaced conversations for fall rugby. “We have teams from different cities and counties, and they’re at different stages [of Return to Play], so how do you put together a rugby season that will be the least interrupted?”
The SGB board discussed three options for the fall: tackle 7s, touch 7s and no season.
“The board wanted to find a middle line that was reasonably safe, responsible, and had the greatest chance for a continuous season,” said Eells, a former firefighter and paramedic, and whose wife is a nurse. “We decided on touch 7s because we didn’t want to start tackle and then a week in have a county say, ‘No more tackle.’ Then we’d have to say, ‘What does the season look like now?’”
Touch 7s aligns rugby closer to soccer – instead of football, in terms of risk of virus transmission – and so the SGB devised a four-week season for the month of October. Champions will be named in the girls’ and boys’ high school divisions.
“There have been some challenges, like finding field access. Schools aren’t letting kids on fields if their sport isn’t in its main season, so that’s left some teams out,” Eells said of crowd-control efforts. “Parks departments are more rigid on what you can and can’t use, so that means field space is short and therefore more expensive.”
The membership wasn’t unanimously thrilled with a non-contact season, so the SGB circulated Touch Rugby World Cup videos to coaches and teams in hopes the fast-paced, skilled game could speak for itself.
“It’s the same thing that I say about 7s: Rugby is a game about invasion that is achieved by evasion,” Eells recited his response to those who object to touch. “If we teach our [15s] forwards to constantly go into contact and then go to ground, we are not accomplishing the continuity part of the game. It’s all about keeping the ball alive and flowing and open play, and if our forwards don’t know how to manipulate the defense and offload and pass, if their whole game is based on go-forward-and-crash, then we’re not playing rugby. We’re creating a game of running into people. No one wins that way.”
Eells highlighted the southern hemisphere style of play, and the impact of versatile forwards who enable deep phases and larger territorial gains.
“The ball moves all kinds of places, and you see forwards passing and running and receiving the ball, and breaking the lines for meters, not inches,” Eells said. “I’ve seen it happen here. Those teams that get their forwards playing 7s, they find ways to pass and offload, instead of going straight to ground.”
Eells also hopes that teams that are balking at touch 7s consider the social and mental benefits of team competition, as well as the unique opportunities it provides younger teams.
“The playing field is leveled a bit,” Eells added. “Say you’re a team of mostly freshmen. Well now that there’s no tackling, your inexperienced team won’t spend the whole tournament getting tackled by seniors all day. They’ll be a little fresher throughout the day.”
Eells is hoping for 25% participation, or approximately 100 players. Those numbers are evolving as the new registration system, Sportlomo, is emerging from technical difficulties. But the girls’ competition has added a team from Rugby Michigan, which postponed its girls championship 15s season this fall to the spring.
“I’m not trying to poach anyone; that’s not how we operate,” Eells clarified. “The Rugby Michigan president [Andy Dauser] reached out, ‘If we don’t have a [fall 15s championship] season would you be willing to have us?’ The conversation grew from there. All of the neighboring states in the Midwest have been in conversation with each other. We’re all trying to learn about what everyone’s doing, what their return numbers and seasons look like.”
Along with Sportlomo sorting out, all of the SGBs will have access to an online symptoms tracker, which streamlines the reportage process for coaches and cuts down on paperwork.
“We all want to play the game we all love, but how do we get from A to B,” Eells appealed for some latitude. “Planning during the time of Covid is like trying to nail a Jello mold to the wall; just when you think you have one side pinned down, the whole thing starts to slide down the wall.
“If the kids runs around and have fun and build those social and mental skills, then it’ll be a win,” Eells described a successful season. “The game of rugby is bigger than who wins the match.”