It’s that time of year again! Springtime, or at least spring semester, is here and with it comes the beginning of another rugby season of rib-cracking, ear-tearing, tooth-splitting sport. This year’s games will be particularly exciting, because now our teams will not only be fun to watch, but they will actually know what the hell they are doing.

Historically, Guilford’s rugby teams, while jolly, haven’t been all that competitive. The women’s team has been chronically understaffed and the men’s team has been terminally boozy.

“We totally turned around from a drinking social club to a serious athletic club without losing the fun,” said Nick Hunter, senior pack captain for the division three men’s team. “We’ve taken one semester and turned our team from bottom of the barrel third division to a team that competes with and can beat schools with 30,000 students.”

Returning alumni would not recognize the Guilford rugby of today. Both genders have improved their game in the last year, crafting tough, ambitious teams that can play the game as hard as they can party afterwards

“We have a lot more natural talent, and people who understand the game,” said Guilford Alumnus Dan Hayden, who played rugby from 2003 to 2006 and is now the unofficial coach. “I expect them to do well. (We are) definitely more organized, more interested in playing good rugby than ever before.”

The men’s team opened their season with a hard fought 18-17 victory on Jan. 26 against the Ashville Iguanas, an older men’s team that competes at a division two level. The defining moment of the game, and the men’s team, came when Guilford’s smallest player laid out an adversary two-times his size. The metaphor makes itself.

The women’s team is ascendant as well. With 22 players, half of whom are first-years, they are numerically bigger than ever before – which is important in a sport where players sustain injuries at an alarming rate.

“We are a lot better than last year – we used to have trouble having enough players to field a team,” said team captain Beth Belle Isle. “Last semester we beat Wake Forest badly, tied UNCG and stuck with Duke. We also played a division one team and learned valuable lessons, but we sustained real bad injuries.”

In fact, many of the veteran players are injured, leaving the field to the first-year recruits, who comprise about half the team.

“We have a lot of new players so it kind of feels like starting again due to injury,” said sophomore Maya Oliver, who had to get surgery for a rugby-induced ripped tendon. “Last season was a huge improvement, but now the younger girls are going to have to step up.”

The two teams played back-to-back on Feb. 2. The women’s team lost to Duke 15-0 at 11 a.m., and the men’s team beat the Western Carolina Catamounts 28-18 at 1 p.m.

Both teams are playing back-to-back next Saturday. Come on down, loosen up your yelling muscles, and prepare to kick back and enjoy a whole new kind of Guilford rugby.