The Seattle Rugby Club (formerly Seattle Saracens and Old Puget Sound Beach after a merger) is a

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 ...

club based in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

. The club travels throughout the US and into Canada. In 2014 the club was ranked as the number one US club while also playing in a Canadian league based in British Columbia ( BCRU). Old Puget Sound Beach was a charter member of the now defunct USA Super League in the

Pacific Coast Pacific coast may be used to reference any coastline that borders the Pacific Ocean. Geography Americas Countries on the western side of the Americas have a Pacific coast as their western or southwestern border, except for Panama, where the Pac ...

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 rugb ...

territory.

History

Founded in 1966, Seattle RFC was a group of enthusiastic rugby players who had responded to an ad in the local Seattle Times looking to get a game of rugby going. Old Puget Sound Beach Rugby Football Club played its first game in the fall of 1971. In 1996, Seattle RFC joined with the local women's rugby club called the Breakers. This proved to be an opportunity for both men and women to prosper in the Pacific Northwest Rugby Football Union. The women's USA Division-1 team has consecutively been within the top 16, ‘Sweet 16’, in the nation and continues to play in the BCRU Premier League. For decades, Seattle and OPSB were local adversaries and had many spirited matches. In 2006, Seattle RFC men's teams and OPSB's men's teams combined resources and were able to field a squad in the now defunct USA Rugby Super League as well as 2 squads in the BC Rugby Union's 1st and 2nd division in Canada.

Seattle–OPSB (2006–2014)

After years of mixed success, the Super League teams grew a culture of winning and reached the playoff rounds 3 years in a row, and the finals twice. The BCRU teams were also consistently near the top teams in their respective divisions, reaching the playoffs in most of their seasons. A combined 8 National Sevens titles, as well as winning the bowl in the 2014 World Club Sevens Championships, success was proven achievable on the big stages. With an injection of talented players and coaching staff such as Waisale Serevi, Ben Gollings, and Justin Fitzpatrick, Seattle-OPSB felt ready to take the next steps towards growing the club and rugby in the Pacific Northwest.

Saracens (2014–2020)

In June 2014, Seattle-OPSB joined the

Saracens file:Erhard Reuwich Sarazenen 1486.png, upright 1.5, Late 15th-century Germany in the Middle Ages, German woodcut depicting Saracens Saracen ( ) was a term used in the early centuries, both in Greek language, Greek and Latin writings, to refer ...

Global Network, renaming themselves as Seattle Saracens. They were the ninth team to join the network, after VVA Saracens, São Paulo Saracens, Abu Dhabi Saracens, KL Saracens, Impala Saracens Nairobi, Timișoara Saracens and Toa Saracens. On May 9, 2015, the Seattle Saracens beat

Meraloma Rugby Meraloma Club (nicknamed the Lomas) is a Canadian rugby union team based in Vancouver, British Columbia. Founded in 1923, The Meraloma Club originated as a swim club before branching out with an array of other sports including rugby. The rugby cl ...

26–25 in the Division 1 final. As a result, they were promoted to the

CDI Premier League The British Columbia Men's Premier League is a provincial rugby union competition currently contested by twelve clubs in British Columbia, Canada and one in the U.S. state of Washington. The BC Premier League is organized by the British Columbia ...

Seattle Rugby Club (2020–present)

In 2018 after the Saracens partnership ended, the club board chose to return to their original orca art logo, but kept the name Seattle Saracens. Two years later, during the 2019-20 season, the entire club’s players, members, and coaching staff voted overwhelmingly to rebrand themselves. Officially changing their name to the Seattle Rugby Club in July 2020.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saracens Sports in Seattle Rugby union teams in Washington (state) Saracens Global Network