There is a new sport in the city that is constantly growing.

Sean O’Neill of Sewickley Hills is co-founder of the Quaker Valley Rugby Club, which works with the Premier Youth & Community Center in Sewickley.

“We only launched the club earlier this year with a meeting with RugbyPA representatives who gave us valuable insight, guidelines and contact points,” said O’Neill. “We then met with QVSD’s Director of Sport, Mike Mastroianni, who gave us approval to continue as a club activity. We have been in contact with Mike from the beginning and he has been incredibly helpful and supportive of the new sport in Quaker Valley.

“To do this, we needed a staff member to sponsor the club and amazingly, we discovered that there is a former rugby player on the team, Dr. Madeline Neely, a health and physical education teacher at Osborne, who happily accepted our request and is our QVSD staff sponsor.”

Mastroianni provided the necessary background information for the founding of a rugby club.

“I spoke to members of the rugby club last spring to discuss the formation of a club and everything that goes with it,” he said.

QV’s Rugby Club offers the sport to youth, middle and high school students. The club already has a list of goals for 2024-25.

“The club’s short-term goals are to do as much advertising as possible so people know about the rugby club and to get enough kids at every level to field a team,” O’Neill said. “The long-term goals are to maintain the program from the youth up and advance it to the point where rugby becomes a PIAA recognized sport.”

O’Neill is the general manager and assistant head coach. He began playing rugby at Bethany College in the 1990s and continued his career while in the United States Marine Corps.

“Rugby is a self-educating sport,” said O’Neill. “If you don’t know how to tackle, you either learn quickly or give up the game quickly.” About five years ago, my eldest son Joe was just starting to play football and I helped him coach his mighty team.

“I played football for Quaker Valley from first grade through high school and then to Bethany College, where I then found rugby to be my salvation. But when I came back to coach, I was delighted to see that USA Football was partnering with a New Zealand rugby company, ATAVUS, and teaching tackling to USA Football coaches as part of its online certification program.”

O’Neill’s wife Kara is secretary and assistant coach of the QV Rugby Club’s junior team.

“I thought, given the recent media attention surrounding the U.S. women’s history-making Olympic bronze medal win,” she said, “it would be a good time to really highlight our mission: We want to reach out to local families who are unfamiliar with the sport and teach them about it. We also want to provide a safe place for them to learn and try it.”

“Given how much headlines women’s rugby has made in recent weeks, we thought it would be nice to link it with local interests.”

To get things rolling, the club held a series of seminars earlier this summer.

“Our future goals are not only to expand the youth program, but also to recruit enough players to field boys and girls teams at both the middle and high school levels,” said Kara O’Neill.

The club is a busy community organisation that partnered with the Premier Youth CC family in June 2024. The club offers a variety of events and courses throughout the year.

An upcoming event – ​​Learn Rugby Open House – focuses on QV rugby for all ages and will be held on September 15 from 1-4 p.m. at the Fern Hollow Nature Center in Sewickley.

Entry is free and open to players of all ages and their parents. The course covers the history of rugby, safety aspects, different formats of rugby and local rugby opportunities.

“We are currently trying to recruit more high school players to form a team for the spring season,” said Sean O’Neill.

The O’Neill family is active in rugby in western Pennsylvania. Joe, 11, and Jack, 9, already play the sport.

Kennedy, 15, has played for both West Pittsburgh and North Pittsburgh United and has received numerous accolades following her freshman year at Quaker Valley in 2023-24.

In spring rugby sevens, she helped North Pitt win the RugbyPA High School Division 2 Western Conference championship and was named Rookie of the Year by her coaches and teammates at North Pitt.

She was also selected for the RugbyPA High School Girls Division 2 Western All-Conference first team and the Allegheny Rugby Union U19 Select Side.

And as the saying goes, “Like father, like daughter.”

Kennedy’s father played for several USMC teams and was selected to the All-Marine Corps rugby team in the early 2000s.

He finished his playing career with the Westmoreland Highlanders. He was also selected for the Allegheny Rugby Union Men’s Select Side.

“Sean’s main motivation at that point was that the Kennedys needed to play for club teams in the extended local area because our high school and our community didn’t have a team,” Kara O’Neill said.

Quaker Valley Rugby Club has an experienced coaching staff led by Leet Township resident Miles Loewy, who has both played and coached the sport at a high level, having previously played for the England national team and Exeter Premiership Rugby Club.

In the United States, Loewy was head coach of the Pittsburgh Harlequins men’s team and one of the founders who helped build their home stadium, Founders Field in Cheswick.

The club participates in various events and competitions such as the RugbyPA Division 2 West Spring 7s and has a social media presence, sharing news and interacting with the community.

Rugby is one of the fastest growing youth sports in the country. According to World Rugby Online, the object of the game is to get the ball over the opponent’s goal line and push it into the ground to score a goal.

This description is simple but complex. To move forward, the ball must be passed backwards. The ball can be shot forwards, but the shooter’s teammates must be behind the ball at the moment the ball is shot.

And according to USA Rugby, there are two main forms of the game: Rugby 15 and Rugby 7. Touch Rugby, Beach Rugby, Rugby 10 and Rugby 12 are other variations of the sport.

Although rugby players do not wear pads or helmets, the sport’s techniques and rules make collisions safer. Players are taught to use their arms and shoulders when making contact with opponents, which has serious consequences when contact occurs above the shoulders and in other dangerous styles of play.

All youth and high school rugby programs in Pennsylvania are operated by authorized state organizations under the USA Rugby umbrella. All coaches must complete a coaching course to ensure they teach safe tackling, are trained in concussion management, are Safesport accredited and undergo a background check.

To sign up for the QV Rugby Club or for more information, call or text Sean O’Neill at 412-292-9181, email [email protected], or visit him on Facebook at Quaker Valley Rugby Club or on Instagram at @qv_rugby_club.

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