Girls Rugby A 'Hit' In Woodbury

Rugby. To the 34 East Metro Lady Bulldogs, it certainly is rugged.

“The first game she played, I’m sure my eyes were as a big as saucers,” Lorann Pederson said of her daughter, Amanda, who is a second-year “rugger” and senior at . “My son played football, but this is definitely tougher.”

For many parents who are new to rugby, there’s a definite learning curve to the game—so steep, in fact, that parents are given a copy of Rugby for Dummies when their daughters sign up. And while getting used to the idea of throwing the oblong ball backwards to gain yards and learning the intricate rules of the scrum, parents are dealing with their daughters coming home with bruises, cuts, disheveled ponytails—and great big smiles.

“I have never played a sport that is so exhilarating and so exhausting,” said co-coach Terry Miller, who has coached rugby for more than 20 years and played even longer. “There’s so much physical contact, and it’s a real endurance sport.”

Miller is a volunteer with the Minnesota Amateur Rugby Foundation, a nonprofit organization that organizes and supports the high school rugby league to which the East Metro Bulldogs belong. The team is made up of girls from all eastern suburbs, from Woodbury to Stillwater to Hudson, Wis.

The league also accommodates the different schools’ schedules in different ways.

“I like that it’s only three days a week," said Tessa Pliakas, a Stillwater Area High School junior.

Pliakas joined the team after learning about it from a friend, and while the time commitment might not take a toll on the girls, the physicality of the game does.

There’s an old Irish saying that “rugby is a sport for barbarians played by gentlemen” (or gentlewomen).

“When you’re on the sidelines and there’s a particularly hard tackle, you can feel it vibrate through the ground,” Pederson said. 

Second-year teammate Alyssa Bradshaw, a junior at Woodbury High School, accidentally broke another girl’s nose at a past game. 

“I like that the rules are the same for both boys and girls,” she said. “It’s definitely a way to get out a little aggression.”

While there was a clear “no pain, no gain” mentality on the field, there is a sense of camaraderie that exists not only between teammates but also between the various teams in the league itself. If a team is short a few girls, the opposing team can and will lend a few extra players (as the Bulldogs had to a few years ago); players run water out during breaks for either team; and there’s equal concern on both sides when an injury forces a girl to the sidelines. 

In addition to empathy and good sportsmanship, rugby also teaches leadership skills.

“In my years of coaching, I’ve seen a lot of players take on leadership roles later in life,” Miller said. “Rugby really helps build those inherent skills—things like confidence, teamwork, just the idea that even after you take a hard hit, you gotta get right back up and keep moving forward because the action doesn’t stop.”

It’s clear that everyone takes something of their own away with them from the game—even the spectators.

“They’re just out there, and they’re having so much fun,” Pederson said as she stood on the sidelines. “You can’t help but enjoy it with them.”