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 its m ...

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 largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the ...

. They are members of the Florida Rugby Union, 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 Division II. The club was founded in 1972.

History

Jacksonville RFC was founded in 1972. The original roster largely consisted of former college rugby 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 The Gator Bowl is an annual college football bowl game held in Jacksonville, Florida, operated by Gator Bowl Sports. It has been held continuously since 1946, making it the sixth oldest college bowl, as well as the first one ever televised natio ...

. 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 USA Rugby South is an organization that combines a number of unions in the south-east of the USA for competition and representative honours. Their representative team is known as the Panthers. Originally formed as Southern Eastern Rugby Union in ...

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