Kevin Bunce Sr. thinks the chances of the Montauk Rugby Club reviving are slim.
“It’s simply too hard, too hard to live out here,” he said by way of explanation during a conversation at The Star Monday afternoon.
Though he’s by no means discouraged when it comes to the younger players he and Mike Jablonski of Mattituck have been coaching in 7s and 15s in the past few years. For them, he said, the future seems bright, given the sport’s growing popularity at the college level, and the beginnings of a professional league in this country.
That latter fact was what brought him to The Star that day, to announce that one of his protégés, Brandon Johnson, is now getting paid to play rugby in Austin, Tex. “He signed a contract recently. It’s not for much, but he got paid something to sign with the club, he gets paid for every game he plays — I’m not sure how much — and he gets a stipend if he plays the season out. It’s not much, but it’s a start. He’s playing with Austin Herd’s feeder club, the Austin Huns. He scored twice in a 15s game they played this past weekend.”
To put it into further perspective, Bunce said that Old Blue, a dominant rugby club in the region for years, was the feeder club for New York’s professional side, Rugby United New York.
At 21, Johnson was well positioned should he want to try out for the 7s squad that the U.S. will send to play in the 2024 Olympics, Bunce added. “That is if he really wants to put the effort in, if he trains every day.”
They had talked on the phone in the past week, “and he loves it down there. He’s got housing, they’ll find him a job . . . he lives close to the University of Texas. It’s a vibrant college town. He’s in a good place to take the next step.”
While it was true that several homegrown Montauk Rugby Club members — Chris Carney and Rob Balnis coming immediately to mind — had played the sport internationally in years past — “they were amateurs. Brandon’s the first to play professionally.”
While the U.S. has far to go when it comes to 15s, “we’re number-one in the world in 7s, and Brandon, who’s 6-3, 210 or so, is made for that more wide-open game. He really gets a chance to show his athleticism in 7s. He can run people down. He’ll track ’em and stick ’em. People who can do that are few and far between.”
A prop in 7s, Johnson is a center in 15s, though Bunce agreed that given his kicking ability — his punts when he played for East Hampton High School’s football team stayed up in the air for a long time and traveled between 50 and 60 yards — and his long, powerful strides making him very hard to bring down once having built up a head of steam might incline a coach to use him as a fullback in 15s.
As for Major League Rugby’s developing an audience, the chances, Bunce thinks, are good. “There are people coming here to play . . . from New Zealand, France . . . and there are a lot of people here who were born abroad who want to see the game. So, it’s exciting. The younger guys I coach are excited for him.”
Speaking of “the younger guys,” Bunce anticipates a large turnout for his and Jablonski’s combined youth side this spring “if all the kids who say they’ll come out do come out.” His son, Kevin Jr. (rehabbing a broken collarbone at the moment), is to attend a rugby camp in Arizona overseen by the Eagles, the U.S.’s national side, this spring.
“He went there last year — that’s where he got picked to play in the Ireland tour this past summer [a tour he had to forgo because of an injury]. He and Wayne Street are going to play in the Tropical 7s tournament, one of the largest youth tournaments in the world, in Orlando, Fla., in April. . . . There’ll be players there from New Zealand, Australia, France, Ireland, Wales . . . everywhere. What I’m saying is that there are opportunities for these kids to get seen, to get on coaches’ lists, to move up to the next level.”