So What's The Deal on This World Univ. Invitational Team?
So What's The Deal on This World Univ. Invitational Team?
College programs are scratching their heads at an initiative to put together a World Universities Invitational team for this September.
Thomas Clark, who works in various capacities in the game (NCR, New England Free Jacks, Mystic River, St. John's HS) is running the push to field a team at the tournament, which will be held in France in September, concurrently with the Rugby World Cup.
But the timing stinks, and college coaches have made no bones about pointing that out. Rugby East coaches were asked to submit players, and the response from some of them was: why would we want our players to play somewhere else in the middle of the season? Why, in addition, would we want them to miss school for this?
GRR spoke to Clark about it and he said there is some additional context that makes the plan not quite so ... problematic.
Key among these is that one has to remember that college sports elsewhere in the world is far less stringently policed than it is in the USA. Graduate students, students in their 30s, people who lived near a college once (OK that last one is an exaggeration) are OK to play.
Certainly, said Clark, not only grad students but those taking less than a full course load and those who graduated in the spring, summer, or fall of 2022 can play in this Atlantic All-Stars collegiate team.
Then perhaps the recruiting from East Coast conferences was ill-advised—after all that region has worked assiduously to promote a fall 15s season.
A few years ago the USA Rugby Collegiate All Americans played a game against Oxford University in September. That game was widely criticized for its horrible timing, and that was one game. The World University Invitational is five games.
And ... just to be clear ... it's five games in eight days, with the first match September 21 and the last match September 28 (we think you have to make the final to play that game and in fact most will only play three or four). This is according to the WURIT website. Add a couple of days to this trip—according to Clark the time commitment would be September 19 to September 28 (so arriving on the 19th and having a session on the 20th before the first game).
The other teams that have signed up are: New Zealand Universities, University of Bordeaux (the hosts), University of British Columbia, University of Cape Town, Oxford University, and University of Sydney.
This is quite a group and you can see why Clark wants to take a compilation side. But potential problems abound.
This is a Free Jacks-affiliated trip (they are partnering on player ID .
. We said sponsored in an earlier version which isn't correct) and there's a question as to whether any undergraduate collegiate player would risk his eligibility by participating (that is a very complex issue in college rugby but we at GRR would encourage players to find out what the ramifications are).
The total cost estimate is $85,000, which is to be fundraised, plus $500 per player. That $500 per player seems fair, but raising $85k is a tough ask.
There's the aforementioned time commitment for undergrads and the sacrifice fall-centric teams would make if they released players, but Clark said he has heard from a couple of coaches who want to get more minutes for certainly athletes.
Minutes won't be a problem as the team could be playing 400 minutes in just over a week. They will need a lot of players, and a lot of depth.
Clark is excited about the prospect and thinks this type of event can fill a need in player development. But it has myriad questions to be answered (and asked), especially for undergrads.