Jacksonville Rugby Football Club (Jacksonville RFC) are a men's

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

team based in

Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the List of United States cities by area, largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the co ...

. They are members of the

Florida Rugby Union The Florida Rugby Union (FRU) is a Geographical Union (GU) that governs the Florida peninsula for USA Rugby. The Florida Rugby Union has four divisions: Men's, Women's, Collegiate Men's, and Collegiate Women's. Men's clubs There are currently nin ...

, the organizational body for rugby in the state of

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, and currently play in

USA Rugby USA Rugby (officially the United States of America Rugby Football Union, Ltd.) is the national governing body for the sport of rugby union in the United States. Its role is to achieve and maintain “high levels of quality in all aspects of ru ...

Division II. The club was founded in 1972.

History

Jacksonville RFC was founded in 1972. The original roster largely consisted of former

college rugby College rugby is played by men and women throughout colleges and universities in the United States of America. Seven-a-side and fifteen-a-side variants of rugby union are most commonly played. Most collegiate rugby programs do not fall under the ...

players and a handful of locals. Among their biggest events in the early years was playing in front of 50,000 spectators as part of the events surrounding the 1989 Gator Bowl. After years of sporadic success, the team established itself in the 1990s under a string of British coaches, winning the 1996 state championship and going to the national championship. More recently they have made the Florida Cup finals, won the Florida matrix, and played in the National Final 8. In 2008 they won the USA Rugby South Division II Championship, and played in the national Final 16, ultimately finishing sixth in the country out of the 1,300 Division II teams. The team currently plays its home matches at Huffman Boulevard Park in Jacksonville.

References

{{Florida Sports Sports teams in Jacksonville, Florida Rugby union teams in Florida Rugby clubs established in 1973 1973 establishments in Florida