
DATE: Tuesday, August 26, 1997              TAG: 9708260521

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C1   EDITION: FINAL 

SERIES: HAMPTON ROADS AT PLAY

SOURCE: BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:  104 lines

IN THE SCRUMNORFOLK CITY BLUES SHOW THE TOUGH SIDE BUT PROVE THERE'S A SOFT SIDE TO RUGBY, TOO.

Few men dare scrum with the Norfolk City Blues Rugby Football Club.

Too-By, all 6-foot-11 of him, is such a man.

His mother named him Jabe O'Neill some 25 years ago, but few know him as such. For the past season he has been a regular on the second row of the Blues' scrum - akin to the offensive and defensive lines in football rolled into one unit.

During an outing with the fellows, he zonked out at 9:58 p.m. and became Too-By. As in too-drunk-by-10.

But Two-By can push with the best of them. As one of the newer players on a young Blues team, he has to.

The Blues are 338-115-7 since forming from the ashes of the Norfolk Rugby and Norfolk Irish Rugby Clubs in 1978, and next week the Blues start their 20th season.

These are not paid players. In fact, the players pay to play. Clubs are stocked with regular folks who pay dues and travel expenses to play the game they love. They are engineers and sailors and Marines and independent contractors and such.

The Blues have practiced and played together, and the club has won its fair share of state championships. But not last year. The Ed Lee Cup, awarded to the winner of a state-wide tournament, eluded them.

Team secretary David W. Chapman said the Blues - one of five rugby teams in South Hampton Roads - intend to right that wrong this season.

During a recent practice at Crossroads Elementary School, the 43-year-old Chapman summarized what takes place in a rugby match.

``It looks like there is mass chaos, but it's not,'' Chapman said. ``The goal is to run with the ball, but you can't pass forwards, only lateral. And the team with the most goals wins.''

Scores are achieved by a player actually touching the ball down in the end zone with force, not just by crossing a plane as in football. There are field goals, too.

And then there's the scrum, which happens when the forward progress of the ball stops. To resume play, eight players from both sides lock heads and arms, the ball is dropped into the middle, and players try to move the ball out through the scrum, where the players in the back try to advance it.

Blues players Keith Wright, Darin Darden and Too-By - moonlighting up front - practiced their push Thursday on a ``scrum machine,'' which is like a heavy sled.

The formation looks like a crab, with Darden, the ``hooker,'' in the center, and the two men on either side of him are ``props.'' In a real scrum, a line of folks, the ``wingers,'' push behind the front guys in the ``pack'' and play does not stop unless an infraction is made or a team scores.

Though the team has a mailing list of hundreds, about 30 regulars hit most practices and games. Since strength helps, players such as 34-year-old Tim Trivette are welcome parts of the Blues. Trivette, about 6 feet tall and heavily muscled, is a prop, which means he goes right out front.

He also says things such as, ``I'm going to knock out the first player who comes my way.''

``Yeah,'' Darden said. ``He's big.''

``That's why I play behind him,'' Wright said.

``That's why I play beside him,'' Darden added.

Wright, 40, became the team's captain Saturday, taking over for Darden. Wright, like Chapman, has been with the team since its 1978 start. He has played with them since he was 18. Chapman is an administrative member now, though he plays in senior contests. Wright, playing on a young team, still tangles with the kids. They call him the ``Norfolk Legend.''

Trivette started playing at Old Dominion after rooming with a rugby nut. Darden played for ODU, too. Many players from ODU's clubs go on to play on the Blues, he said.

``It's fun,'' Trivette said. ``You get to travel. You get to go somewhere to play rugby, and they'll set you up.''

In rugby, the home team hosts a post-match party, regardless of the winner. It's a very social sport, said Trivette. Which is why the Blues, when not on the field, often congregate at Mo and O'Malley's Irish Pub or O'Sullivan's Wharf. It's the planned site of the party that will follow the Blues' match with a team from Raleigh that opens the season Sept. 6 at Lafayette City Park at Granby and 38th Street.

Due to the social nature of the sport, Wright said, rugby players have amazingly patient significant others. One player on the Blues scheduled his wedding after the season ends.

Even at the off-field events, legends are born. Such as Too-By, whose nickname stuck the next time his lights went out.

``I got knocked out last year during a match,'' he recalled, ``and nobody knew my real name.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

TAMARA VONINSKI/The Virginian-Pilot

Darin Darden...

Graphic

RUGBY

What is it: Game in which two opposing teams of 15 players each

attempt to score tries by moving an oblong ball into opposing end

zones through runs and lateral passes.

Equipment and cost: Balls cost between $20 and 35, rugby boots

around $69 depending on position, mouthpiece about $2. Uniform costs

vary.