CBA rugby - yes, rugby - heads to Ireland, as Shore's only high school team explores culture

LINCROFT – A group of 35 strong, consisting of players and coaches from a successful Jersey Shore high school athletic program, will spend Saturday soaking up the electric atmosphere in a packed stadium while watching the sport they've come to love played at the highest level.

No, not Yankee Stadium.

The venue's Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland, where the Christian Brothers Academy rugby squad, the best team you’ve never heard of, will watch Leinster take on Ulster shortly after arriving in the country for a 10-day tour that includes playing three games.

“It will be like being in Giants Stadium, but it’s rugby,” said CBA head coach Pat Moroney, a Dublin native who founded the program in 2011.  “And it’s an Irish derby because it’s Leinster, which is a province on the east, and Ulster, a province on the north, so it’s a big rivalry. It will be exciting.”

As his players fanned out Tuesday across the expanse of green that used to serve as CBA’s soccer fields and Moroney shouted instructions to get training session started, the scene was both familiar, as players worked through drills, and unrecognizable, with thinner goal posts than football, a fatter ball and no pads.

It’s a niche sport, with no other Shore Conference schools fielding a team and only seven schools in the New Jersey playing rugby, including St. Augustine, Delbarton, Don Bosco and Bergen Catholic. But that only serves to heighten the sense of comradery within the team, in a sport where virtually everyone shows up for the first day of practice as freshmen knowing absolutely nothing.

“The challenge of having a rugby team at CBA is not having football. When we play against St. Augustine, Delbarton, they’re always bigger. So we have to be better,” said Moroney, who has worked alongside coach Brian Sheehy since 2012.

Playing 7-on-7, the Olympic version of the sport, in the fall and 15-on-15, the more traditional version, in the spring, CBA has won five state titles in all, including four in the fall.

Incredible experience

When practice opened last August, CBA had 80 students turn out to play rugby, with the Colts fielding six different teams, based on age and ability level, that each competed in four tournaments. In the spring, the squad is divided into a varsity and junior varsity.

“Everyone can play. No matter who you are there’s an aspect of the sport that is tailored for you,” said senior Kyle Krebs from Matawan, a team captain. “You see as kids put in the work and they make amazing improvements, even if they have never played sports before.”

Now they’re looking forward to the experience of playing overseas.

“I think it is going to be different because Irish rugby is more technical than anything that we’ll ever see in the states,” said senior captain T.J. Meehan of Monmouth Beach, who had some knowledge of rugby since his father played. “Our NFL is our football, but their NFL is rugby, so they grew up playing rugby, we grew up playing other sports. They know everything about it and they love it.”

“It’s like an Irish high school basketball team coming over to play CBA. But these are tough kids. They're really tough,” said long-time New Jersey high school basketball coach Joe Whalen, who recently retired as the girls’ basketball coach at St. Thomas Aquinas but has worked as a volunteer assistant for Moroney since the fall.

While the COVID-19 pandemic impacted all sports, smaller ones like rugby were hit particularly hard in terms of participation numbers. But Moroney says the sport is continuing to grow in this country, even if at slower pace than before 2020.

“When I moved to this country, the only way to see a big game was to go to a bar in New York City, and it was $20 to get in,” said Moroney, who met his future wife on a trip to New York in 2000, and moved to the U.S. a year later. “I remember one World Cup, it must have been 2004, I would have to get a train into the city for a game at 2 a.m. and then get a train home.

Now rugby from around the world is available via networks and streaming services.

“I get up at 3 a.m. a lot of see an All Blacks game,” Whalen said of the iconic New Zealand national team.

“And it’s important for the boys from a rugby IQ perspective. You can learn so much from watching the game,” said Moroney, whose son, Fionn, is a freshman on the team.

Growth opportunity

Last year, Whalen’s son, Ryan, was part of Saint Peter’s historic run to the Elite Eight in March Madness as coach Shaheen Holloway’s top assistant, before following Holloway to Seton Hall this season. And last month three of Whalen's former St. Rose players helped the Monmouth University women’s basketball team return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 40 years.

Now he’s trying to add a different perspective within a sport he’s been following most of his life.

“I joined a rugby team when I was in college, and actually played in the first two U.S. national championships,” said the 65-year-old Oceanport resident, who traveled to see rugby matches in Wales and Ireland in recent years.

“The game has changed a lot since I played, so I try to bring my coaching acumen and just coach the kids. Pat is really good. He likes to take other ideas from other sports, and I do the same.”

Now he’ll be part of the traveling party as the Colts make their third trip to Ireland, and their first since 2018.

“He knows the sport and he really appreciates the honorable nature of the sport and what we’re trying to do here,” Moroney said.

“Often he’ll text me after practice and say, ‘what do you think of this?’ He’s somebody coming from a different angle, so it’s really refreshing for me.”

The growth opportunities athletics provides are amplified when you're part of a relatively small community outside the sports mainstream in this country.

“It’s the only sport I have ever played where you can butt heads with the other team, yelling, screaming, battling, and then go shake hands and have a meal together afterwards,” senior captain Hudson Furnari of Long Branch said. “It’s that brotherly bond you get playing this sport. A lot of us are friends with every other kid who plays rugby across the state.”

Added Moroney: “The mantra that I have as a coach is, better man, better player. It’s really critical to make sure that we develop the boys as men first, and rugby is nice because it’s a very good sport for you to develop culture within.”

And now the CBA rugby team gets to experience the ultimate team-building exercise over spring break.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Christian Brothers Academy NJ rugby team on Ireland trip