Massive NAI 7s Caps Off Summer of Select-Side Rugby's Return
Massive NAI 7s Caps Off Summer of Select-Side Rugby's Return
The summer of 2022 has become a summer of select-level rugby for high-school and youth rugby players in the USA.
Currently Eagle Impact Rugby Academy is on tour to Ireland with U16 and U17 teams for both and girls. That's about 100 players. The USA U20 and U23 women's teams just finished up a trip to Canada where they played the two top Canadian college teams, while the men's U23s, U20s, and U18s were in the Netherlands for the Corendon Summer Tour playing national age-grade teams (Netherlands, Belgium, Czech Republic) and major men's clubs from the Rugby Europe competition. Those two tours exposed about 125 players to high-level rugby.
Add in the select-side weekend in Wisconsin we just reported on, the tournament involving New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania here>>, and the new Buckeye Invitational, you have maybe 400 players getting additional high-level experience. And don't forget the California Grizzlies collegiate team toured Argentina with 31 players and went 3-0.
It is unfortunate that the Rocky Mountain Challenge, due to an organizational snafu, was not held this year, but the hope is that will return, and also the Great Northwest Challenge on the West Coast and a tournament in the South.
But you know what is still here? The NAI 7s. It's 7-a-side not 15s, but that doesn't mean it's not valuable.
The NAI 7s has over 150 teams from U12 on up to U23. By our count there are, now get this ... 1,906 players registered to play. That's a staggering number. Some of these players are already very good, and some are trying to get there. But that's the plan.
The NAI 7s offers a supreme opportunity for these players to learn, improve, and show off what they can do.
NAI 7s is live on FloRugby-go here to sign up>>
And it's valuable for every age group. We don't expect the U12s to be scouted by colleges. But what their goals are coincide, oddly, with the U23s—have fun, build on your skills, and find some tough competition to help you improve. The high schoolers are indeed thinking about college, but they are also thinking about stuff like the camaraderie of the game, learning 7s so they can play that in college, and testing themselves.
If the USA is to get better, everyone has to have that attitude.
So here's to a summer of having over 2,500 young rugby players play at a higher level, and here's to the culmination of that at the NAI 7s this weekend in Utah.
