Seventeen new faces stepped into Headquarters on the morning of Monday, July 6th, as the first members of Rugby ATL’s Summer Residency Camp of our new youth development program, Pathway 404. College players from all around the Eastern Seaboard and the midwest made their way down to Marietta over the weekend, to take part in the franchise’s first-ever development program tailored for collegiate players.

Atlanta, Georgia – This week, on ‘The RATL Roundup,’ Rugby ATL had on some of the earliest members of the franchise, in Sam Peri, Samuel Chaney, and Eamonn Matthews. A little over a year ago, each man dropped what he was doing at the time for a shot at becoming a professional athlete in the MLR, joining Rugby ATL for the fall development season with the 404.

In the final video of our ‘Rugby 101’ educational installment, pro player Neets Gericke recaps our lesson plan from the past few months, where we went over: attack and defense, the field and terminology, positions and their traditional roles, the set pieces, the breakdown, and kicking.

On this episode of ‘Rugby 101,’ pro player Neets Gericke helps us understand the nuances around the kicking game of rugby. With the help of our tactical kickers Kurt Coleman and Duncan Van Schalkwyk, we learn about: the main reason to kick, the types of kick available to players, the intended outcomes around kicking, and the process to optimize kicking the rugby ball.

For the seventh episode of our weekly live series, we reached out to our two newest members of Rugby ATL, streaming live from their homes, our two draft picks, Michael Matarazzo and John Scotti.

Following last weeks episode on the tackle, episode ten of our ‘Rugby 101’ video series is an educational masterclass on the contest that immediately follows every tackle: the breakdown.

In this weeks ‘Rugby 101’ video series, Neets Gericke talks us through one of rugby’s most essential core skills: the tackle. With the help of a few trusty teammates, Neets takes us out to the training ground to explain the demonstrations of tackle outcomes.

For this week, to conclude our ‘Rugby 101’ mini-series on the set-piece, pro player Neets Gericke teaches us in the session about the backlines role off the set-piece.