Welcome to the Home Page
of the
UPJ Men's Rugby Football Club

I had played the game both as a boy and an "old boy" (which bemusing term I will leave unexplained in order to intrigue the uninitiated!). I had also coached the game for many years when I was a teacher in a secondary school in London, England. So I volunteered my services as coach here in the United States and was immediately impressed by the enthusiasm, even lust, for the game among these tough, fearless, athletic Southwest Pennsylvania lads.

In 1995, the men helped start the first women's team, whom they encouraged and coached.

The men play a hard, uncompromising brand of rugby. They expect no quarter and no quarter is given. They play together as a well-oiled team, respecting each other's individual skills and driving each other to play to the best of their ability.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say, and the fact is that the men's rugby team at UPJ has an enviable winning record for most of the years that I had anything to do with them.

Win or lose, all the players enjoy themselves and that's what it's all about.

Bernie Poole
UPJ Men's and Women's Rugby Club Advisor and sometime Coach