Spring 2025 Preview
The Worcester Men’s Rugby team heads into the spring of 2025 hungry and motivated after a bitter 29–27 defeat at the hands of the now 3-time defending NERFU (New England Rugby Football Union) champion Boston Irish Wolfhounds ended a promising fall campaign. Not content to sit on their laurels, Worcester is finishing up a re-vamped winter training session, led by Worcester Rugby’s own Chase Hubbard at the wonderful facility in Holden, GH2.
To fully understand the importance of this spring to this squad, one must understand where they have been. After completing a disappointing 0–7 season in the fall of 2019 and playing no games in 2020 due to the pandemic, Worcester began the long road back to the top of the table with a pair of wins in 2021. Progressing back to the middle of the table in ’22 and ’23 but with no playoff wins to show for it, Worcester focused in on recruitment, which bore fruit in 2024. The amount of players that were committed to showing up to practice on a regular basis went way up, hovering around 40 players at each of the practices. This created a refreshed feeling of competition for roster spots as two full sides competed on nearly every weekend of the fall. Speaking to their increased depth, the B-side “Bombers” completed an undefeated 8–0 campaign, that saw notable wins over a veteran Ironsides squad and talented Albany squad, on the road in both cases.
The A-side came out strong, dispatching a Charles River squad that had been newly promoted to Division 2 for the fall of ’24. In their first home match, they played maybe their best game of the season against a rival Mystic River Rugby Club. In front of a home crowd that had not been seen in Worcester for some time, Worcester sent a message to the rest of NERFU that they were contenders. The following week brought the worst showing of the season, as Worcester was humbled on the road against Boston. The next match against a strong Portland squad provided the most dramatic finish of the season. After a long break in the game due to an unfortunate injury to one of their captains, Worcester rallied from a defecit late; Nick Ducey delivered a clutch kick with nearly no time left in the match to bring the boys to a 3–1 record on the season. In what ended up being a playoff preview, the Wolfhounds outclassed them at home and put Worcester in a position where they had to win two road games to make the playoffs in a hotly contested division. Accomplishing that in solid form, Worcester found themselves 3rd in the table and with a date with the Wolfhounds under the lights. In a back and forth classic, the Wolfhounds experience showed and Worcester came up a bit short of reaching the NERFU final they so desperately wanted.
Which brings us to the spring of 2025. Looking forward, this team is focused on learning from last seasons 3 losses, two at the hands of the champion Wolfhounds, so that they can take home their first NERFU division win in over a decade. Worcester comes into the spring with many of the same faces they ended ’24 with, which breeds confidence and inter-team competition for nearly every roster spot. With some new faces joining over the winter, creating the 23 man A-side roster will not be easy each week for the returning coaching staff that took over in 2024. Coaches Robbie Dwyer and Jared Rozowsky have added a new face to the mix, Patrick “Seamus” McDonough who has been a longtime fixture around the club. With all three talented coaches locked in on bringing Worcester to its former glory, the team is in a special position.
Worcester will play plenty of rugby this spring, looking again to have a full A-side and B-side schedule that starts on March 15th with the “Heritage Cup.” This tournament will be played in Quincy before the two-time defending MLR champion New England Freejacks begin their home campaign later that same day on the same field. A special way to welcome back rugby in New England no doubt. The following week, Worcester looks to exact some revenge on a Boston club that beat them soundly in the fall of ’24, on Boston’s home turf. More matches will follow throughout April and May, leading up to the NERFU Cup tournament played in Newport on May 17th-18th. This tournament is what all teams in New England build up to during the spring season, a chance to lay their claim as the best team in their respective divisions for that season. Worcester hopes to build on their upward trajectory and be playing their best rugby going into the fall, which puts a heightened importance on every match from here until September.
Ryan Adams