Seacoast Rugby Club rallies from scrum with New England title: Sights on national glory

HAMPTON — When Jon Cheyne moved to the Seacoast from the south of London eight years ago, one of his first orders of business was to find a rugby club.

“It’s an instant sense of community,” explained Cheyne, who grew up playing for historic Park House FC across the pond. “You know you are going to walk out for that first training session, and you’re going to have 25 new friends.”

After playing and coaching for the Seacoast Rugby Club in Hampton for the last eight years, it would be hard to estimate how many new friends Cheyne, 38, has met over that span.

The Dover resident will join at least 25 in the Atlantic Super Regional Semifinals in April.

Seacoast punched its ticket to the national final four Division 4 tournament by capturing the New England Football Rugby Union (NEFRU) title last month with a dramatic comeback win on the road against a formidable West Springfield (Massachusetts) Rifles Rugby Club, 12-10.

It was sweet redemption for the club, which has been around since 1998 and emerged from the scrum with New England Division 3 titles in 2003 and 2013 before changing its name to the Freedom Rugby Club in 2014. After a 1-8 season in 2017, the team was relegated to Division 4, where it has made the playoffs every year since but has always fallen short in the semifinals.

This year, the squad rebranded itself back to Seacoast Rugby Club, added new jerseys, and cruised to a 5-1 mark in the competitive Division 4 region, which spans from Mad River, Vermont, to Cape Cod. Seacoast went undefeated on its home turf at Sanderson’s Field on Hobbs Road in North Hampton, and it’s safe to say the beer was flowing early and often at the club’s sponsored pub. After each home match, the club hosts “drink-ups” at Jitto's in Portsmouth with visiting clubs.

“That’s one of the most special things about this sport,” player Dele Atoro noted. “You’ll beat each other up for 80 minutes, and then you will go and have a beer with the guys after. There are not too many other sports like that.”

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Seacoast Rugby Club has plenty of depth and experience

The club boasts 35 registered players, with up to 23 players dressing on game days, well, in an ideal world, that is. That certainly was not the case in last year’s NERFU semifinals, where just 16 players were on hand leaving the club with just one reserve against a talented Burlington, Vermont club, and the results were not pretty. A key to this year’s club, however, was a renewed commitment to fielding the best possible squad each Saturday.

“What we had this year that we didn’t have in past years was both depth and consistent availability,” said Cheyne, who also coaches the rugby club at UNH. “We were not making major changes week-to-week, but when we had to make changes because someone was injured or missing, the quality coming off the bench was higher than it has been as well.”

That quality was improved greatly by Cheyne adding a couple of his recently graduated Wildcats, Peter Logee and Jasper Anderson, to the fold this year. Add that with experienced leaders like captainJake Becker, vice-captain Josh Nowak, and the only remaining member of the2003 championship team, Josh Jacobs from East Kingston, the club had high hopes when they began their preseason training in July.

At 51 years young, Jacobs started at forward and played 65 of the 80 minutes in the championship match, and clearly enjoys turning back the clock each Saturday in the fall.

“I use the younger guys as my motivation,” said Jacobs. “I use that as my barometer of where I am with my fitness. Having younger guys on the team has been great. They listen, but at the same time, as the season went on, you would see their leadership starting to grow. We couldn’t have done it without them.”

Jacobs said the depth and increased physicality was never more evident than during the second-half surge of the championship match as Seacoast wiped out a daunting 10-0 deficit.

“Every sub who came in contributed to winning that match,” Jacobs pointed out. “It was one through 23 who made a difference. It was not just one guy.”

Other than the two Springfield matches, Seacoast scored four or more tries (5 points each) in every other contest, with a wide array of athletes finding their way onto the stat sheet.

“We had a lot of attacking weapons,” said Cheyne. “It was a deep squad. It was a really good mix of experience, youthful energy and game understanding. Everyone bought into an overall offensive style of play.”

With a 5-1 mark Seacoast earned one of two byes and hosted a tough Mad River Rugby Club on Nov. 4 in North Hampton. With a robust crowd of former players, fans and members of the Seacoast women’s rugby club, Seacoast took care of business in a match that was a lot closer than the 31-17 final would indicate. Becker, Nowak, Nick DeVos, Austin Farris and Atoro scored on tries, and Anderson added three conversions. With the win, Seacoast earned a spot in the championship in West Springfield against the only club to beat them.

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Seacoast Rugby Club has sights on national title game

Facing Springfield and its boisterous home crowd at Van Horn Park, Seacoast Rugby Club did not get off to the start they were hoping for and found themselves trailing 10-0 at the half. The tide turned in the final half, however, when Nowak broke a long run down to the Springfield goal line before right-side winger Chris Kustos picked up the ball and lunged over the goal line, cutting the deficit to 10-5. The ensuing conversion attempt failed, but the momentum was on Seacoast’s side, especially when the hosts drew their second yellow card, giving the visitors another man-up advantage for 10 more minutes.

Seacoast once again took advantage, with Micah Dewey carrying the ball and a host of defenders over the line for Seacoast's second try of the match to even the score. That turned the spotlight squarely on Seacoast’s talented fly-half, Anderson, who nailed the crucial conversion to give Seacoast their first lead,12-10, and the team held on for the final 10 gut-wrenching minutes.

“It was just a great feeling,” Atoro summed up. “We’ve heard stories about 2013 when they won the championship, and it was like, ‘Can’t we get one as well?’ We now have added to that history.”

Seacoast can add to that history if it prevails in the Atlantic Super Regional Semifinals in April. With a win, the club would square off with the winner of the New York and Eastern Pennsylvania regions on the first weekend in May for the Division 4 national title.

To learn more about the Seacoast men's rugby club visit seacoastmensrugby.com.

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Seacoast Rugby Club emerges from scrum with New England title