Last weekend, American Rugby Pro Training Center (ARPTC) hosted the National Developmental Invitational Tournament (NDIT) at its home facility in Little Rock, Ark. It was the third iteration of the event, which intends to serve as a talent showcase for the USA 7s staff, among other goals for the academies and select sides that attend. ARPTC director Julie McCoy played more of a host role, tending to visitors rather than coaching the residents, and formed an overview of the event and its place in the 7s sphere.
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There were a lot of things working against this year’s NDIT, the timing being chief among the limiters. A trio of events occurred on consecutive weekends: Women’s All-Star Week (July 30 – Aug. 3 @ Colorado), Club 7s National Championship (Aug. 10-11 @ Kansas City), NDIT (Aug. 17-18 @ Little Rock). There were athletes who competed in all three events, and the NDIT also coincided with Women’s Premier League season-openers. The wallet and body ache.
“The 7s season is tiny anyway,” McCoy considered alternate dates. “You have the national 15s championship through [early] June and then the WPL started last weekend. You compress the 7s season into nine weeks so it’s hard to find a spot [for the NDIT] without shortening the 7s season even further. And then there’s the WPL All-Stars already in the middle of 7s. Seems like there should be a period where it’s: Look, we’re doing 7s for two months.
“The community out there is doing things but there’s no real centralization or communication between the WPL and college and 7s and all that,” McCoy added. “When the territories used to control all of those entities, they would run it and coordinate everything. With all the division, the right hand doesn’t talk to the left hand. On the 7s side, it gets exhausting in terms of player funding. … For the NDIT, it makes for a kind of spotty return.”
Five of the eight teams in Arkansas fielded full teams: ARPTC, Armed Services (not Armed Forces), Northeast, Scion and the Women’s Collegiate All-Americans (WCAAs). Stars, Phoenix and Santa Barbara Rugby Academy were short numbers and/or took ARPTC players to fill out rosters. USA 7s head coach Chris Brown, who was also on site at club 7s nationals, held coach and players clinics on Friday before evaluating players over the two-day tournament.
“If I were the head coach, I would want several opportunities to watch players over time to check for consistency and their behavior. The more you see someone, the more you get to know them,” McCoy said of the value of competing at the back-to-back 7s nationals and NDIT.
Those face-to-face interactions are valuable and allow for coaches to form their own opinions on players.
“I’m not just handing a player to [Brown] from a political perspective. ‘Let me sell you on players from ARPTC.’ It’s really not like that,” McCoy reflected on her operation. “We’re trying to showcase good 7s and the kids who are here want to be seen. … Brown knows what he’s looking for. He asked about a couple of players, which was a pleasant surprise and a good thing, but that’s not something I’m going to go to him with.”
Teams were divided into two pools of four for Saturday and then funneled into Cup and 5th-place brackets on Sunday. In the final, Scion defeated the Northeast 24-7 for the title and ARPTC beat the WCAAs 20-0 for third. [click here for the full results]
“We would have liked to live-stream it but kind of glad we didn’t only because five teams were full. I’m not certain that would have been the best showcase. But there were still really good 7s and a good community feel,” McCoy said.
“For the players and coaches who are out in the country trying to create the development pathway, it provided a sense that everything was coming together,” the coach continued. “It allowed for some support to [Brown’s] program, and from his to ours. The majority of people out there felt connected to what’s going on with the national team and it’s important to feel that connection.”
It’s important for the academies to also collaborate, because even though they’re designated “National Development Academies,” they don’t really have that oversight from USA Rugby. They’re all structured differently and can’t afford to be islands. The coaches used the opportunity to talk about their programs’ successes, pitfalls and means by which they can work together.
“For us it’s more about making sure that we support each other’s endeavors in our different regions, because we all have different models,” McCoy said. “There is no NDIT if there aren’t viable academies in play. You want them to exist. Academies create that level between club and the national team, and they should be that level.
“The 15s national team is like WPL-plus, but the 7s national team is three times as good as the best club,” McCoy continued. “So my point is there is a lot of room in the 7s game to create that middle level that connects club 7s structure to the national team. There’s a huge vacuum of space there. For me, I want the Collegiate All-Americans to come here all week and we figure out a cheap way to do it. I want the Northeast to break bread with us over dinner. Otherwise it’s like the game of Monopoly – if you own all the property, the game’s over and you want to keep playing.”
So overall, it was a bit of a mixed bag in Little Rock. Good 7s was played, the national team staff got more opportunity to see players compete live, and the academy leaders were able to connect and talk support. The event has the potential to be really special, and it needs tweaks to its timing so that the players who need to be there can do so when they’ve had more than a week’s worth of rest and can afford to do so.
“If something’s going to run, then use it,” McCoy said. “This is an Olympic year and it was the perfect time to really look at players for that push for Tokyo 2020.
“If the rugby community wants to help people into the national team, rather than looking outside of rugby for athletes, then they have to provide platforms where players can perform,” the coach concluded.
As for ARPTC itself, it’s currently closing the books on 2019 and has some exciting new programming for 2020. Announcements should come in September.
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