Ruck and Roll: Professional Rugby Plays in Pittsburgh
By Layla Joseph
Pittsburgh’s newest professional sports team will be making its first home debut at Highmark Stadium for the Eastern Conference Rugby Finals on Sunday.
It’s common knowledge that the Pirates, Penguins and Steelers belong to the City of Bridges, but earlier this year the Steeltoes have been added to the mix.
The Steeltoes are one of eight franchises that belong to Premier Rugby 7s, which according to their website, is the “first major standalone rugby sevens cricut in the world.”
Each franchise consists of two teams, a men’s and a women’s, who play alongside each other at tournaments. Sunday’s tournament will feature four franchises: the New York Locals, Southern Headliners, Texas Team and the Pittsburgh Steeltoes.
The winners of this tournament will move on to face the winning teams in the western conference to battle for the men’s A. Jon Prusmack Cup and the women’s Kathy Flores Cup.
Rugby sevens differs from traditional rugby mostly due to the amount of players on the field and the amount of time they spend playing.
While traditional rugby games would consist of 15 players on the field for each team and an 80 minute game clock, rugby sevens games last only 14 minutes and are played with seven players per team.
Rugby sevens is more fast paced than the original game and could be better compared to a sprint rather than a marathon.
Men’s Head Coach Jason Kelly has been playing rugby for 25 years and coaching for two decades.
The New Zealand native currently lives in Colorado but said he has been to Pittsburgh before for a number of different times as a player and a coach, as well as the talent identification camp hosted by the Steeltoes back in March.
Talent identification camps help the coaches put together a team while giving local talent a chance to shine. While most of the team is picked by a draft system similar to the NFL, availability is left open in case the team finds a talented local player.
“Basically whoever wants to show up to the camp shows up,” Kelly said. “We put a bunch of drills together and play matches at the end of the day. We look for any kind of hidden talent that we don’t originally know about.”
While the men’s team is compiled from people nationally and internationally, there is one PIttsburgher who made the cut. Mikhail "Misha" Shorin played for the Pittsburgh Forge before being scouted at the camp and joining the Steeltoes as a professional athlete.
“Misha is a great example,” Kelly said. “He’s a very talented kid and without the identification camp, we wouldn’t have discovered him.”
While the team is still establishing the foundation, Kelly said that his players have connected well and already started to create a strong culture.
On June 17, the Steeltoes competed at the Eastern Conference Kick-Off in Austin, Texas where the men’s team fell short to the Southern Headliners 14-26 but dominated the New York Locals 36-7.
“The first game, I think the occasion kind of got to us a little bit,” Kelly said. “Our guys were pretty nervous. We had some mental errors and gave up some easy points.”
“But then, our second performance, we came out and played incredibly well,” he continued.
Going into the Eastern Conference Finals, the Steeltoes have less time to prepare than they have previously, but Kelly says since they got their first win and loss over with, he sees the true potential in the group.
“The quality of the performance in the second game was amazing,” he said. “It showed that we do belong here and that we can upset some teams in the Pittsburgh tournament.”
Tickets can be purchased online and range anywhere from $25 to $95. Included in the ticket is the chance to witness four professional teams go head-to-head and a fan festival featuring inflatables, costume contest, vendor give-aways and more starting an hour before the game.
