International Rugby Stars At Jesuit!

Rugby has a very long history for being one of the greatest sports in places like England and Australia and over the years Jesuit has taken notice of that by forming one of the most dominant high school rugby programs in Texas. This year,  a huge step was taken to push Rugby at Jesuit to the next level, as some of the world’s greatest rugby stars came and held a training camp!

For the first year, a prestigious rugby camp took place on campus, and seems certain to return.  As Brandon Locke ’14, assistant rugby captain at Jesuit explained, “This is basically the Dallas Cowboys coming to Jesuit to hold a football camp.”   The camp was hosted Nov. 23 by Serevi Rugby, an organization aimed at teaching rugby to North Americans of all ages and skill levels. Jesuit Head Coach Anthony Mattacchione described the event in a nutshell, “The weekend saw 60 aspiring rugby players from as far as Florida participate in the first ever Severi Rugby Camp in Dallas, Texas. Participants attended from local area high schools, universities and middle schools.”

Participants ranged from age 6 up to adults, including advanced rugby enthusiasts down to those with basic knowledge or no experience. Anyone with even a possible interest in playing rugby was welcome.

So what makes this camp so special? First were the instructors, who included some of the greatest rugby players, Ben Gollings, Emilie Bydwell  and Matt Trouville.

Ben Gollings played over 100 games in English Premiership Rugby and went on to play for England A and also played in Australia, New Zealand and Japan. His greatest achievement was earning the title of International Rugby Board Top Points Scorer with a total of 2,652 points.

Emilie Bydwell is a member of both the U.S. National 15s and 7s rugby teams. She has represented the U.S. since 2007 after she graduated from Brown University, playing ice hockey as well as rugby. Now she works with Serevi Rugby,  teaching rugby and with the goal of growing the number of the followers in the United States.

Coach Mattacchione describes why Matt Trouville is such a good choice for camp instructor by saying “Matt’s sense of humor, charm, teaching background and rugby experience all stand him in good faith with children, who call him Aussie Matt.” He was born in Sydney, Australia and graduated from the Australian College of Physical  Education.

So how have the players felt about the overall experience of the camp? As Locke put it, “I would say that the best part of this camp was learning from some of the world’s best and developing bonds with various, different rugby players from Oklahoma to college rugby players at TCU.”   Jesuit Rugby Captain Manny Salazar ’14 explained, “The most important thing I learned from this camp was perfecting the fundamentals of my rugby skills and getting to work with players from other teams gave me another perspective of how to play the game. This camp was awesome because I got to train for Ben Gollings, Matt Trouville, and Emilie Bydwell. They made the camp fun for us. It wasn’t too advanced or too basic. The camp had a good flow and we were always improving the next day. Their knowledge/ experience of the game was overwhelming and it was a great camp.”

Finally, Jesuit is expecting the camp to make two to three trips back to Dallas next year, hoping to improve rugby as a sport not only at Jesuit, but to any one willing to come to this camp. So from all of the players’ reactions to this camp, it was a huge success and they to see many more players out there next year!