New Rugby Club Kicks Off In Western Queens

ASTORIA, QUEENS — Astoria resident Daniel Browne has spent the last four years trekking an hour to and from rugby practice in Manhattan.

"I was going all the way down to Pier 40," he said.

Those New York Rugby Club practices at Pier 40 were the closest ones he could find; there were no rugby clubs in Queens other than one in the Rockaways, he told Patch.

So Browne teamed up with another longtime rugby player, Mike Cotto, to form his own rugby club based in western Queens.

The duo started recruiting other players on social media. Eric Mace, who coaches a rugby club for high schoolers in Flushing, got on board. James Kennedy, the owner of Rugby United New York and a fellow Queens resident, offered to buy uniforms and equipment for the fledgling club.

"We want to help spread the game, not just poach players from other clubs," Browne said. "We want to get together as many Queens people as possible."

The club has hosted twice-weekly practices in Queensbridge Park for about two months now. Last month, roughly two dozen members of the new Queens Rugby Club played their first game, a friendly match against the Bronx Rugby Club.

Its first official game, as a member of the division-four rugby league, is coming up on Sept. 7.

But the Queens Rugby Club is more about the camaraderie than the competition, Browne said.

"The second the game's over you pretty much just hang out with the other guys," he said. "There's no bad blood."

For more information on the Queens Rugby Club, contact QueensRugbyClub@gmail.com.