Centuries after Europeans first tossed or kicked an oval ball down a field to score points, the sport of rugby found its way to America.
Wilmington’s Rugby enthusiasts congregate on weekends around the club’s playing field, Flytrap Downs, where 21st Street T-bones with Chestnut behind Mary Bridgers Park. Some die-hards don the yellow and black Cape Fear Rugby Club jerseys to play and others merely spectate as the team makes its bid for the playoffs.
Competing in a conference that includes teams from Charleston and Columbia, S.C., Camp Lejeune and Southern Pines in N.C., it plays each team once during the fall and once during the spring. The top two teams advance to playoffs. With only two games left in the spring season, the Cape Fear Rugby Club holds first place in its conference standings.
If the team earns a spot in the playoffs and wins that game, it moves on to nationals. Team captain Jason Gruner said the team hasn’t advanced that far in four or five years, but this year’s team is strong.
“We’ve got a good group of guys, all committed,” Gruner said after a scrimmage against the University of North Carolina Wilmington Feb. 7. “We’ve got about 30 guys that come out to practice.”
The players range in age from 19 to their early 40s, Gruner said, and it’s an eclectic mix of experience levels and backgrounds.
“I’d say it’s 80 percent of guys that come out and have played somewhere before,” Gruner said, “whether it was in college or high school, and we always get a decent amount of international guys. [One player is] from England, four guys from South Africa, and the other 20 percent are brand new players that either played football or wanted to come out and try it and fell in love with it.”
Cape Fear Rugby Club’s next match is Feb. 28 against Camp Lejeune and the following weekend the team takes on Columbia in the final game of the regular season.
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