How Kentucky Pulled Off the Repeat
How Kentucky Pulled Off the Repeat
It is enormously difficult to repeat in a major championship.
You have to deal with players thinking it's going to be easier this time around. You have to deal with the opposition putting a huge target on you. You have to deal with player turnover that could expose deficiencies you didn't know you had.
So how did Kentucky do it and, given that eventually key personnel will graduate, can they stay at that level?
Culture
“I came to Kentucky in 2022 fresh out of basic training to be an infantryman in the Army National Guard,” said Dalton Stevens. “And when I came to campus and I didn’t have an identity outside of the Army. One time I was sitting in class, Blaine Donlan was sitting next to me and said ‘hey, man you have the build to play rugby. You should come out. I went to practice and Immediately you could just tell it was something you wanted to be a part of.”
Stevens was drawn to the team aspect, and of the game and how that jibed with his military experience. He especially liked how experienced players welcomed new players, rather than making them jump through hoops to feel part of the team.
“I started playing fullback and John Hall was one of the first people to take me under his wing,” Stevens said. “He showed me what the position was about. And that spread out through the team. I found myself hanging out with the team. The whole culture is about family. We stay in houses near each other. It’s not abnormal for guys to drop by and just hang out for hours at a time. The parents are part of it, too. Everybody’s parent is a parent to every player. I just don’t think anyone does it as well as we do.”
“Our leadership drives the culture,” said DOR Gary Anderson. “We have a great coaching staff but a lot of programs have world-class coaches. But we work to build leaders.”
“Our parents are very, very involved,” added Head Coach Sam Enari. “They go to games, they bring food for trips. They work on fundraising. As a result these guys feel supported.”
And part of that is the recruiting part. The players Enari and Anderson recruit are serious about their rugby, but also serious about life.
“We don’t get a lot of guys who ‘might’ play rugby,” Enari said. “If they are coming to Kentucky then rugby is a big part of that decision. I am not looking for headaches, so you have to be on top of your schoolwork. Talent out of high school is nice but not the be-all and end-all. And we don’t recruit kids for the resources their family may have. But, since we recruit almost exclusively from out-of-state they usually have some resources. But what we really need is for the players to be invested in each other.”
And then Anderson provides a professional development piece. A business owner, Anderson brings in alumni who have found success after graduation to talk about careers, and Anderson also works to start connections between alumni and current players. While there might be someone out of Kentucky who plays rugby at an international level, the greater likelihood is that they will have to get a job.
“I run a business. It’s successful, and from a strategic standpoint, how to run a business and how to manage employees is something I have a perspective on,” said Anderson. “I can sit down with the boys and talk to them about what it takes to be successful in life in the real world. “
Anderson has the players do presentations with an eye toward a professional plan. The alumni talk to them.
“We deal with issues that freshmen struggle with,” said Anderson. We talk about life lessons, and we’re also looking to give guys a leg up. With business and engineering kids, we’re able to set them up with an alumni mentor. SO they got not just rugby but some real-world stuff … they players might not always understand but the parents do. We talk about ‘here’s how you dress, here’s how you speak. He’s how you handle yourself, but we’re also there as a coach or a mentor or just someone to talk to.”
The Leaders
“To let them lead we have to walk behind them and know there will be failures,” said Anderson. “It takes time but you see guys develop. Jared Monnier; I never though he’d become the leader he had, but he did it.”
“Teams can get complacent after they start winning,” said flyhalf Jack Phillips, who has been a huge part of the my personal experience with the program. “But for us as players, we took complacency completely out of the equation. We raise the bar as far as expectations of ourselves, and we came together to make sure everyone was on the same page.”
“The biggest challenge is always ownership among the guys,” added Enari. “In 2023 they were committed and were playing hard, but they hadn’t won it. They kept pushing and pushing. This year we understood the caliber of play that we needed and we went from have one or two leaders to having at least 15. When they didn’t play to the caliber we were capable of, I didn’t need to say anything—they knew it and said it to each other.”
“I haven’t seen anyone come in and gel the way we have, and when we did that we started winning bowl games, conference championships, and NCR championships. With Sam leading it, it’s exciting.”
When they almost lost the SCRC final against Clemson, eventually winning 8-7, it was that understanding, unity of purpose, and leadership that ensured everyone kept cool heads.
Jack Phillips takes a shot at goal. photo NCR.
Coaching and Expectations
“I say to the boys, fundamentals will win you the game and finesse will decide by how much,” Enari told GRR.
This Kentucky team won a CRAA Bowl Game in the fall of 2022, beating Colorado State, and they felt they were a championship-level outfit. The next year, in NCR, they won the NCR D1AA playoffs in the fall of 2023. They expected to repeat that feat in 2024, but didn’t want to get ahead of themselves.
“Sam didn’t want to talk about a championship,” said Kentucky flyhalf Jack Phillips. “We don’t take any team for granted; we prepare for every team individually. There’s been multiple times where we have made the mistake of looking past a team. I am a firm believer in really taking time to perfect the little things—passing, kicking, reading a defense, understanding our offense—it’s one thing to go out and run a play that works perfectly every time because you have the athletes. But perfecting yourself as a player is something I learned that I have control of. What gave me confidence was that the coaches, my teammates, and I had prepared me.”
Enari said the team knew on the first day of preseason that winning a second-straight NCR title was the goal and eminently possible.
“So everyone came together on Day One and said ‘we all know what the goal is; let’s talk about it once we get the conference,’” recounted Enari. “Because we still had to go out and do it. In 2023 we had an inkling that we could be good. In 2024 everybody knew we would be good. We had fun in the season, but we knew we were meant to be there.”
Jared Monnier gets attention from BGSU skipper Phil Tracey. Photo NCR.
“A big part of our team’s success we had the ability for guys to fill in when we needed them,” said flanker Gage Curry. “I tore my shoulder against Tennessee and Brendan Lynn came in with the right mentality to take over. He’s a bit smaller than me but a bit quicker, and most of all, with the same mindset.”
Curry leads an aggressive back row unit, one that embraces physicality, but doesn’t go overboard. “Sam Enari keeps our heads on straight.”
Enari is generally a quiet, analytical kind of coach. He’s one of those coaches who maps out every second of practice, and worries about finding games for his B side.
“They didn’t come here to sit on the bench,” he said.
This past fall he had so much leadership and experience, he gave the team a looser rein. Next fall he might have a younger team and will have to be more involved.
“I’m not a big yeller,” he said. “And each team has its down unique character, but I will probably have a stronger hand [next season].”
The Future
One of the things GRR sees in successful college teams is that very often it’s about the presence of uniquely talented players that drives the success. Yes, the program is good, even very good, but having two or three top-level players is driving the victories. When those players graduate, the team’s success drops off.
Is that the case with Kentucky? They don’t graduate a lot of players, but they do graduate some special performers—tighthead prop Jared Monnier may be the best tighthead in D1AA. Enari thinks he’s the best in the college game. Phillips is an excellent flyhalf with as good a boot, from the hand or from the tee, as anyone in the college game. That’s just two players.
“We have guys coming in,” said Stevens. “Charlie Sizemore is coming up to provide depth at hooker. We’re going to miss Hared holding down the scrum and Jack’s leg, but we have Holden [Hahn], Gage, and the Keough brothers. There will be questions about what the team will look like but I don’t think we’re worried about it.”
Enari points out that John Dardis has emerged as a good kicker, but the rugby IQ that Monnier and Phillips provide will take time to replace.
“I’ve got 100% confidence in my team,” said Phillips. “I am very confident in the younger guys that are taking my place and the new generation of UK rugby. One thing we have always been able to do is buy-in.”
One example of buy-in and the attitude for the future is mapped out by Curry.
“In our loose forward corps we understand that we will make the most tackles,” said Curry. “Our job is to put in the work. We have to be some of the fittest guys on the team. We understand that the game needs to be played with violence and that not only are you going to beat them on the scoreboard but mentally too. Something that I try to tell the guys is, talk with your shoulders. There’s no point in jawing to the other team, but if you channel that aggression into your playing style, you’ll succeed.”
It is very difficult to win a major championship such as NCR’s D1AA title twice in a row, and even more difficult to do that and think the next year you’re going to do it again. It takes more than just talent. It takes a unity of purpose both on and off the field, and really it’s the off-the-field part where Kentucky did the job. Yes they played well, but the team culture, as well as putting rugby in the context of planning for adult life, ensured that players knew not only what, but why.
“We have a great balance of holding each other accountable and also having fun,” concluded Phillips. “We really spend a lot of time together and we take the time to get to know each other but each other’s family, siblings, and friends. Something I was taught early-on in high school rugby is that we’re going to war together. It’s a physical game and emotions get high and knowing the person next to you makes a huge difference. A lot of times we’re having in-depth conversations during free play. At practice we play a lot of touch and the whole time we’re like ‘hey I’m coming around; I will hit this gap.’ The constant chatter is a big thing for us.
“All that said, I wouldn’t want to do anything else as far as utilizing my time in college. Rugby has tight me life lessons and helped me build relationship you can’t get anywhere else. My college experience would have been, for lack of better words, dull if I hadn’t been in this program.”
