Club Corner: Men's Rugby

As another fall season draws to a close, the Yale rugby club has rediscovered the winning ways that made them the 1998 Northeast Champions.

Despite a disappointing season-opening loss to Central Connecticut State, the team has emerged victorious in its last three games. And while hopes of another division title still remain, the true measure of just how far the team has come may lie down the road, in the matches that remain this season and in those that await them next spring. "We've improved a great deal this year," Donny Kueker, BR '02 said. "Even if we don't win our division, our hard work will definitely pay off for the Harvard game and for the spring season."

JULIA TIERNAN/YH Men's Rugby will look to defend the Northeast Championship that it won last year.

Though young and inexperienced, this year's rugby club has improved with each passing week and in the process has managed to change the course it had charted in its first two weeks of competition. After losses to Williams in a scrimmage and Central Connecticut in the season opener, hopes for a successful season might have run low. But instead of allowing the losses to strike at their confidence, the Elis have gained valuable experience and became a stronger club. As David Dickson, DC '01, said, "If we had that first game to play over, we would win."

The challenge the club faced heading into this season was a daunting one: it had to incorporate 10 new players into a roster of 22. In the team's early losses, this task proved too difficult. "The reason we lost those games is because half the team was composed of new players," Dickson explained.

The newcomers, particularly the freshmen, have nonetheless made the transition a smooth one, contributing greatly to the team's recent success. Captain Corey Lee, TD '00 worked hard to bring the team together on the field when it lacked a coach during the season's first few weeks.

The club's hard work has paid great dividends this season. In each and every victory—against the Coast Guard, Trinity, and Fairfield—the team's speed and skill have nullified Yale's lack of size. The club's success this year, in which the team's younger players have played a significant role, has brightened the prospects for future seasons.

The team has two crucial games in the immediate future. If Yale wins its game against Southern Connecticut State this weekend and undefeated Central Connecticut State loses to Trinity, the chance of winning another division title still exists. But if fortune conspires against the club, then the Harvard game—always one of the year's biggest—will become the team's greatest test. "But whatever the outcome," Kueker said, "we made a lot of pro-gress and guaranteed success for years to come."

—James Fagan

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