The Sleeping Giant Awakes

PEOPLE OFTEN do not appreciate just how deep rugby’s roots go in North America.

One of the first ever cross-border games in world rugby took place in 1874 when Harvard played McGill University of Montreal, and despite the game being banned by Yale for being too violent, it remained popular enough–especially at the Ivy League universities–to challenge American Football, especially on both coasts, before fading away after America won gold medals in the sport at the 1920 and 1924 Olympics.

Although often derided Stateside as a college game for Frat boys with a drink problem, rugby has stubbornly persisted in North America, particularly in its elite academic institutions, with the result that a surprisingly high number of its most senior politicians are what the Yanks call “ruggers”.

Bill Clinton played while at Oxford, George W Bush was an enthusiastic player at Yale, and Ted Kennedy was Harvard’s star man in the