There is no blocking in rugby. While rugby is a contact sport, tackling is controlled.

"When tackling, the intent is to wrap the ball-carrier," Harvard volunteer Coach Martyn Kingston says. "There is a lot of technique involved, and if it is properly played, no one should get hurt."

It is a free-flowing game with few stoppages in play. The games are 80 minutes long with only a five-minute break between halves. Only two injury substitutions are allowed.

Despite this, there is an image of rugby players as beer-drinking, sing-song, no-holds-barred kind of guys.

Myth

"That's a myth," senior Annor Ackah says. "There is no way you can go out and get drunk and expect to play an 80-minute game."

Rugby at Harvard is taken very seriously by its participants. Four years ago, the Crimson ruggers captured the national championship, and is currently ranked number one in the New England area.

Although it is a competitive sport, everyone who tries out for rugby makes it--and plays. If 45 people show up, there are three sides. If 60 people show up, there are four sides. Many who play rugby at Harvard are playing it for the first time.

"It was different," Ackah says. "It looked like a lot of fun, and the camaraderie was incredible. I wasn't familiar with many of the names associated with it."

In the pack, similar to an offensive line in football in that its members are the biggest players on the team, there is a loose-head prop, a pair of locks, and a hooker.

The hooker is probably the one that catches the attention of most fans unfamiliar to the spot.

When Radcliffe rugby member Ellen Rubin tells friends that she plays rugby, they are usually inquisitive about the sport and the position she plays.

"I tell them I'm a hooker," Rubin says. "I get a lot of laughs, and eyebrows definitely raise."

Who can overlook the subtleties of rugby?