Leinster Rugby and Syracuse University have embarked on a unique partnership. I speak to the chief protagonists behind it and look at whether it will herald a new dawn for rugby in the U.S. with the women’s and men’s world cups fast approaching.
Syracuse's university campus is bustling. Students weave through the quadrangles, while parents lunch with their children and explore the grounds. You could be forgiven for thinking it’s October during semester time, not mid-July. On the television screen at Schine Students Center, days before the Paris Olympics kicks off, the English ladies cricket team are featured. Not generally a sport known for entertaining the masses in the U.S. but a sign, perhaps, that the U.S. college I’m in is plugged into the world outside America’s shores. I’m here to learn more about the novel strategic partnership Syracuse, a leading U.S. university, and Leinster rugby, one of the world’s leading rugby clubs, have embarked on.
Photo courtesy of Syracuse University Competitive Club Sports. All rights reserved.
Blue and Orange
In 2023, Syracuse University's men's and women's rugby club partnered with Leinster Rugby, a world-renowned rugby club from Ireland, to improve rugby coaching and player development. The partnership aims to integrate rugby into American sports culture and build a foundation for young athletes in preparation for the men’s 2033 Rugby World Cup in the United States and the 2033 women’s competition.
In the middle of the food court off the main quad, I’m joined by Syracuse’s general counsel Gabe Nugent, Syracuse’s long term rugby advisor Bob Wilson and Leinster’s Colin O’Hare, now head coach of Syracuse rugby.
Nugent, who put the vision in place for the partnership with Leinster, alongside Syrcause’s Chancellor, outlines how it came about:
“We have a community club that ranges from adults all the way down to pee wee (mini rugby)”, Nugent says. “We were introduced to Leinster in 2022, who at the time were interested in expanding their market. To gauge interest, we held a short pilot camp which was well attended. After that, we began talking about a different relationship, which led to us having Colin O’Hare over for a long-term engagement. Leinster’s interest in the U.S. market coincided with the Syracuse strategic objective of taking the club sports and using that as a differentiator. We thought the Leinster partnership was a way to jump start that initiative.”
The first Leinster Rugby School of Excellence camp was attended by 60 players from all over the U.S. and a number of international players. Three of those in attendance subsequently enrolled at Syracuse, which was a successful early conversion rate for the program.
While rugby is playing catch up with the more established sports in the U.S., Syracuse is no stranger to bringing in outside ideas and expertise. Originally from Hull in the north of England, Bob Wilson has coached Syracuse rugby since the 1970’s. He describes the energy Americans bring to sports, how they’ve embraced rugby and the evolution of the game at Syracuse.
“We’re right on the cutting edge of this with this partnership,” Wilson says. “Colin O’Hare and I have been going to rugby specific fairs. Rugby is seen as an enhancement of college. We’ve sent our sports management students to Leinster. They go for a couple of months as part of their final projects as seniors. We’ve already had a rugby tour to Leinster. It’s a very worthwhile two-way collaboration.”
Syracuse students at Leinster Rugby HQ in UCD, Dublin. Photo courtesy of Wendy Cornell
The women’s game at Syracuse is already benefiting from the partnership with Leinster, at a time when women’s rugby nationally is in the ascendancy. The U.S. won its first-ever women's rugby medal at the recent 2024 Olympics in the sevens tournament. Next year, the first U.S. women’s rugby union professional league will launch. While women’s sports only command 15% of U.S. sporting media coverage, tipping points such as the aforementioned Olympics bronze medal and the ‘Caitlin Clark effect’ - fuelled by the rookie sensation basketball player with Indiana Fever - should help increase interest.
The Leinster Way
Leinster is renowned for its academy program, the envy of many in the rugby world. At a professional level, it accounts for over two-thirds of the Irish national rugby team. But it is its ‘from the ground up’ grassroots club structure over the past 25 years that has won it as much acclaim. Prior to that, its model was over reliant on the success of the Leinster schools teams, leaving the Leinster clubs to do a lot of the donkey work around player and coach development on their own. Now with an army of community coaches plugged-in to all the clubs, there is a thriving grassroots club structure all over the province, that Leinster aids and abets, and the individual clubs successfully implement.
Colin O’Hare has grown up in the system in Leinster. I know him from my own club, Skerries in north Dublin, where he previously coached. While I visited Syracuse, Declan O’Brien coach and player development manager and former Leinster pro rugby player was over from Ireland. He hails from a club in Leinster’s southern corner, Enniscorthy. The land mass the province of Leinster straddles is not big by U.S. standards but in Irish rugby terms it is a fertile swath of ground from U7s to senior men and women's rugby.
“The relationship between Syracuse and Leinster has evolved in terms of coach education”, says Colin O’Hare. We’re actively out there and people are familiar with us. It's grown organically in terms of the rugby offerings we have back home in our coach education department. We want to raise the standard of coaching so the players in the US can become better and be exposed to rugby at an earlier age. We’ve been over to camps in Denver, Connecticut and most recently Georgetown Prep in Washington DC for a school of excellence satellite camp. It is organic, pure and based on the values of rugby. That Irish friend helping the American masses.”
Looking Outside
As I walk across the campus, I’m met by the incredibly moving remembrance wall for the 35 Syracuse students studying abroad who tragically died when Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988.
Bob Wilson tells me of the strong ties that exist between Syracuse and Lockerbie. Almost every year the Lockervbie first responders from that fateful day take part in a charity bike ride to Syracuse. Syracuse rugby club toured Scotland and visited the Lockerbie Academy. This year, a number of the Lockerbie scholars - students on placement in Syracuse from Scotland - joined the rugby club.
The Lockerbie Remembrance Wall, Syracuse
“We aim to give all our students an international placement or opportunity,” Gabe Nugent says. “Our history is tied to looking beyond Syracuse. With the winters we have, it's not hard to go and convince someone to study in Italy for the spring semester.”
As distinct from big ticket sports that sit under the varsity program, such as football, club sports develop at Syracuse because students go to school here and want to play recreationally. That’s the model under which rugby sits at most U.S. colleges. The partnership with Leinster affords a level of coaching expertise and rugby know-how that elevates their program. Syracuse is hungry for what O’Hare and Leinster have been able to bring.
While most football players stop playing by the end of high school, rugby thrives in communities in England and Ireland where adults continue to play the amateur form of the game in large numbers, some well into their thirties. That might prove to be a real point of difference as interest in rugby in America spikes in this decade, and record numbers take to the game.
Challenges undoubtedly remain. There is no recognized pathway for the growth of middle school and high school rugby in the U.S. Similar roadblocks are visible at club level. The contrast with established grass roots networks in rugby playing nations is stark. Colin O’Hare stresses the need to build something tangible to create a program model that facilitates people starting rugby clubs, bringing down travel distances between clubs and delivering a standard of performance. “Rugby and football have transferable skills,” O’Hare says. “We need to get a rugby ball into a child's hands at 5 or 6. Then you get Americans excited about rugby. Rugby is not on that menu in the U.S. yet.”
Program Building
During my time on campus, an Australian rugby prospect and his mother are visiting Syracuse with a view to attending college here in 2025-26. They’re on a whistle stop, coast-to-coast tour of several colleges across the U.S. in less than a week. As we wish them well on their travels, the mother adds that “we’re from Perth, we’re used to travelling great distances. We’ll be ok!”
When pressed about the timeline about what constitutes success, Gabe Nugent is phlegmatic. “We’re both non-profit organizations. We kicked the tires a lot when we met with Leinster representatives. Straight away, we’ve admired their culture. Every place they bring their brand people are left wanting more. We’re getting a lot more than just quality coaching. It's the knowledge around how you develop a program. Our club team has been around for over fifty years and has done really well. We don’t need to win a national championship in two years for this to be a success because we’ll know how a good program operates and we want to make it sustainable.”
At a time when college sports in the U.S. are increasingly professionalized - sending teams from coast to coast for conference games and giving athletes a slice of the financial pie - there’s something altruistic, yet bold about what Syracuse and Leinster have set in train. Always something of an outsider, rugby in the U.S. faces a pivotal ten years ahead with men’s and women’s world cups looming. Anything that helps put in train the framework of a long-term grassroots structure for rugby and bequeathes a wider generation of coaches and players to the game should have a lasting impact.
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