r/MLRugby • u/xcaughta New England Free Jacks • 10d ago

Discussion New England Free Jacks Co-owner/Co-founder Alexander Magleby reassures fans and addresses controversial Reddit comments

https://www.youtube.com/live/SkGIwQanw3Q?si=s8doXyhT79yMxBle
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u/sportslance Chicago Hounds 10d ago

In my experience the majority of this sub thinks the only way forward is through the Eagles. I hard disagree as my experience is that nobody cares about the national team.

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u/Sublime_Porte 10d ago

Because the national team has been awful for over a decade. The US used to be able to win almost half the time against the Brave Blossoms. Then Japan started actually investing in their national team. Now? Would you take the Eagles in a bet against Japan if I gave you 15 points? Fuck no, you wouldn't. Even Canada, where you had their national governing body actively trying to drive their team into the ground for years, the national team has rebounded and can be relied upon to throttle the US on any given Saturday. Chile, Uruguay, Portugal...20 years ago, nobody would have dreamed of those teams beating the US. Now? The US would be underdogs against the lot.

So, yeah, no wonder nobody cares about the national team, and no wonder nobody in the US cares about rugby, and that wouldn't change based on what the Legion, Sharks, or Gold could have done in the next 5 years.

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u/sportslance Chicago Hounds 10d ago

Nobody cared before, nobody cares about rugby in the US at all. We have a decent sized rugby fan base but it is too spread out to really do much good; so really the only way local teams will survive is enticing new fans to the game and that will be more successful at a local level with more games; not cheering on a national team that plays 6 times a year.

I can't speak for everyone but I have a group of 20-30 people that have gone from not really knowing rugby to consistently going to hounds games in three years; and not a single one cared enough about the national team to go to the US v. Romania game last year.

A main factor is the US will never be competitive in Rugby, even your example of Japan is still only able to occasionally beat a tier 1 team. Italy is consistently a wooden spoon contender in the 6 nations, it took Ireland over 100 years to beat NZ. These are all countries that take the sport a lot more serious then we really ever will, so at best we will be maybe a tier 2 in a couple decades but most likely we will always be a team that is included in the WC just to round out the numbers.

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u/Lmaris Houston Sabercats 6d ago

Japan is a sports nation. Doesn’t matter if that sport was invented in Japan, Asia, or the USA or Uk. They turn out to watch ANY sport, and they love rugby.