Rugby Streamed Live
For some live football (Rugby) go to
https://www.collegiaterugbychampionship.com/event-info#streaming
Michigan is in the Mens Premier Cup, just beat Clemson. Will play later today at noon.
Championship bracket is tomorrow.
https://www.collegiaterugbychampionship.com/schedule-results/mens-premi…
7 on 7 (14 minutes games)
April 26th, 2024 at 11:07 AM ^
Thank you, this will help fill the void until there is live streaming of college cricket.
April 26th, 2024 at 12:09 PM ^
You can watch IPL right now! More scoring in match than baseball (comparing just the sixes).
April 26th, 2024 at 11:14 AM ^
Rugby Sevens always seemed like it should be more popular in the US...and the US should be better at it than they are. This seems like an ideal sport for running backs, tight ends and safeties who can't quite hit the NFL.
Full Rugby Union is a great sport, but Rugby Sevens is pure action-packed fun.
April 26th, 2024 at 11:53 AM ^
Agree, it’s a blast, and quick.
Unlike full 15-man, the US is at least competitive at this level. And the fact that Perry Baker, a D-2 football player that got one camp with the Eagles and played a couple years of arena, has had a long elite-level career does suggest that there are ex-football athletes who could thrive at sevens if given the opportunity.
The problem is that the infrastructure of the sport just isn’t strong enough to draw those guys in. At least, not yet. I think USA rugby would do well to make recruiting football players one prong of a multi-faceted recruiting strategy for both 7s and 15s, but the fact that there really aren’t good prospects for a decently paying pro career dampens the pull.
Still, I’d love to see some more players come through. The US hosts the Rugby World Cup in eight years and it would be nice if the US was good enough to win a game in pool play. In Sevens it is not unrealistic for the US to produce a team that can medal in the Olympics; as it stands they aren’t favorites to do so this year but it’s not impossible, as they’ve played in semifinals of a tournament or two already this season. Sevens has a lot of untapped potential for athletes to come in and be really good.
April 26th, 2024 at 12:14 PM ^
USA Rugby has been a mess going back to at least the 90s. The fringe status of rugby here doesn't help of course, particularly with funding, but it seems our CIPP money was being set on fire. The Eagles selection process was old boy network provincial for years. 7s is ideal for American consumption with its pace ,short game length, and ease of understanding as it plays simpler than 15s for the new viewer.
April 26th, 2024 at 12:32 PM ^
Feel likethe american 7s teams have been pretty all right the last decade tho
April 26th, 2024 at 12:41 PM ^
Perry Baker played rugby for a long time in addition to football before he made it on the National team. It does take some years of skill to be great even in a simpler format like 7s. Sam Mcguffie actually tried his hand at 7s and was mildly successful in some club national tournaments but not good enough for the national team. Rugby needs players that have played through young adulthood in addition to having the crossover superstar athletes.
Agree here. Harvesting football players isn’t a be-all strategy, and to their credit USA rugby’s personnel strategy for the World Cup focuses on ground-up development.
Even world-class 15 players need some acclimation to 7s; France brought Antoine DuPont on to their 7s squad for Olympic prep this spring and initially used him only as a sub.
Of course, as soon as he got on the pitch he was the best player on the field.
But looking to football players isn’t a fool’s errand. There is a lot to learn, but you’re also looking for people accustomed to contact sports in excellent physical shape who have the body size and tools to be successful. It would take time to develop them, which is where the infrastructure problem comes into play; you need teams and games that exist, and there’s just not a lot, and there’s little or no money in it. A guy who wants to play a competitive sport with football experience can try rugby and might get good. But they also are already good at football and there’s the XFL (or whatever it’s called now) and arena football and the CFL and you don’t need to learn a new sport to play them and they pay a bit.
Deveon Smith is a good example of a guy with a body type and some skills that could translate to rugby, at least, 15s. But why commit to a sport you don’t know with a long learning curve with a “professional” league in the States that nobody has heard of and makes little money with few fans in attendance when you can keep making actual football rosters and play the game you’ve known and loved for your whole life, even in a lower level league?
Personally, I enjoy watching college football, then NFL, then rugby. I never liked the XFL or whatever arena football. I like the pureness of just tackling, pitching and running on a grassy field.
Many high school coaches are encouraging spring rugby for the football players to keep in shape and to learn better tackling.
April 26th, 2024 at 12:35 PM ^
The U.S. 7s team has been really good for like a decade now.
Definitely good (10th last season, 8th so far this season), but I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that they could be better. They just are not seeing the same success as the women's team (3rd last season, 4th so far this season).
As an aside, one of the players on the USA Women's Rugby Sevens team, Alena Olsen, is a University of Michigan rugby alumna.
Last years 10th place finish was their worst season since like 2012 and it was because they had a pretty big turnover of players. They were damn close to being the #1 team in the World just a few years ago. Again, U.S.A 7s has been very good this past decade.
Right--in 2018/19 it was down to the last tournament of the year and the US only had to beat Fiji in the semis to win it all. Unfortunately they were blown out, but they still finished 2nd in the world for their only top-4 finish since the series started in 1999.
I was thinking it'd be a great sport for women who wanna play something physical when I was watching women's Olympic rugby 4 years ago. It was fun to watch and free-flowing. The women looked pretty fast and very physical. Obviously something like football doesn't work easily given how many players you need, chucking a football far downfield, etc. Rugby doesn't require much equipment.
Here's the Rio 2016 final if you wanna watch a minute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3TKmP-xMys&ab_channel=Olympics
April 26th, 2024 at 12:13 PM ^
Way better than the other available options.
April 26th, 2024 at 12:39 PM ^
Update: Michigan won their round of 16 game, and will play Kutztown in the quarterfinals at 6:05pm this evening. This will be their third match today!
Go Blue! Beat the, uh, ...[spends a minute on Wikipedia]... Golden Bears!
I think Rugby 7s requires the best athletes of any sport. They have to be fast, able to withstand hard impact, have excellent cardio, have upper body strength, lower body/leg strength, agility, quickness, toughness, ability to play through pain and injuries...everything!
The Hong Kong Sevens tournament ought to be a bucket list item for any sports fan - fantastic weekend partying with sports fans from all over the world, and the games are short enough, things never get ugly in spite of all the alcohol flowing.
Somewhat obscure, but there is Tens version of rugby that is my favorite - it's the right combination of speed, power, strategy and pacing.
Can’t tell if a joke or not, but either way I agree
I can assure you, it is. Most popular in Asia and South Africa, it's a really good balance, and probably most similar to modern American Football for American viewers: not all scrums, not all fast breaks.
"Unlike sevens rugby, tens offer players of diverse skills, capabilities and different fitness levels the opportunity to continue to enjoy the game they love so much. The more traditional scrums and lineouts are part of the game whilst the fact that there is a bit more space on the field, however not too much as to expose the slower forwards on the defensive lines, makes this a very popular game for all levels of players."
We used to have a 10s tournament in Flint every summer. Good times.
I'm a rugby union fan, haven't really tried rugby 7's. I've got tickets for every rugby 7s match at the Paris Olympics so I guess I'll try it out there.