Northeastern womens’ club rugby, fittingly nicknamed the Maddogs, has proven itself as one of the toughest competitors in the womens’ club rugby world. The team, which was founded in 1995, joined the Division I conference in 2006 and has been churning out high-level athletes since — including Olympic bronze medalist Sarah Levy. This season, the team has gone 4-0 in conference play so far and has one game yet to be played.
The team is a well-oiled machine, with president Abby Ryan leading the highly successful team. Joining the club team her freshman year, Ryan, a fourth-year health science major, was welcomed into a community that she has cherished throughout her time at Northeastern.
“I was a swimmer in high school, and I did not want to swim anymore,” she said. “At Fall Fest my freshman year … I went to sign up, and there were like a million names on [the sign-up sheet]. Then I decided to join with a mutual friend, and we’re still roommates to this day.”
Rugby is a very different game than many others, said fourth-year psychology major and forwards captain Molly McAlevey.
The number one rule in rugby is that you can only pass backwards or sideways. If the ball is passed forwards or accidentally hit forwards, the game goes into a scrum. A scrum involves eight people from each team bracing against the other as the hooker, the player responsible for kicking the ball out of the scrum, attempts to get the ball to the rest of the people on their team. When the ball goes out, a lineout happens.
“[A lineout is] when you’ll see two people pick up another person and lift them into the air really high to catch the ball and then bring it down, [and] give it to their team,” McAlevey said. “There are a lot of plays in rugby … and when the team has the ball everyone on the team is on offense, and when the other team has the ball everyone is on defense.”
Rugby is a physically demanding sport — and oftentimes unforgiving to the body. Fourth-year mathematics and business administration major and backs captain Jordan Kreisler stressed the importance of tackling safety.
“With tackling, there’s no pads or anything, so we have to emphasize how to fall safely and tackle safely so that nobody gets hurt,” she said.
The team works hard to foster a sense of community, inviting all that are interested, regardless of experience level. The rugby team has no cuts — if you show up to practice, then you’ve earned the opportunity to be on the team.
“It’s just really awesome to see everyone [becomes] such good friends on and off the field.” McAlevey said.
Not only is the team a place where friendships grow, but the Huskies have been wildly successful in the past few years. So successful that they have expanded to include two team—a team that fields fifteen at a time, 15 sided, and a team that fields 7 at a time, 7 sided. The team ranks consistently amongst the top five teams in 15-sided nationals, and went undefeated in 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023. In 2017, the team introduced a 7-sided program. The 7s team was the D1 national champion in 2023, in one of its first seasons.
“[I] have had the privilege to see the team grow over the past couple of years into what it is now. We have won multiple national championships,” Ryan said. “There’s just such a positive environment and it has been like that [my] entire time on the team.”
The team has one more match this season, at Boston College Oct. 27 before they head into the postseason, where they hope to qualify for regionals and then move onto nationals from there.
“We are just excited to see how everyone has been improving over the season and how they’re going to show up in the end,” Ryan said.
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