The San Juan Stallions, the newest rugby club in south Orange County, is gearing up for its eight-game season, set to run from December through February.

Founded by Mark Pattinson and Mike Lewis this past summer, the Stallions are an ASB club at San Juan Hills High School. Players are mostly from the school, but the team has garnered many participants from surrounding areas.

Pattinson is a native of England and a veteran of the game, having played at the high school, club and university level. He’s a registered youth coach with USA Rugby and has coached in south county for several years.

“Rugby goes back to being a really community-oriented sport,” Pattinson said, “so I hope that the San Juan residents will recognize that we’re out there.

Pattinson answered some questions about the club.

Q: Can you give readers some background on the club and why you decided to start it?

A: Rugby is nationwide, one of the fastest growing sports. It happens to be a passion of mine and at the same time, we started to see some development in the game, specifically in southern Orange County. Dana Hills had a high school affiliated rugby team for, I believe, four or five years. Last year, San Clemente formed a team and so this year, another parent and myself, who both coached youth rugby, thought that providing San Juan Hills with the opportunity to put a team on the field would start to create a good opportunity for competition and the growth of the sport in Southern California. We are not a high school team, we are a club team affiliated with a high school, and that goes for all the clubs—Dana Hills and San Clemente.

Q: What kind of interest have you seen in the club so far?

A: It’s been really good. Obviously we’re going into a community where rugby is not a big sport. Rugby was in the Olympics and the U.S. participated in both men’s and women’s. There have been some youth clubs around, notably San Clemente Gators, and up in Newport there’s a team called Back Bay. There’s another new team that’s starting called South Rhinos (Ladera), so there’s been this groundswell of interest growing as people become aware of it, through particularly the Olympics. So we went on campus and we set up an ASB club and at that first meeting we had, I think, about 35 boys and a few girls turn up to learn about the game… We’ve now got 20 players registered to play in the coming season.

Q: Are there newcomers to the sport? Do you welcome all skill levels?

A: We welcome everybody. We have some people that have very limited rugby experience. Some of the kids have participated in the youth rugby programs that are in south Orange County. A couple of them have played for either the Dana program or the San Clemente program. …We’ve got people from soccer, from football, from lacrosse, from swimming, a multitude of sports.

Q: What values can be learned through rugby? Why might this spot be a good choice for kids to play?

A: It’s an international sport. I came here from England when I first arrived on these shores, I went down and found a local rugby club, which happened to be Back Bay, and I instantly had about 30 people that were friendly and I could relate to. I’ve explained to the students that if they want to travel, it’s a great way (to meet people). If they end up in New Zealand or South Africa or pretty much anywhere in Europe, even South America —the next World Cup I think is going to be in Japan— it offers an opportunity to have an insant connection. I think the other thing is, we teach it in a very sportsmanlike way. It’s a tough game. There’s lots of bruises associated with it, but at the same time, we try to play with respect for the opposition and it’s a game where at the end, you shake everybody’s hand even if you’ve been tackling them hard … for the last 30 minutes.

Q: Are you planning on starting a girl’s team? What’s the rugby scene like for girls in OC?

A: At the youth level, there’s certainly girls that are playing rugby… From the Olympics, we saw that the U.S. women’s (team) was very competitive and my hope, and certainly the hope of my other coach, Mike Lewis, is once we establish a program, that girls will want to come forward and compete. Typically they’re going to compete in the sevens version. There are two forms of rugby, one where there’s 15 a side, which is typically what you see at the World Cup and internationals. and then there’s another version which is the sevens rugby, which was at the Olympics. Obviously the sevens version requires fewer players, and therefore that’s where most of the ladies rugby is focused I think at this time.

Contact the writer: mfader@ocregister.com