NEWS

MLR Grassroots | LA Giltinis, Developmental Academy

Written by Joe Harvey

During the 2021 season, the New England Free Jacks, Toronto Arrows and Utah Warriors had their grassroots efforts highlighted. 

Every season, Major League Rugby teams have a series of Grassroot Development Incentives that are intended for teams to develop and promote rugby participation within their regions and to create a firmer pathway for players, while also further engaging with their communities.

Having joined MLR ahead of the 2021 season, the LA Giltinis have made significant progress in their off-field growth, the establishment of a developmental academy, the team’s Director of Rugby Development, Kevin Battle, having been at the heart of this maturation.

During his career to date, Battle has established the Santa Barbara Rugby Academy in 2009, performed the role of Team Manager for the men’s USA Eagles side at both the 2011 and 2015 Rugby World Cups and in 2012 took on the role of Commissioner with USA Rugby for the Division 1-A College Rugby competition.

Now a year into this journey, Battle and the rest of the Giltinis staff have excelled across the board with their Grassroots Development Incentives, their Developmental Academy Team having achieved all their objectives.

“It has been a real exciting run so far,” Battle said. “Everything that has had to happen a lot quicker with us being the new kids on the block. I have been running an academy in Santa Barbara since 2009, so I have had plenty of opportunities to get things wrong, to learn from them, and continue to keep building, evolving and improving.

“Dave Clancy, our Academy Head Coach, spent some time with the Munster Academy, and has been back to Ireland to observe the academies there and I have been back and forth with New Zealand over the years, trying to put together the best practices.

“Ultimately our goal is to develop better American rugby players, and we have got three objectives we have in mind; one; to develop Giltinis, two; to to develop players for MLR because not every guy will make the Giltinis, and three; for those that don’t make MLR, that they are better footy players, and continue to feature in club rugby because we need to build club rugby in America. Not just the participation, but the quality as well. If we can help players improve and grow and fall deeper in love with the game, then we all benefit in the end.”

For many years, California has been deemed as one of the United States’ most fervent rugby areas. With numerous top-class college programs, as well as long-established club sides, LA have recruited heavily from the environment around them.

This includes the appointment of Dave Clancy, who before his appointment with the Giltinis, worked with UCLA’s rugby program. Already the fruits of the rugby infrastructure in California can be seen in the LA squad, with Cyrille Cama and Dylan James both signed from local programs.

Lucas Lacamp has also been a success story, the Academy player having received a call-up to the USA Sevens program, whilst 2021 Collegiate Draft pick, Gerald Lowe, played for the Academy last year and Adam Channel came from nearby Belmont Shore.

Putting on talent identification camps, many of the players currently in the Giltinis Academy are from the local area, although Battle is hoping to look far beyond the borders of the state they call home to recruit the best talent possible.

“Most of the guys that settled with us were from the greater LA area,” Battle said, “or people who have been willing to relocate to the LA area.

“We did two talent ID camps, one in LA and one in San Francisco, we were scheduled to do one over in Hawaii, but because of Covid we had to postpone our trip.

“We have to cast a wide net, and invest in player development, in terms of building player skills and knowledge level, and identify guys who have the potential to be a Giltini.”

Having to play a minimum of four MLR-sanctioned Developmental Academy games, which can be played against other MLR developmental sides, Academy teams from overseas or Division 1 USA Rugby clubs, LA have had numerous players not only represent the Giltinis but move elsewhere to play in MLR.

A major role which each MLR team has, is to align grassroots setups with the professional and provide a route to professional rugby. All done with the aim of growing the game of rugby in North America and to aid the national teams of the USA and Canada, Battle is more than aware of the challenge at hand, hoping that in time the program will prove to be extremely successful.

“When you look at the trajectory of an American rugby player and the number of matches they play in a season,” Battle said, “compared to someone their age in England, in a typical league season they are going to have between seven and 10 matches.

“Some of the better programs are going to have between 12 and 16, but in England some players are playing upwards of 26 games a year. How do we close the gap when we play a third of the matches, with a third of the training sessions?

“We have to look at how we bridge that gap, how we increase the number of quality training sessions, how do we smartly increase the quantity of those sessions. It is great if kids get out and play 10 matches, but if they are winning by 60 points in eight out of those 10 matches, they are not really being pressed to be at their best.

“So, we are trying to supplement their development, with games against other MLR academies and touring sides and we have got a great line-up of competition that we will face this season, which will really help these guys development.”