An American in the World Cup Is Dreaming Big
By GEORGE VECSEY
Sports of The Times
August 16, 2007
Whenever an American soccer team goes off to play in the World Cup, I receive eloquent letters from rugby aficionados, asking, “When are you going to write about us?”
The answer is now. Not only does the United States have a national rugby team — the Eagles — but it has qualified for the World Cup to be held mostly in France in September. The American fly-half, Mike Hercus (“the quarterback, if you will”), the normal-size chap who throws and kicks and runs, grew up in Australia and played in Wales, but whatever.
The point is, the United States is just good enough to meet the defending champion, England, in the first game in the French mining city of Lens on Sept. 8. Hercus promises no miracles.
“This isn’t like soccer, where you can fluke a goal and then hold on,” said Hercus, who played on the wrong side of a 77-3 loss to Wales in 2005. “Rugby is pretty high scoring.”
Most Americans, myself included, have a vague impression of rugby as squads of 15 beefy brutes, many of them with master’s degrees, clanging their heads together until blood streams down their ridged brows, performing unspeakable acts of violence down in the pile. Which turns out to be the case.
•
Asked about his worst injury in rugby, Hercus vaguely mentioned a broken leg, but spent far more time describing the excruciating pain from an extremely personal foul by an opponent.
“After I punished him, I said, ‘Hey, that’s not cool,’ ” Hercus recalled. “And his mates agreed.” Apparently, there are codes even for close-order combat.
“Rugby is called the gentlemen’s sport,” Hercus said. “In my opinion, it’s the ultimate team sport in that you have all kinds of body types. Sometimes you carry them and sometimes they carry you.”
“It’s as close to war as you can get,” Hercus added. “You bash, barge and hurt, but at the end you always compliment your opponent. You respect a man who battles you. You know what he’s been through.”
Hercus, 28, has dual citizenship in the United States and Australia; he was born in Falls Church, Va., where his father was an executive for Qantas, and grew up in Sydney. He later migrated to Wales, once playing for Llanelli in the Powergen tournament semifinal in Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, against the Bath team from that foreign nation east of the Severn River.
“They hated each other,” said Hercus, who won that match with a 28-yard penalty kick, like a field goal, with eight minutes remaining. Most of the strife was on the pitch, he said, adding, “Rugby fans are pretty classy.”
Hercus aspired to play for Australia, but somebody in the United States heard of his dual citizenship and recruited him as a mainstay of the 2003 World Cup, helping the United States beat Japan, 39-26, in his real home, Australia. “To be honest, it felt like we’d won the World Cup,” he said. “We all knew this was the game we should win. I had 40 supporters of my own.”
The United States lost three other matches in 2003, giving it a 2-11 record in four of the five World Cups. After England this year, it plays Tonga, Samoa and South Africa. In soccer, every nation always thinks it has been stiffed into the toughest pool, the Group of Death. Why should rugby be any different?
But the United States has hopes for the future, coming from the fertile mind of the new director of the board, Kevin Roberts, the chief executive officer with Saatchi & Saatchi, who lives in New Zealand. Also on board are Nigel Melville, the president and a former captain of England, and the coach, Peter Thorburn, formerly with the fabled All Blacks of New Zealand.
•
Lest any of this furrin influx bring out the latent Lou Dobbs in anybody, let us remember that the United States went to the 1994 soccer World Cup coached by a Spanish-speaking Serb, Bora Milutinovic, while two stalwarts of recent American basketball squads were Patrick Ewing, born in Jamaica, and Hakeem Olajuwon, born in Nigeria.
You have to start somewhere. Roberts has big plans for branding rugby and raising the participants from approximately 83,000 to 1 million. (Good grief: rugby moms?) The United States could also tap the vast supply of former practitioners of American football. What else do they have to do?
But it’s not that easy, since clearly rugby demands some acquired skills. Hercus, who is 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs 181 pounds, compares rugby to chess, saying: “The field is impossible to defend. If they give you 10 percent, that is what you have to exploit.”
Hercus is currently training in Boulder, Colo., with most of the squad members before camp begins next week. He is also recuperating from recent hernia surgery. Judging from some of the foul play that goes on, everybody sounds like a candidate for that procedure.
E-mail: geovec@nytimes.com
Sports of The Times
August 16, 2007
Whenever an American soccer team goes off to play in the World Cup, I receive eloquent letters from rugby aficionados, asking, “When are you going to write about us?”
The answer is now. Not only does the United States have a national rugby team — the Eagles — but it has qualified for the World Cup to be held mostly in France in September. The American fly-half, Mike Hercus (“the quarterback, if you will”), the normal-size chap who throws and kicks and runs, grew up in Australia and played in Wales, but whatever.
The point is, the United States is just good enough to meet the defending champion, England, in the first game in the French mining city of Lens on Sept. 8. Hercus promises no miracles.
“This isn’t like soccer, where you can fluke a goal and then hold on,” said Hercus, who played on the wrong side of a 77-3 loss to Wales in 2005. “Rugby is pretty high scoring.”
Most Americans, myself included, have a vague impression of rugby as squads of 15 beefy brutes, many of them with master’s degrees, clanging their heads together until blood streams down their ridged brows, performing unspeakable acts of violence down in the pile. Which turns out to be the case.
•
Asked about his worst injury in rugby, Hercus vaguely mentioned a broken leg, but spent far more time describing the excruciating pain from an extremely personal foul by an opponent.
“After I punished him, I said, ‘Hey, that’s not cool,’ ” Hercus recalled. “And his mates agreed.” Apparently, there are codes even for close-order combat.
“Rugby is called the gentlemen’s sport,” Hercus said. “In my opinion, it’s the ultimate team sport in that you have all kinds of body types. Sometimes you carry them and sometimes they carry you.”
“It’s as close to war as you can get,” Hercus added. “You bash, barge and hurt, but at the end you always compliment your opponent. You respect a man who battles you. You know what he’s been through.”
Hercus, 28, has dual citizenship in the United States and Australia; he was born in Falls Church, Va., where his father was an executive for Qantas, and grew up in Sydney. He later migrated to Wales, once playing for Llanelli in the Powergen tournament semifinal in Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, against the Bath team from that foreign nation east of the Severn River.
“They hated each other,” said Hercus, who won that match with a 28-yard penalty kick, like a field goal, with eight minutes remaining. Most of the strife was on the pitch, he said, adding, “Rugby fans are pretty classy.”
Hercus aspired to play for Australia, but somebody in the United States heard of his dual citizenship and recruited him as a mainstay of the 2003 World Cup, helping the United States beat Japan, 39-26, in his real home, Australia. “To be honest, it felt like we’d won the World Cup,” he said. “We all knew this was the game we should win. I had 40 supporters of my own.”
The United States lost three other matches in 2003, giving it a 2-11 record in four of the five World Cups. After England this year, it plays Tonga, Samoa and South Africa. In soccer, every nation always thinks it has been stiffed into the toughest pool, the Group of Death. Why should rugby be any different?
But the United States has hopes for the future, coming from the fertile mind of the new director of the board, Kevin Roberts, the chief executive officer with Saatchi & Saatchi, who lives in New Zealand. Also on board are Nigel Melville, the president and a former captain of England, and the coach, Peter Thorburn, formerly with the fabled All Blacks of New Zealand.
•
Lest any of this furrin influx bring out the latent Lou Dobbs in anybody, let us remember that the United States went to the 1994 soccer World Cup coached by a Spanish-speaking Serb, Bora Milutinovic, while two stalwarts of recent American basketball squads were Patrick Ewing, born in Jamaica, and Hakeem Olajuwon, born in Nigeria.
You have to start somewhere. Roberts has big plans for branding rugby and raising the participants from approximately 83,000 to 1 million. (Good grief: rugby moms?) The United States could also tap the vast supply of former practitioners of American football. What else do they have to do?
But it’s not that easy, since clearly rugby demands some acquired skills. Hercus, who is 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs 181 pounds, compares rugby to chess, saying: “The field is impossible to defend. If they give you 10 percent, that is what you have to exploit.”
Hercus is currently training in Boulder, Colo., with most of the squad members before camp begins next week. He is also recuperating from recent hernia surgery. Judging from some of the foul play that goes on, everybody sounds like a candidate for that procedure.
E-mail: geovec@nytimes.com
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