Women’s club rugby is green. Not the color of their uniforms, but their experience with the game.
Of the Dirty Ducks’ 37 players, 21 are new to the squad this year. And yet, the team has earned a bid in the top 25 national poll, and still have yet to play a match.
At No. 16 in the country, women’s rugby is the only ranked squad that has not yet played a match. The squad is poised to improve upon their No. 10 ranking last year, a season which culminated in a playoff run.
Senior team captain Megan Adams elaborated on the team’s goal.
“We want to win the national championship, with our coaching and the talent we have, it’s a realistic goal,” Adams said.
To achieve their goal, rugby’s practice schedule resembles that of a Division-I sport, with practice five days a week and games on Saturday. One glance at the team during practice manifests a dedication to nutrition and conditioning.
The Dirty Ducks toppled Stanford University last season, the highlight of a mostly successful campaign. The Cardinal invited Oregon back to Palo Alto this season. The match at Steuber Field, where the national championship is played every year, represents the marquee event on Oregon’s schedule, and coincides with the Ducks-Cardinal football game the weekend of Nov. 7.
In a tune-up for their California swing, the team will face Oregon Sports Union, a Portland-based rugby club on Saturday, Oct. 31. Although ORSU represents a dedicated core of rugby enthusiasts, Adams articulated that her team faces stiffer competition down South.
“Northern Cali rugby is so different; it’s faster and more advanced,” Adams said. “We don’t have the competition in the Northwest, so we need to travel down to Stanford to play the best.”
The Hornets’ style of play will reflect the California-based style Adams mentioned.
The relatively green team is maturing quickly under head coach Duffin McShane. Although McShane has spent considerable time playing semi-pro rugby, and just under a decade coaching, the Dirty Ducks are his first women’s team.
McShane’s reciprocated the attitude of his players on the field, reflecting on the early season.
“It’s the most fun I’ve had coaching, because they don’t think they have it all figured out,” McShane said.
But what brought more than 20 new faces out to join the Dirty Ducks?
Sophomore Molly Kuhn, a first-year rugby player, elaborated on why she volunteered to brave Eugene’s soggy weather and sacrifice her time six days out of the week.
“I come because I like everybody on the team, and I like to hit people,” Kuhn said.
With a watermelon grin on her face and no malicious intent about her, Kuhn’s demeanor matches that of her teammates, who playfully banter after having hit each other for two hours with only conditioning breaks in between.
Two more events are on the docket after the Dirty Ducks’ West Coast swing; a round-robin weekend in which Oregon will play host to UC Davis and the Bend Women’s Rugby Club.
The Civil War game is one week later, on Nov. 21, also at Riverfront Park.
Preseason rankings alone suggest the women of Oregon will be a spectacle on the pitch this season. Led by an enthusiastic captain, a coach with 15 years of experience in the Super League semi-pro rugby in the United States, and a squad of 37, over half of which are new players, the powerhouse of the Pacific Northwest represents an oddity on the club rugby scene. How does this youthful team earn so much respect?
Adams thinks she knows the answer.
“We’re just fifteen players trying to get one player across the line, it’s not about being the star,” she said. “We play as a team.”
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