This summer a group of American collegiate rugby players made the investment of time and money to attend the Crusaders Global Players Residency in New Zealand, an experience that saw them return to their teams energized, informed, and ready for something special.
Headed up by Grant Keenan, the Crusaders Global Residency program seeks to teach the game from the perspective of the Canterbury Crusaders, one of the most successful professional teams in the world. At the pro level the Crusaders have won Super Rugby an astonishing 13 times out of the 29 seasons the competition has been played. No other team has more than four.
(When Super Rugby was split into just in-country competition, they won the Super Rugby Aotearoa both times.)
Since 1996 the Crusaders have a .711 winning percentage covering more than 460 games. So, that is all to say, they seem to know what they are talking about.
GRR caught up with a couple of players who attended the Crusaders Global camp. These players play in college in the USA and trained under Keenan and his staff for several weeks, while also training twice a week and playing with local clubs they were placed with around the South Island city of Canterbury.
Learn more about Crusaders Global at crusadersglobal.com.
Former Gonzaga College HS player and recent Penn State player Declan Dolan was one of those. Dolan's story is a little different than most in that he stopped playing for a while after college and is now working and playing the DC area, suiting up for the Potomac Exiles men's club and coaching at his old high school.
A former USA U20, he didn't want to just start playing without feeling like he was up to speed.
"I got in contact with Grant and Tony Flay about getting back to rugby and while it was a tough choice to go to New Zealand, within about four or five days I knew it was the right choice," Dolan told GRR. "And now I feel like it was one of the best decisions I could have made."
What he learned will help him as a play and a coach.
"My dad always said that if a decision makes you uncomfortable, then maybe you need to take that as a challenge," said Dolan. "Everyone in rugby is still learning, you have to be. But the other thing is I realized again how much fun it is to play rugby."
The players were worked hard to develop their basic skills, both in a general rugby sense but also on position-specific things. If a player needed Keenan to spend extra time on his lineout throw or his pass, he would do it.
"I needed to work on my hands," said the 23-year-old. "I wanted to improve the speed of the ball through my hands."
As a prop he wanted to be more effective working through pod ply and making those hook passes.
"We worked hard. On Tuesdays we'd do three sessions a day, but it wasn't overwhelming. Grant and his staff did a great job of moderating our load. I really enjoyed it."
The key, though, is to remember the lessons from the field and the classroom and take those with you.
"I am still making progress," Dolan said.
