All-Star Rugby, The Place to be Seen

National Collegiate Rugby (NCR) has a nice home for its all-star 7s tournaments in the Round Rock Multipurpose Complex. Of its many attributes, there’s a perfectly placed facility that sits between two full-size rugby pitches, allowing one to view all of the action from the second-floor platforms. For someone who is interested in evaluating the field for next-level talent, it’s the perfect perch for the weekend, and that’s where one could find Ros Chou for the second year running. [Lead photo: Chou and Uhutafe]

Chou is the full-time Brown University Women’s Rugby head coach, but she’s also assistant coach of the Rocky Mountain Experts women’s team. So the coach has feet in two professional rugby spheres (NCAA and Premier Rugby Sevens), as well as NCR (Brown is the reigning CRC 7s champ), and is well connected to those running the USA Pathways and age grade programs. In other words, Chou knows where to send talent once they’ve been identified, and this year’s list will head to Martha Daines (USA Women’s High Performance), Irene Gardner (USA Next Gen/Falcons 7s), Katie Dowty (USA U23) and Kittery Ruiz (USA U20).

Makell Edwards at 2023 NCR All-Stars (Photo: Jackie Finlan/The Rugby Breakdown)

Last year, Experts head coach Gardner was in Austin and she scooped up the West Coast’s Makell Edwards for the USA Falcons (LINK). Edwards toured to Canada and Dubai in 2023. [Telesi Uhatafe, as a freshman, was also pinged but had already attended a PR 7s regional ID camp and took that route to The Team.]

This year, Penn State Women’s Rugby Head Coach Kate Daley joined Chou in Texas, and together, they were looking for both 7s and 15s talent.

“We’re just looking at the athletes here at NCR, see who could be invited to a possible camp,” Chou said of weekend objectives in Austin. “We’re also really pushing the regional [U23] 15s teams here, too. With the rebirth of that tournament, we’re looking at a wider player pool now. So, yes, they’re playing 7s here, but the 7s pool is really small and that track [to PR 7s and USA 7s] is obviously competitive. … So it’s great to cover both codes with this [event] and to be someone who’s connected with some of those [7s and 15s] pathways coaches.”

Small College MVP Laryssa Landmesser (Photo: Jackie Finlan/The Rugby Breakdown)

It’s also a necessity. When there isn’t an accessible, visible series of ID camps shaking loose the talent around the country, then scouts need to go to the events that attract said players.

“Even the CRCs when they used to be in Philly,” Chou reflected on her previous post as Life University Women’s Rugby head coach. “I remember watching a kid from Virginia Tech and being like, that kid’s pretty good. She’s playing pretty well against Life. And that ended up being Jetta Owens. I was like, ‘Martha, I saw a kid from Virginia Tech!’ So these events are important, since we don’t have the all-division, regional tournaments anymore.”

The all-star event is important for more reasons that just scouting. It’s an opportunity for coaches to pursue development, and Chou and Daley evaluated all the teams’ Friday sessions and offered feedback to those who wanted it. She called out Allegheny, Mid-America and Upstate New York for putting in better performances relative to 2023 and making forward progress for the program.

All-Tournament Team member Alina Ampeh (Photo: Jackie Finlan/The Rugby Breakdown)

Chou and Daley also moderated a virtual panel discussion with current USA Eagles and pro 7s players who came out of the U.S. collegiate game. Spiff Sedrick, KB Broughton, Summer Harris Jones, Sophie Pyrz and Natalie Bjorklund talked about high performance environments and pathways, and fielded Q&As from the NCR membership.

“Kate and I spoke to the players [Saturday night] at their BBQ event, and we talked about the desire to go out and seek other things,” Chou said. “Because [committing to all-stars] is beyond their college team. They had to go try out in their conference and do practices and whatnot. They’re already displaying a desire to improve and get better and then possibly enter the Pathway, if that’s what they want.”