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Brooklyn Rugby

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Brooklyn Rugby
Full nameBrooklyn Rugby Football Club
UnionUSA Rugby
Nickname(s)BKRFC, Hyenas (W), The Barons (M)
Founded2007
LocationBrooklyn, New York City
Ground(s)Kaiser Park, 2529 Neptune Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11224
Coach(es)England Daniel Newcombe (M)
Trinidad and Tobago Wayne Kelly (W)
Captain(s)United States Justin MacDonald (M),
United States Logan Hankla (W)
League(s)Division II (women)
Division III NYC (men)
Official website
www.brooklynrugby.com

Brooklyn Rugby Football Club is a rugby union club founded in 2007 and based in Brooklyn, New York. The club competes in the Empire Geographic Union and is a member of USA Rugby. The women's team plays at the Division II level and the men's team plays at Division III level.

Club history

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Founding

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Brooklyn Rugby Football Club was founded in 2007 by a small group of former college and club players looking to build a competitive and community-oriented club in the borough of Brooklyn. At the time, New York City was serviced by several clubs within the five boroughs, including NYAC Rugby, Old Blue, the Village Lions, Landsdown Rugby, Rockaway, and Old Maroon. There were, however, no rugby teams in the city's largest borough of Brooklyn.

In the fall of 2007, the core group of players, who would start the club, played that season for the NY Americans (who later merged with another club to form the Kingston Mad Dogs). Since traveling to games for the NY Americans was becoming cost-prohibitive, the core members started a club in Brooklyn, which would later be named Brooklyn Rugby Football Club.

In the early days, the club was fully sponsored by Barons Brewing Company of Sydney, Australia, and, in line with this sponsorship, was named the Brooklyn Barons Rugby Football Club. Barons eventually pulled their sponsorship in light of the economic downturn in 2008, and the club re-branded itself as Brooklyn Rugby Football Club, the name of the club to this day.

The club started in the Metropolitan Rugby Football Union Division III, which is the fourth tier of United States Rugby.

Merging With the women's club

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In 2014 the Brooklyn Rugby Football Club and the Brooklyn Women's Rugby Football Club, two separate clubs throughout their histories, merged and became one club with one governing body. The club known as Brooklyn Rugby Football Club now provides rugby playing opportunities to all genders in the Brooklyn area.

Founding men's members

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  • New Zealand Mike Haynes (coach)
  • United States Justin Knight
  • United States Keith Weiss
  • United States Geoffrey Gordon
  • United States Brian Benito
  • United States Joshua Magnas

Founding women's members

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  • United States Jaimee Lynn Nelson

Brooklyn Women's Rugby Club was founded in 2007.

Men's team history

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Mike Haynes era

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Brooklyn Rugby started its first league season with coach and founder Michael Haynes at the helm and Captain Geoffrey Gordon leading the team on the field. Fellow core founding members Justin Knight, Keith Weiss, and Joshua Magnas helped fill out the inaugural team.

In 2008, Brooklyn Rugby finished in 2nd place in their inaugural fall season. The team ultimately lost in the final to eventual NRU champions Danbury Rugby Club, who went on to be promoted to Division II. The team showed a high level of competitiveness in their first league season and were an early favorite to win the championship in 2009.[citation needed]

In the spring of 2009, Brooklyn Rugby secured its first two pieces of hardware, winning both the Four Leaf 15's Tournament hosted by the Village Lions and the North Bay Grey Ghost Cup hosted by North Bay rugby.

In the 2009 campaign, Brooklyn Rugby lost two games in the regular season but secured a playoff berth thanks to a last-minute penalty goal against Hudson Valley. In the playoffs, Brooklyn Rugby avenged their regular season loss to Rockaway Rugby Football Club on Rockaway's home field. Brooklyn eventually lost in the Met Union Final to eventual NRU champions North Jersey RFC. This was Brooklyn's second year in the final in as many fall seasons, an excellent record for a new club.

Undefeated season

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Brooklyn Rugby came into the 2010 season as one of the favorites to finish in first place.[citation needed] On October 21, 2010, Brooklyn Rugby completed an undefeated season with a 59–0 home win over the Rockland Rogues. The undefeated regular season included a 15–10 away win over rival Rockaway. However, Rockaway were to overturn this result in the D3 Championship final 23-14. Brooklyn still earned the 5th seed in the NRU playoffs, which meant that Brooklyn had to travel to Boston to play MIT in the first round. After a back and forth game Brooklyn was able to win a tough game on the road 15-14. The result gave Brooklyn their first NRU playoff victory and granted them entry to the Northeast Final Four, along with rival Rockaway, Saratoga and Brooklyn's semi-final opponent the Syracuse Chargers. Brooklyn would lose its semi-final encounter with Syracuse but would come out strong in the consolation game against Saratoga to secure 3rd place in the NRU, Brooklyn's best finish in its history.

2nd Mike Haynes era

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2011 saw the return of founding coach Mike Haynes to the team as the head coach with the retirement of Tri Do. Brooklyn's 2011 spring season saw a competitive schedule with some positive results against top tier opponents, but they were denied promotion by the union. Brooklyn Rugby Football club were informed that they would remain in DIII for the upcoming fall 2011 season.

In August 2011 it was announced that Brooklyn Rugby FC's new main sponsor would be the Black Grouse, a brand of Scotch whisky produced by the Edrington Group, makers of The Famous Grouse. Brooklyn Rugby's crest was changed to reflect this new relationship as the rugby ball in the upper left hand quadrant of the crest was changed to an image of a grouse.

2011 saw Brooklyn Rugby have another successful regular season campaign, finishing the season with five victories and one loss, including a home win over top ranked Montclair RFC. For the second straight year Brooklyn Rugby would host a home semifinal against Suffolk RFC, who had beaten Brooklyn for the first time in their history in the regular season. The semi-final was played in a winter nor'easter but the players fought through the freezing rain and snow to play the game, which was won by Brooklyn 10-0. Brooklyn would meet Montclair in the final, Brooklyn's fourth in as many years. Brooklyn were outmatched on the day by a clinical and physical Montclair side and lost the final 41-10.

Empire GU and Jeff Dincher era

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2012 saw Brooklyn Rugby take the field in a more competitive and restructured Division III under the newly formed Empire GU. The season was the first in charge for new head coach Jeff Dincher. Brooklyn RFC dropped their first two games of the season. They had a loss to Old Blue in the season opener and a lopsided loss to yearly league rival Suffolk at their home field. Brooklyn RFC bounced back with successive wins over Rockland RFC and Old Maroon. Brooklyn RFC's next match was a tough test against newly relegated side North Jersey. The team comported themselves well with a 12–12 draw at Nojo's home turf. Brooklyn would finish the season with a tough road draw to a much improved Hudson Valley side and a lopsided win over city rival Gotham Knights. The season was a tough one in the standings for Brooklyn RFC as they finished 4th and missed the playoffs.

Division restructure and Daniel Newcombe era

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After a series of friendlies in the spring season of 2013, Jeff Dincher stepped down as coach of Brooklyn Rugby. His departure coincided with a number of changes to the Empire GU's league structure, particularly in the lower divisions. The changes that affected Brooklyn the most were new teams (formerly from D2 of the Empire GU) entering the division. Furthermore, league matches were now to be contested across both the fall and spring seasons - previously all league activity took place in the fall. In the absence of a new coach, player and former captain Daniel Newcombe stepped in as coach of the team, while continuing his position as a hooker for the club. Newcombe was joined on the coaching staff by former player Jason Maschi, as the attacking play coach, and former coach Jeff Dincher, as the club's defensive play coach.

Brooklyn's inaugural season in the restructured Division III South started promisingly with away wins over Montauk and Connecticut Yankees. These successive victories were followed by a tough 7-14 loss to league leaders Lansdowne RFC, a 10-7 away defeat to local rivals Rockaway, a lopsided 38-5 to second-placed Old Blue and a tough away visit to Danbury that resulted in a score of 36-17 to the home team. Galvanized by this string of losses, Brooklyn finished out the first half of their 2013/14 league season with a decisive 50-0 victory over Hudson Valley. The league season restarted in March 2014 with a 22-0 win over Suffolk in extremely adverse weather conditions. A closely fought contest against NoJo followed, with a final score of 13-10 to Brooklyn. This win was notable due to it being the first time the club had beaten NoJo in regular league play. Brooklyn's final result of the 2013-14 league season was a 21-17 win over Bayonne, meaning the club finished the second half of their league season undefeated. Overall, Brooklyn finished 4th out of 11 in the division, an improvement on the previous year given the increased size of the division and tougher competition.

Season history

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Empire GU league results

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Season Div Pos Played Won Lost Drawn
2008 III 2nd 7 5 2 0
2009 III 3rd 7 5 2 0
2010 III 1st 7 7 0 0
2011 III 2nd 6 5 1 0
2012 III 4th 7 3 2 2
2013 III South 4th 10 6 4 0
2014 III NYC 4th 7 4 3 0
2015 III NYC 2nd 10 8 2 0
2016 III South 4th 8 2 6 0
2016 III South 4th 5 4 1 0
2017 III - NY 2nd 8 5 3 0

Met Union/Empire GU playoff results

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Season Division Seed Round Won Lost
2008 III 2nd Final 1 1
2009 III 3rd Final 1 1
2010 III 1st Final 1 1
2011 III 2nd Final 1 1
2014 III 4th First Rd 0 1
2015 III 6th First Rd 0 1

Northeast Rugby Union playoff results

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Season Division Seed Round Won Lost
2008 III 4th Quarter final 0 1
2009 III 5th Quarter final 0 1
2010 III 5th Semi-final 2 1

Honors

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Empire Geographic Union/Metropolitan Rugby Football Union

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Division III Championship

Playoff Runner-up (4) - 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011

Regular season bitles (1) - 2010

Northeast Rugby Football Union

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Division III

Playoff Berths - 2008, 2009, 2010

Tournaments

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4 Leaf 15's Tournament NYC

Participant - 2009, 2011

Social Division Champions - 2009

North Bay Grey Ghost Cup - Maryland

Participant - 2009, 2010

Tournament Champions - 2009

Long Island Mother's Day Tournament

Participant - 2007, 2008, 2011

Runners Up (1) - 2011

CAN-AMS Rugby Tournament

Participant - 2011–2013

Consolation Champions - 2013

International tours

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Turks and Caicos 2012:

Results:

TCIRFC President's XV 10 - Brooklyn Rugby 5

TCIRFC First XV 27 - Brooklyn Rugby 0[1]

Women's team history

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The women's team was established in 2007 by Jaimee Lynn Nelson and joined the men's team in 2014 to form Brooklyn Rugby Club.

Since then, they have played consistently in the Empire GU Division II league, fielding 15s teams for fall (competitive season), and Spring (social season). The team also fields a 7s team in the summer months from June through August.

The team is open to players from all walks of life.

Notable events

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The Women's team has had winning seasons since 2017 going to playoffs in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2023.

Former Women's Head Coach Nora Westcott won the USA Rugby Coach of the Year in 2018.

Honors

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Ruggerfest 2023 - 2nd Place
Princeton 7s 2023 - 2nd Place
Princeton 7s 2019 - 1st Place
Monmouth 7s 2018 - 1st Place

Management

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Club personnel

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  • Board of Directors: Sydney Newman, Amy O’Sullivan, Tony Ferraro, Eddie Robb
  • Club Chairman: Emily Mason
  • Men's Team Coach: Daniel Newcombe
  • Women's Team Coach: Wayne Kelly
  • Men's Team Captain: Justin MacDonald
  • Women's Team Captain: Logan Hankla

Leadership history

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Club chairmen

President/chairman Dates
Justin Knight 2007
Keith Weiss 2008–2010
Jason Maschi 2010–2011
Jorge Quintana 2011–2012
Nick Anzalone 2012–2014
Jorge Quintana 2014–2016
Ben Martin 2016–2018
Toby Tornay 2018-2022
Frank Morgera 2022-2023
Emily Mason 2024

Men's coaching history

Name Dates
Michael Haynes 2007–2010
Tri Do 2010
Daniel Newcombe 2010-2011
Michael Haynes 2011–2012
Jeff Dincher 2012–2013
Daniel Newcombe 2013–present

Men's captains

Name Dates
Geoffrey Gordon 2007–2009
Daniel Newcombe 2010–2012
Andy Bartlett 2012–2013
Alexander Hanhart 2013–2014
Mike Reilly 2014–2016
Mark O'Donnell 2016–2022
Justin MacDonald 2022–present

Current men's squad

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Note: Flags indicate national union under World Rugby eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-World Rugby nationality.

Player Position Union
Daniel Newcombe Hooker England England
Billy Jones Hooker Wales Wales
James Telfer Hooker United States United States
Justin McDonald Prop United States United States
Devin Rodriguez Prop United States United States
Ben Hinton Prop United States United States
Fares Ayuob Prop United States United States
William Artiaga Prop United States United States
Matthew Kennelly Lock United States United States
Frank Morgera Lock United States United States
Teymor Buckley Lock England England
Chris Tite Lock South Africa South Africa
Nick Querci Back row United States United States
Sean Edling Back row United States United States
John Furnari Back row United States United States
Christian Simsuangco Back row United States United States
Graeme Fergus Back row Scotland Scotland
Lucas Schreiber Back row England England
Matthieu Nerson Back row France France
Player Position Union
Justin Lam Scrum-half Canada Canada
Josiah Ruhland Scrum-half United States United States
Logan Cotton Scrum-half United States United States
Eddie Robb Fly-half Scotland Scotland
Stephen Barry Fly-half Canada Canada
Eddie van Heel Centre England England
Keith Van Wickler Centre United States United States
Braiden Luevano Centre United States United States
Marcel Gallard Centre United States United States
Nicholas Stampar Centre United States United States
Yo Jeremijenko-Conley Wing United States United States
Tony Ferraro Wing United States United States
Joseph Cundiff Wing United States United States
Paul Revel Wing France France
Adrian Lombard Wing South Africa South Africa
Remington Allen Wing United States United States
Seamus Dugan Fullback United States United States
Michael Willis Fullback England England
Conor McGeehin Fullback United States United States

Club awards

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Hall of Fame

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Year of induction Inductee
2014 Keith Weiss
2014 Justin Knight
2015 Josh Magnas
2015 Mike Haynes
2015 Hailee Lanker
2017 Brian Benito
2017 Matt Loomis
2017 Geoffrey Gordon
2017 Gedas Monginas

Keith Weiss Cup

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The Keith Weiss Cup is awarded by the president to the club member who has, through his on field and off field contributions, given the most to the club as a whole. The award is named after one of the club's first presidents and founding member of the club, Keith Weiss.

Year Recipient
2010 Jorge Quintana
2011 Daniel Newcombe
2012 Mario Avocato
2013 Simon Fong
2014 PJ Kinsella
2015 Ben Martin
2016 Timothy Carroll
2017 Jane Wade
2018 Nora Westcott
2019 Mark O'Donnell
2022 Alpons Dizon
2023 Maya Bauer-Moshi

Michael Haynes Cup

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The Michael Haynes Cup is awarded by the coaching staff to the player who has, through his dedication in practice, on field performance and leadership, contributed most to the team on the field. The award is named after the club's first coach who helped to found the club, Mike Haynes.

Year Recipient
2009 Matt Loomis
2010 Gedas Monginas
2011 Sebastien Vante
2012 Justin McDonald
2013 Craig Mackenzie
2014 Edward Tobias Tornay
2015 Edward Tobias Tornay
2016 Nick Baldwin
2017 Mathieu Nerson
2018 Phil Pepe
2019 Dylan Bilski
2021 Sam Sheppard
2022 Ben Stuckenbrock
2023 Scott Larsen

Women's Coaches Cup

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The Women's Coaches Cup is awarded by the coaching staff to the player who has, through her dedication in practice, on field performance and leadership, contributed most to the team on the field.

Year Recipient
2014 Ashleigh Bepko
2015 Kyla Maxwell
2016 Robyn Martinich
2017 Nora Westcott
2018 Kate Mason
2019 Max Soo
2021 Sal Mawhinney
2022 Laila Blumenthal Rothchild
2023 Emily "Sandy" Sanderson

Justin Knight Cup

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The Justin Knight Cup is awarded by the players to the teammate who they believe has, through his dedication in practice, on field performance and leadership, contributed the most to the team on the field. The award is named after club founder and legendary player, Justin Knight.

Year Recipient
2010 Jacques Pons
2011 Edward Tobias Tornay
2012 Nick Dorsey
2013 Mike Reilly
2014 Justin McDonald
2015 Errol Jones
2016 Alexander Coles
2017 Tim Carroll
2018 Guillaume Brue
2019 Phil Pepe
2021 Keith Van Wickler
2022 Malcolm Corry
2023 Matthew Kennelly

Women's Players Cup

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The Women's Players Cup is awarded by the players to the teammate who they believe has, through her dedication in practice, on field performance and leadership, contributed the most to the team on the field.

Year Recipient
2014 Heather Parton
2015 Jessica Bade
2016 Nora Westcott
2017 Melanie Joaquin
2018 Robin Martinich
2019 Janie Wade
2021 Evie Hansen
2022 Juliet "Patch" Wade
2023 Lily Wissinger

Rookie of the Year

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The Rookie of the Year award is given to the player who has contributed most to the team on the field in his or her first year with the club.

Men's club

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Year Recipient
2009 Justin McDonald
2010 Kevin Lupo
2011 Ian Ralls
2012 Johnny Brennan III
2013 Mark O'Donnell
2014 Kamil Ryzko
2015 Keaton Nasser
2016 Jack Spiegs
2017 Guillaume Brue
2018 Dylan Bilski
2019 Keith Van Wickler
2021 Seamus Dugan
2022 Angus Judkins
2023 Sean Edling

Women's club

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Year Recipient
2013 Robyn Martinich
2014 Ahmit Aharon
2015 Nora Westcott
2016 Juliet Wade
2017 Jane Wade
2018 Sam Schneider
2019 Kate Conley
2021 Laura Friedman
2022 Clare Coey
2023 Mads McCormick

Sevens Player of the Year

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The Sevens Player of the Year award is given to the player who has contributed most to Brooklyn Rugby's Sevens team.

Men's 7's team

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Year Recipient
2013 Gennaro Anzalone
2014 Mike Reilly
2015 Kevin Keebler
2016 Mark O'Donnell
2017 Kevin Keebler
2018 Brandon Buchel
2019 Sam Sheppard
2021 Drew Glover
2022 Drew Glover
2023 Frank Morgera

Women's 7's team

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Year Recipient
2014 Kyla Maxwell
2015 Fedora Francois
2016 Brenda Doctor
2017 Not awarded
2018 Maggie Ewen
2019 Lily Wissinger
2021 Maggie Ewen
2022 Laura Friedman
2023 Laura Friedman

Josh Magnas Award

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The Josh Magnas Award is given to the player who, through his or her dedication in training and performance on the field, has shown the most improvement in his skills and play or has made the biggest impact coming back from injury.

Men's club

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Year Recipient
2009 Paul Tierno
2010 Nick Anzalone
2011 Dillon Prime
2012 Brian O'Neill
2013 Benjamin Martin
2014 Jake Wyse
2015 Benjamin "Bino" Deschamps
2016 Milos Fulton-Peluffo
2017 Jah Marconi
2018 Brett Barbosa
2019 Frank Morgera
2021 Bo Walder
2022 Jamie Kuperenas
2023 Fares Ayoub

Women's club

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Year Recipient
2013 Lisa Canata
2014 Crystal Hudson
2015 Xanaan Salim
2016 Melanie Joaquin
2017 Michelle Ogman
2018 Mel Braccia
2019 Laura Lynn Duffy
2021 Emily Sanderson
2022 Cait McMullen
2023 Kiara “Kiki” Bryant

References

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  1. ^ "Turks and Caicos Rugby Club". Archived from the original on 18 August 2012. Retrieved 5 June 2012.
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