Coastal Dragons Rugby
Teaching student athletes to love rugby
Why rugby?
Read this great article "Why the Youth Sport Your Kids Should be Playing is Rugby" at the Goff rugby report by clicking on the logo:
Values
Teaches your child critical values such as respect & sportsmanship
College
Rugby is a big college sport. Women is NSAA. Men going varsity.
Safety
Rugby is a comparably safe sport. All our coaches are certified.
Fun for life
Combines best elements from soccer (fitness) and football (physical)
Growing
The fastest growing youth sport and the 2nd biggest sport worldwide
Football
Rugby helps football players develop safer tackling skills
Rugby culture
The rugby culture is truly unique and teaches the children respect and sportsmanship.
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Below we listed a few aspects, but please join us at a game and experience it for yourself:
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After the game the players from both teams share a meal provided by the hosting team.
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At the higher age groups, both teams gather together after the game and each captain appoints the MVP in the opposing team.
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The referee is treated with respect and addressed as sir
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As a player, wherever you travel worldwide you are always welcome at the local rugby club. Rugby is a sport you can play your entire life.
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Safety first
Rugby in general, and our club in particular, takes safety of our athletes very seriously. A common misconception is that because there is no helmet and pads in rugby that rugby is more dangerous than other sports with such protection. However, a helmet does not protect against concussions. To avoid head injury, it is important to take the head out of the impact zone. In rugby there is no intentional head contact, but of course accidents can still happen.
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Here is a quote by Lyle J. Micheli, MD (past president of the American College of Sports Medicine);
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"The main reason rugby players have a relatively low risk of injury compared to football players is paradoxical – rugby players don’t wear protective equipment. Thus the rugby player doesn’t have the same disregard for the safety of his or her head, neck, and shoulders when tackling or trying to break through a tackle.
The other reason is that unlike football, rugby is a game of possession, not yardage. Consequently rugby players don’t tackle by “driving through the numbers,” as football players are taught to do with their heads when tackling a player. In rugby, players are taught to use their arms to wrap a player’s legs and let the momentum of that player cause him to go to ground.
Furthermore, in rugby there is no blocking, and so players who don’t have the ball don’t get hit when they’re not expecting it."
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Safe coaching
All our coaches are certified coaches by USA Rugby, see link for more info.
All our coaches are required to pass a rigorous background check, see link for more info.
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All our coaches are trained on concussion, see link for more info.
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All our coaches go through USA Rugby's Safe Sport program covering (see link for more info):
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Sexual Misconduct Awareness
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Mandatory Reporting
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Emotional Physical Misconduct
What are the rules?
If you have never seen rugby played, it may look confusing at first, but the basics are quite simple: run forward, pass backwards and score by touching the ball to the ground in the goal area. A game consists of two halves, for more info see table.
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The game is similar to soccer in that it only stops for a score, a penalty or if the ball goes out of bounds. The games goes through "phases" with players running, passing and getting tackled. When tackled, a so called "ruck" if often formed. The ruck sets an offside line (or line of scrimmage in football terms) and all players have to get back behind this line to engage in the play again.
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Two versions of rugby is played: 15s and 7s, where the name relates to the number of players on the field. However, at younger age groups 15s is played with less players to make it easier, see table. With less players and shorter halves, 7s is a much faster game.
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There are two sets of players:
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Forwards are usually the bigger players. The positions in 15s are: props, hooker, locks, flankers, and 8th man.
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Backs are usually the more agile players. The positions in 15s are: scum-half, fly-half, centers, wingers, and full-back.
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If you want to learn more, click on the beginners guide to rugby union below.
Try
This means to score by touching the ball in the goal area called the "try zone".
Ruck
When two players contest for the ball after a player has been tackled.
Scrum
When players packing closely together with their heads down and pushing to gain possession of the ball after a minor penalty.
Knock-on
A common infringement when a player in attempt to play the balls knocks the ball forward with his hands or arms.
Maul
When the player with the ball is held up by players from both teams.
Blocking
An infringement that happens when a player runs behind his own players to avoid being tackled, i.e, screens are not allowed.
Div.
U8
U10
U12
U14
U16
U18
7s all ages
halves
2x15 min.
2x20 min.
2x20 min.
2x25 min.
2x30 min.
2x35 min
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2x7 min
#players
7 per side
10 per side
12 per side
15 per side
15 per side
15 per side
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7 per side
scrum
3*
3*
5
8
8
8
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3
other
no fend-off
no lineout lift
no lineout lift
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ball
#3
#3
#4
#4
#5
#5
History of rugby
The legend has it at that in 1823, during a game of soccer at Rugby School in England, 16 year old William Webb Ellis, in fine disregard for the rules, picked up the ball and ran with it. After William's display it was so obvious to his classmates the genius of that move that soon the whole school adopted the new rules and word quickly spread. The legend has it that this was how the game of rugby was born.
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Rugby is the fastest growing youth sport in the USA according to Sports & Fitness Industry Association 2017 annual report on "US Trends in Team Sports", see link.
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The Rugby world cup 2015 was the 2nd most attended sporting event with over 2.5 million sold tickets from fans traveling from over 100 countries, which is second only to the FIFA World cup.
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The sport of rugby is named after Rugby School, where the game was first played sometime in 1820s.
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In 1895, some schools split from the Northern Rugby Football Union and created a separate version of rugby. referred to as Rugby league with slightly different rules.
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Rugby is known for the use of oval-shaped balls. However, this hasn't always been the case. Initially, the balls were plum-shaped due to the shape of pigs' bladders that they were made from.
6.
The first international rugby match took place between Scotland and England in 1871 at Raeburn Park in Edinburgh. Scotland won. The first international soccer match took place later in November 1872, also between Scotland and England.
7.
Originally, you did not get any points for a "try". Instead you earned the right to try to kick for poles and if you succeeded then you earned a point.
8.
Rugby 7s is an Olympic sport for both men and women. It was played for the first time at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, where the champions were Fiji for the men and Australia for the women.
Rugby in college
Rugby has been played in universities in United States since the 1800s, but it was the 1960s when rugby really found a foothold in our colleges. Today, college rugby is one of the fastest growing club sports across college campuses with more than 30,000 registered college players.
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Several schools have increased their investments in men's and women's rugby programs, by creating rugby programs with varsity or quasi-varsity status and funding for scholarships. Women's Rugby has been classified as an NCAA Emerging Sport since 2002.
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Division 1-A Rugby (formerly known as the College Premier Division) is the highest level of college rugby within the United States.
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For more info on how you can play rugby at university level you can visit the Rugger's Edge by clicking on their logo below.
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There are many players from our club that have continued to play rugby in college, click on button below.
Fun for life
Like soccer, rugby is a sport that you can play anywhere with anyone - all you need is a ball.
Rugby makes you a better football player
The rugby season is starting right after football ends, so you will have the opportunity to continue your conditioning and grow your skills. Rugby also has a summer season that ends right before the football season starts so you can arrive to the first football practice in great shape and ready for another season.
Football and rugby is a great combination that lets you use one sport to grow in the other. Here are some examples of how rugby benefits your football performance:
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Excellent conditioning.
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Ball handling, catching, passing and evasion skills, etc.
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Rugby’s open play promotes great footwork as well as fitness and tackling, which are also important in football.
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Rugby and football have many common critical elements, e.g., intensity, athleticism, team-work, character building, and creativity.
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Safer tackling methods, which may be the most valuable of all. In rugby one cannot tackle with the head. Instead one uses the shoulder to drive into the tackle while wrapping arms and then driving through the tackle with legs. This complements the heads-up methods that you are probably currently using in football to reduce concussions. Rugby will naturally instill these new skills.
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Don't take our word for it, read this article about how Pete Carroll at Seahawks uses rugby techniques to improve their game.