Published: June 05, 2009 12:07 am      

ADAMCZYK: Rugby in Tonawanda? Brilliant!

It was a scene somehow surreal yet familiar. The suburban meadow of Kenney Field in the Town of Tonawanda, sporting home to baseball, softball, football, a rising tide of little soccer players and anchored by a stern yet friendly fighter plane, hosted an international rugby match this week.

A what? Rugby, that boorish but convivial team slamfest that looks vaguely like unpadded and unhelmeted football, 15 men on a side in swarming heaps called “scrums” that eventually give up a breadbox-sized ball that gets chased, lateraled and kicked downfield. Five points for a try, three points for a penalty kick, and all the bruising behavior is forgiven at the post-game party. You know, rugby.

Kenmore West High School is among the few area schools to have a varsity rugby team in its sports program (it has several, in fact, including a girls’ team), a “club” team with minimal support from the school district but plenty from its members and their families. It welcomed a team of under-age-19 players from Bridgend College of Bridgend, Wales, a rugby-mad part of Great Britain (the school is halfway between Cardiff and Swansea, if you’ve got a map out). The visitors were touring the northeast, and after demolishing an all-star team of American collegiate players in Batavia, took a daytrip to Toronto and finished their journey with a weekend in Ken-Ton.

Other than a few local rugby cognoscenti, most of the crowd of about 300 were friends and relatives of the Kenmore West team, and understood little of the game it was watching. Bridgend was playing its youngest players, Kenmore West its best, but except that Bridgend was leading 45-0 at halftime, the score didn’t matter. The camaraderie did.

Ask around, and all that was heard were stories of friendship and hospitality. The Welsh players were housed, for the weekend, with Kenmore West families, “30 families hosting 36 kids, and more families offering to host than we had kids”, according to Wendy Griffing of Kenmore, whose son Ian is on the squad.

After the bus from Toronto to Tonawanda blew out a tire on Grand Island — “the wheel went ‘Bam!’ and the kids said ‘We didn’t do anything!’ ” according to Bridgend assistant coach Paul Adams — the welcoming committee drove out to rescue the team. On game day, the guests were fed a pancake breakfast in Sheridan Park, sent off for an afternoon at Darien Lake, played the rugby match and had a late-evening party at the Fireman’s Shelter on Military Road.

The British toss around the term “brilliant” the way Americans say “awesome.” The weekend was brilliant. Said Bridgend coach Gareth Nicholas, “This (rugby) is a conduit through which we get life experience. The welcome has been spectacular. We couldn’t have asked for more. The players have had experiences with families they’d never have as tourists. People have gone out of their way to welcome us.”

Added Nicola Lewis, “The people have been so hospitable, and this sport is so big in Wales that it’s nice to come out here where it’s just developing.”

Chris Jenkins explained that his team would be expected to win: “the physicality, yeah, and our knowledge of the game is better,” but mostly he said everything was brilliant.

The ones without the out-of-town accents were thrilled with the events of the weekend, as well. “Rugby is so much more than the game,” said Ms. Griffing, she with one son in the game and a younger rugger in the stands. “They’ve all become such great friends.”

Rugby mom Tammy Dickman reminded me to mention Kenmore West’s coach, William Conrad, and a fundraiser at Chippewa Street’s SoHo nightclub on June 13 (theme tray auctions and the usual protocols when raising money is the parents’ duty) to send the Kenmore West team to Wales in April.

I left with little understanding of the rules of rugby but about five pages of notes explaining how great everyone feels, how much fun everyone is having and of how brilliant the concept of sport bridging divides of culture and geography can be. That a team from Wales contested a team from Kenmore West on an undersized rugby pitch (that’s what the field of play is called) one overcast night in Tonawanda takes a back seat to friendships made, visions expanded and the unexplainable joy of being involved in a project such as this.

The Welsh players (I hesitate to call them kids; they tended to be tall, and sturdy as Marines; perhaps that’s why so many girls were in the Kenney Field bleachers) not only saw Niagara Falls and Darien Lake, they saw the bedrooms of Kenmore, the streets of Tonawanda and American lives depicted as reality, not filtered through Hollywood or MTV.

A night at Kenney Field isn’t generally like this one. Eccentric yet comfortable, with raging competition co-existing with raging bonhomie. Non-scheduled games, in rugby, are referred to as “friendly” matches. Oh boy, was this ever.

Ed Adamczyk is a Kenmore resident whose column appears weekly in the Record-Advertiser. Contact him at EdinKenmore@gmail.com.