Northeastern Rugby Club

Full name	Northeastern University Rugby Football Club
Union	Liberty Rugby Conference
Nickname	Maddogs
Founded	1984
Ground(s)	Parsons Field Brookline, Massachusetts (Capacity: 4,000)
Coach(es)	Edward Tubridy, Alex Miccio, Bob Carroll
League	CollegiateDivision 1-A Rugby
Teamkit 2ndkit 3rdkit
Official website
nurugby.sites.northeastern.edu

TheNortheastern University Rugby Football Club (orNURFC orMaddogs) is acollegerugby union team representingNortheastern University. The club competes in the Liberty Conference ofDivision 1-A Rugby and is governed byUSA Rugby.

The Northeastern Maddogs has approximately 70 members from all over theUnited States, and from countries all over the world, includingSouth Africa,Ireland, theUnited Kingdom,Australia,France,China andJapan. The Maddogs field a competitive team every year, and have been nationally ranked.^[1][2]

The club was founded by a Northeastern University student and rugby enthusiast named Bob Hubbard in 1984. He, along with 14 other students were the first team ever fielded by the Northeastern University Rugby Club. This first incarnation was not affiliated with Northeastern University, its only connection to the school was its players being students. The team's practices were held on a small triangle of dirt on Huntington Avenue across from theBoston Museum of Fine Arts, which is now theWentworth Institute of Technology athletic complex.

In 1985, the club became more organized as another key leader named Tony Kalaijakis emerged. Kalaijakis turned the rag-tag group into a team, under him the club drafted a constitution and elected leaders yearly. The team lobbied for school recognition, hoping to become an official Northeastern club, but was denied. Disappointed by the university's decision, but wishing to maintain a connection with the school, the team chose as its mascot, the MadDog; instead of the traditional mascot of Northeastern University, theHusky.

In spring of 1987, aided by Northeastern University Professor Peter Eastman, the team became an official club of Northeastern. The club then hired its first coach, Jay Dacey of theMystic River Rugby Club. Competing in its firstBeast of the East Tournament, the Maddogs went undefeated and won the 1987 tournament. The following fall the Maddogs joined NERFU Division I and made the play-offs in their inaugural year.^[3]

The NURFC competed inNew England Rugby Football Union College Division I from 1987 to 2010, playing against teams such asArmy andBoston College. Dartmouth, Harvard, and Yale competed in NERFU until fall 2009, leaving to join the new Ivy League Conference.^[4] In the years since its creation, Northeastern Rugby often competed in the Beast of the East rugby tournament, winning it multiple times in recent years including in 2005 with a 21-0 win overBuffalo in the tournament final.

In 2011 Northeastern along with Boston College,UMass Amherst,University of Connecticut,Middlebury College,UAlbany, andSouthern Connecticut State University joined to form theEast Coast Rugby Conference. In their inaugural season, Northeastern went undefeated scoring an average of 37 points and allowing an average of 4 points per game. Their undefeated season led them to the National Championship Round of 16, where they lost to Stony Brook University 24-22.^[5] Northeastern's fall 2012 season resulted in a 5-2 record, with losses to Boston College and Middlebury, to finish 3rd in the conference.

Northeastern, as the winner of the 2012 ECRC Sevens Tournament, qualified for theUSA Rugby Sevens Collegiate National Championships, inCollege Station, Texas. Assigned to Pool A withLife University,Colorado State, andWisconsin, Northeastern went 2-1 with their only loss coming from the reigning champion Life University, to advance to the bowl bracket.^[6] Northeastern was eventually knocked out of the tournament byCal Poly.^[7] After their strong showing at the National Sevens Championships, Northeastern received an invitation to the 2013Collegiate Rugby Championship tournament atPPL Park in Philadelphia, broadcast live on NBC. Northeastern finished as winners of the bowl in their first appearance at the CRC's. In 2014, Northeastern finished as a runner up for the plate at the CRC's which represented an improvement on the year prior.

After 2014 the club lost many of its talented players and went into a rebuilding stage. Head coach Edward Tubridy was hired to lead the maddogs. In 2016, the maddogs accepted an invitation to play in theLas Vegas Invitational rugby sevens tournament. The Maddogs played against teams from across the country and posted a 2-3 record on the week. In the year following they returned toLas Vegas and posted a 3-2 record beatingWheeling Jesuit University,Utah Valley University andMontana State University. After this tournament the Maddogs continued to build in confidence and reached the final of the Armory Sevens atAmerican International College beatingUniversity of New Hampshire,University of Connecticut andUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst. They missed out on a bid to theUSA Rugby Sevens Collegiate National Championships by losing toAmerican International College in the final. Northeastern finished the season 21-7-3.

In 2017, Northeastern were invited to join the Liberty Conference; a new competitive league ofDivision 1-A Rugby teams. The conference includes 18 different Universities fromMassachusetts,Rhode Island,Connecticut,New York,New Jersey andDelaware. The conference itself has 3 sub-conference divisions; Empire, New England and I-95. Northeastern compete in the New England division againstUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst,University of Connecticut,Tufts University,University of Rhode Island andFairfield University. Northeastern stepped up and produced one of their best records in program history. The Maddogs finished 5-0 in conference play winning the Liberty Conference New England Division. Outside of conference play, Northeastern beatBoston College by 3 points in a very close match and came out on top against theUniversity of New Hampshire by 61 points. To end the season, Northeastern facedSUNY Cortland in the Liberty Conference Challenge.SUNY Cortland had just won the Liberty Empire division and proved to be a tough opponent to the Maddogs. However, Northeastern had an impressive performance which saw them win the game by 32 points. The Maddogs took home the bowl trophy to cap off an impressive season which saw them finish with a record of 8-0 and a national ranking of 32.

• New England Rugby Football Union D1 Champions (2011)
• East Coast Rugby Conference Champions (2012)
• Liberty Conference New England Champions (2017)
• Liberty Conference Champions (2017)
• Liberty Conference Champions (2019)

• Beast of the East Rugby Tournament (1987, 1995, 2005,^[8] 2007 (runner up),^[9] 2010^[10])
• ECRC Sevens Tournament (2012^[11])
• Collegiate Rugby Championships (2013 (Bowl),2014 (10th))
• Cianci Sevens Tournament Champions (2012, 2013, 2014,2015)

Player name	Class	Country	Caps	Debut	Date	Reference
Dimitri Efthimiou	2012	United States (7s)	1*	2010–11 IRB Sevens World Series	21 January 2010	[21]
Mikhael Shammas	2009	Lebanon (Rugby League)	2	Lebanon v British Armed Forces XIIIs	3 July 2006
Kyle Winter	1999	Indonesia	3	Indonesia vGuam	1 July 2009	[22]

(*) denotes tournament appearances

• Official website

• Northeastern Huskies rugby
• Rugby union teams in Boston
• Rugby clubs established in 1984
• 1984 establishments in Massachusetts

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