Sports

Rugby in The Blue Hills

CANTON — They are blazing a trail at Blue Hills Regional Vocational School in Canton. Blue Hills has the first and only varsity rugby program in the state.

Head Rugby Coach Matt Siwik started the program three years ago.  In 2015, Matt approached Blue Hills Athletic Director Ed Catabia and said that he had enough interest and wanted to start a rugby program at the school.  Ed and school administrators had some concerns at the time.  Would this take anything away from some of the other sports programs?  Where would funding come from? And would Matt and his group be able to sustain interest and build a program.   Three years later Blue Hills Rugby is thriving and growing strong.

This year’s team currently has 25 players and most of them are underclassmen.  The rugby matches they play can be challenging because there aren’t many schools in the state who have the sport.  So when Blue Hills schedules a rugby match against another school, that school is usually much bigger than them.  Blue Hills currently has about 850 students enrolled there.

Coming up on June 9th, Matt and his team will be involved in a very unique event.  Blue Hills will be hosting the very first international contest against a High school team touring the US from Dublin, Ireland.  The name of the school is THE HIGH SCHOOL.

Matt has a lot to be proud of from where this program started and how it has been built.  He also has a ton of people to thank.  “I want to thank the athletic director, principal, Finance officer and superintendent for their support of this idea from the beginning.  And of course my assistant coaches and volunteers that give up their time to keep improving our quality of play.” Said Matt.

“I would also like to mention The Boston Irish youth Rugby program that I also coach for.  All those coaches were very helpful in getting the team off the ground also for kids younger than high school age that would like to get involved in the sport”