2016 A Look Back - January
2016 A Look Back - January
January, 2016 started with the news that the USA Men’s National Team had a new coach - John Mitchell.
The search had taken some time following the 2015 Rugby World Cup. For a while, previous Head Coach Mike Tolkin was in a sort of limbo waiting for decisions to be made. Meanwhile, a search was on and Mitchell, who ran the All Blacks in the early 2000s, came on board.
But because Mitchell was joining the team a few weeks before the new Americas Rugby Championships (ARC) full-test tournament, he could not pick the players; he didn’t know the players in the depth chart.
Meanwhile, the established pros had either retired (Chris Wyles Retires from International 15s) or were locked up in their pro teams. Once again, USA Rugby, led by CEO Nigel Melville, had to make some deals with pro teams - making some players available for the ARC in return for allowing them back to their pro teams for other games. That series of tradeoffs ultimately encountered their own bumps in the road, and the tradeoff policy instituted by Melville remained into the fall.
Ruggamatrix America Podcast - Mitchcraft
Meanwhile, Melville announced he would be moving from USA Rugby CEO to Rugby International Marketing CEO - RIM is the for-profit arm of USA Rugby. That move ultimately didn’t happen because Melville took a job in England instead. But this announcement - 2016 Nigel Melville's Final Year as USA Rugby CEO - was the start of a series of dubious USA Rugby business decisions during Melville’s final months, decisions that included re-upping a pro 7s licensing deal with Bill Tatham, providing little player support or oversight for the PRO Rugby launch, the aforementioned pro player availability trades, and a massive budget shortfall for 2016.
January also saw the culmination of the HS All American Winter Camp - Tougher HSAA Camp Welcome By Players - and the start of the college season.
Among the key early results was this one:
Utah Comes Back to Beat Arizona The Utes entering a spring where they would compete in both DIA and Varsity Cup postseasons, and this one: St. Mary's Holds Off Lindenwood.
