ST. CHARLES – Fox Valley Predators team captain Tommy Fink first embraced club rugby as a football training tool.

Six years later, the St. Charles East senior still strives to get the word out. And trumpet rugby’s other benefits, too.

Want to see for yourself? Fink and the rest of his teammates from around the region welcome anyone interested in watching a practice or home game at St. Charles’ James O. Breen Community Park. As East classmate Parker Vidmich asserts, the Predators compete “rain or shine,” an ethic that prompted happy and mucky scrums during a wet workout Saturday morning.

“You don’t necessarily need to be the biggest guy,” said the 5-foot-11, 180-pound Fink. “It’s all about the mindset. If you want to go hit that guy, then you’re going to go hit that guy.”

But not put his health in peril. Speaking amid cool raindrops at Breen over the weekend, Fink segued between platforms while wondering aloud about the program’s low turnout.

When he began as a freshman, Fink recalls, St. Charles Rugby fielded enough athletes to form three full teams for a 15-on-15 competition, in addition to alternates. This spring, the since-renamed Predators are under a first-time consolidation with the Batavia Rugby Club and go about 23 athletes strong.

With growing concern over concussions in all prep sports – namely those with greater contact, such as football – Fink figures that factor comes into play, too, although he’s just as eager to rebut it.

“That’s the problem, I think, is that people … hear ‘rugby,’ and they ask their parents about it, and everyone thinks, ‘Oh, it’s such a hard sport. It’s so barbaric and stuff,’ ” Fink said. “But it’s really not. If people were to just come and watch the match, they would see that the ref does things to protect us from getting hurt, and it’s a completely different game. … I don’t have a shell of armor on, so if there’s a pile, I’m not going to dive on top of it, you know. It’s all about protecting yourself.”

Fink sported such padding during the fall as the East football team’s strongside outside linebacker. Ditto for Vidmich, who played middle linebacker for the Saints.

Other Predators, including Batavia senior Luke Schulz, boast a wrestling background, mimicking director of coaching Jay Crawford’s path into rugby.

“I love the relationships this game brings to everyone,” Schulz said. “It’s awesome. It’s like family out there, playing each other.”

That’s spoken like someone who contends that his own kin ranks closely with its longtime friends, the Watsons, who many consider to form B-Town’s first family of rugby.

Schulz followed two older brothers into the sport, much like coach Daniel “Doc” Watson’s sons at Batavia.

Those ties represent Crawford’s belief in rugby as a life sport, something that can be part of an athlete’s long-term pursuits. A men’s league game was set to follow Saturday’s high school practice at Breen, which includes an area the St. Charles Park District zoned specifically for rugby.

“We’ve been tremendously lucky here with the park district and the dedicated field,” Crawford said. “They’ve been very welcome to it.”

Fink, a football recruit at NCAA Division III Augustana, hasn’t played a down for the Vikings yet but already is bemoaning his likely lack of rugby avenues after high school.

Of course, there are many channels through which he can stay connected, including Schulz, who plans to compete with the men’s league as he begins attending community college locally next school year.

Then there’s St. Charles Rugby product Zach Vyhnanek, who now is part of USA Rugby’s sports medicine staff and remains one of the top program pride points of recent years.

Crawford, a co-founder of St. Charles Rugby in 1987, knows every program alumnus might not ascend similarly, but if it’s safety prospective members are worried about, he offers caution of his own.

Crawford referred to recent measures by the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks and college football power Ohio State in consulting rugby coaches while developing shoulder leverage tackling techniques that help removed head contact from the process.

Reciting the basics of what Seattle calls the “Hawk Tackle,” Crawford discussed how the method correlates closely with rugby players’ objective to wrap and squeeze the ballcarrier’s thighs, then drive the ballcarrier to the ground.

“Super Bowl champs, Super Bow runner-up. National champs,” Crawford said. “They’re going, ‘How can these rugby players play this game without equipment, and they’ve taken the head out of the game?’ “

Fink hopes renewed energy in keeping various youth program members involved in the sport can carry over. He’s grown weary of asking football teammates to join the Predators in the spring, only to hear of their participation in track or lacrosse.

Versed in the ways of tackling opponents due in part to rugby, Fink would like to think the sport itself might help him wrangle up a few more participants.

“It’s the camaraderie, too,” he said. “It’s the guys that make me want to come back every single year.”