Team History
During the summers of '99 and 2000 Peter Simcox (Simo), a veteran Morris rugger and Denville youth coach, was traveling from his hometown of Long Valley to Denville to help coach and allow his boys Brian and Peter to play. Simo also spent a fair amount of time with Tom Feury, Program Director for the Denville Youth Program, in the winter of 2001 Skiing in Vermont with their families. The many hours spent on chair lifts together allowed the two to talk rugby and it was Simo's complaints about traveling to Denville that prompted Feury to put the squeeze on him to step up and start his own program in Long Valley.
Simo hooked up with a Welshman by the name of Paul Evans and in the summer of 2001 the Long Valley program was born. Following the now well-scripted formula for starting a community youth rugby program, they recruited 43 players for the best start yet for a new program. The Denville program grew again to 79 kids and Montville now had 50 for a total of 172 youth rugby players that summer. The three teams competed in several "test" matches which led up to the Junior Jersey Cup which was hosted by Montville.
Since that inaugural year, the Long Valley program has continued to grow under the able leadership of Pete & Paul and their wives, attracting kids and more coaches from surrounding towns and neighboring counties. For the past several years the Long Valley program has registered over 100 players ranging in age from 5 - 14 and in 2005 had a coaching team of 23 lead & assistant coaches, including several internationals from South Africa, Wales, France & England. Anytime after 6pm on a practice night you'll see kids at the fields early practicing their kicking or passing while awaiting the rest of the players & coaches. In part due to their large pool of players, in recent years the Long Valley Wolfpack has been able to field not only the usual co-ed Eagles teams but an all-girls Eagles team as well, led by Eagles assistant coach Pam Laura who joined the program in 2002 as an assistant Eagles coach.
Long Valley has also been on the leading edge of introducing the tackle version of the game to both boys & girls at the Eagle level. On any given practice night in Long Valley you can find 20 or more enthusiastic players and equally enthusiastic coaches working through the fine points of tackling, being tackled, rucking, mauling & scrumming until it's too dark to see the ball. And this is AFTER they've gone through an hour or so of Flag practice! Out of these summer tackle clinics came the core of the new Morris Girls U19 team now just finishing their second season as well as lots of new players for the Boys U19 team.
In 2004, Long Valley took a turn hosting what is now known as the American Youth Flag Festival - the end-of-season tournament where all the Flag programs get together and play rugby for hours! There were 8 towns represented with 64 teams, 600 players, assorted coaches, referees, parents, clothing and equipment vendors, food and 8 fields! It was a great day of Youth Rugby in northern NJ! Long Valley has also established a relationship with the Warrington Wolves Youth Rugby program from Warrington, PA. The Wolves come up every summer to play in Long Valley in a mini-tournament with a couple of the other town programs. Long Valley also regularly hosts Youth teams from the Union County, NJ program.
For the 2006 season, our co-founders have stepped down from their Program Coordinator positions and turned over the reins of the program to a group of coaches and parents. But you'll still find them both out on the field helping coach and maybe ref'ing on occasion! This season looks to be as successful as seasons past. Registration pre-season is up from last year and the coaches, assistant coaches and program administrators are ready to go!
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