Hopkins heads back to Wisconsin

Woy Woy rugby coach Ross Hopkins has headed back to Madison, Wisconsin, to help prepare the university college rugby union team for the USA National College Championships.

The team had qualified last year for the Championships which was for the last 16 colleges in the division one competition.

The team, in its second year in this Division, after being division two National Championship Runners up in 2009, is now ranked in the top 10 rugby colleges in the country in their Division.

The division had more than 300 universities trying to get to this stage.

In the first game, the Wisconsin team went in as underdogs and ran away winners 49-3 against Missouri, to set up a game the next day against last year's champions, Davenport.

"After being down 8-6 at halftime, the team eventually lost 32-11, however, the amount of positives that came out of this game were enormous," said Mr Hopkins.

In his fifth year on the coaching staff at the college, Hopkins has seen the program on the brink of being demoted to division three competitions to being a top 10 ranked team in the division one competition.

"Rugby is the largest amateur sport in the USA and rugby in Wisconsin is at an all time high," said Mr Hopkins.

"The playing roster has in excess of 65 players training three nights a week."

Hopkins, who also coaches at Woy Woy, will be kept busy in coming weeks after he was appointed assistant coach for Sydney when they play Country in the annual fixture at Manly Oval on Saturday, June 9.

"Between those roles, I will be continuing to try and turn things around at Woy Woy with my great mate Grant Brooks," Mr Hopkins said.

"The Lions have had a slow start to the year and really need to add to their playing roster.

"Sometimes we need to go backwards first before we start to make forward progress.

"The team is really training hard and it won't be long before their hard work pays off."

Media release, 21 May 2012

Ryan McGlynn, Woy Woy Rugby League