Rugby taking hold in the Valley

As a team of kids darts up and down a field, pitching a rugby ball back and forth it looks like they’ve been playing the sport for most of their lives.

Now in its fifth season, the Kalispell Black & Blue rugby club looks every part the juggernaut. It’s a big, bruising squad that has bullied every team in its path with a potent mixture of size and speed.

Last May, the Black & Blue won the Montana Youth Rugby Association championship. This season, they look well on their way to a repeat.

The Black & Blue has opened the first two weeks with an undefeated record, having won every 15-man game by at least two tries. They swept through a sevens tournament last weekend in Helena, blowing out rival Bitterroot in the final. Even without 10 key players from last season’s team, the squad has been dominant. And with nearly 35 players showing up to every practice, the Black & Blue looks like the best, and deepest, team in the state.

“People are starting to come out that just want to be a part of a good team,” senior scrum-half Dawson Day said. “That’s making our team more excited about winning another state title and getting into competitions. That’s helping us find people ... that are amazing at rugby.”

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A few miles away, it’s a long way from the top for the Flathead Rams.

The newest rugby club in the Valley branched off from the Black & Blue last year to give more kids the opportunity to play. The Rams played just three league games last season before a rash of injuries took out so many players that they couldn’t field a full team.

While the Black & Blue was taking back the trophy — a large, gleaming gold cup nearly three feet tall — the Rams had just 12 healthy players left. They combined with players from Simms and Great Falls to field a team for the championships and did well, but were clearly still young, in both body and experience.

“Of course we want to win every single game,” Rams head coach Yugi Morisaki said. “But, more than that, we want to teach how to play rugby and how to win the game. Without the fundamentals, without knowledge of rugby, winning means nothing.”

Morisaki, a teacher Black & Blue coaches call one of the most knowledgeable rugby coaches in the world, was one of the founders of the original club. Now on his second stint building a youth club in the region, he said building fundamentals and a love for the sport is the key with both teams.

“I’m just teaching, introducing rugby,” Morisaki said. “Of course I want them to enjoy the game. I want our kids to learn rugby at this age and continue to play rugby for the future.”

With most players coming to the sport late in their high school careers, often with little or no knowledge of the sport or its rules, coaching rugby in the area has its challenges.

“It’s a tough thing to start from nothing, teaching to kids that don’t know anything about rugby,” Morisaki said. “That’s the hardest part, teaching from the ground up, the real basic fundamentals.

“Once they get more skill, or a little more knowledge. That’s what I want for the future, to teach more strategy or tactics — advanced skills. It’s not at that stage yet.”

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For all the success it enjoys now, it’s hard to tell it took two years for the Black & Blue win its first game. It took until the team’s first home game, a loss on a field at Hillcrest Park in its second season, for the team to score its first try.

“It takes time to develop something,” Black & Blue head coach Dave Kenkel said. “The guys who put the hard work in don’t always bear the fruit.”

Players like Day picked up the sport after hearing how much friends and family enjoyed it. Day joined after watching his older brother play, and has helped recruit Glacier High School for kids who may want to try the sport.

“We’re getting new people and we’re getting younger kids so the team will be better next year too,” Day said.

Black & Blue teammate Reece Erickson, a senior entering his second year in the program, said he’s seen the difference experience makes in the team.

“It’s not a hard game,” Erickson said. “It’s difficult to learn, but the athleticism or actual skills you need are super basic ... Once you start to understand it, it starts to get more enjoyable.”

The sport’s popularity is expanding in Montana. Two more boys teams joined the MYSA this year, with new squads in Great Falls and Bozeman. Including the Rams’ addition last season, the league is up to 11 teams, and has joined with USA Rugby to add awareness of the sport in state. Rugby sevens, a shorter, more wide-open version of the full 15-man game, has been admitted as an Olympic sport for the 2016 games.

While still a fledgling sport at the high school level, enthusiasm for rugby is growing by leaps and bounds.

“It’s a great sport and everyone’s starting to realize it I think,” Day said.

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The two teams were set to open the regular season against each other today, but with spring break taking players from both teams out of town, they’ll just hold a scrimmage. The action starts at 12:30 p.m. at Evergreen Junior High.

The Rams will open on April 13 at Frenchtown. With numbers up to around 20 players this season, the team expects to compete with a full team for the full schedule this season.

If things go as expected, they’ll look to build the team up, much like the team across town, and get better as the team gets more experience.

“This year, more than half the kids are freshmen or sophomores,” Morisaki said. “They can play next year if they want to keep playing. They can play a couple more years until they graduate high school. We might develop a more competitive team.”

“We start off introducing the game, getting the younger kids out to introduce them and build the team up,” Rams assistant Dave Castro said.

“That’s what happened with the Black & Blue three years ago. A lot of sophomores and freshmen came out. After, when you’re not having to teach the basics, but are able to teach the little nuances of the game, you can tell the difference between an experienced team that has had individuals for three years and a new team that it's their first year.”

The Black & Blue open on April 20, playing Frenchtown in the opener of the MYRA Fest, a prelude to Missoula’s Maggotfest, a rugby celebration and tournament held the same weekend that plays host to men’s teams from around the world.

The defending champs will look to keep their hot start going, and keep teaching the sport as they go.

“The energy level at practice is really high and the kids really want to learn,” Kenkel said. “I think we’re in a pretty good position to keep it going because now we have a lot of underclassmen playing as well.”

While they haven’t played each other yet, the two teams look forward to the chance in the future.

“It’s cool to see they’re getting enough players out where they can start another club,” Erickson said. “I hope that continues because I’d like to see another rivalry growing around here. That’d be a lot of fun.”