The sport of rugby has long been misunderstood as a confusing, brutal game with little or no strategy guiding the players on the field. But the members of the Penn State Rugby Club have found the sport has more to offer than meets the eye.

The team kicks off its spring season this weekend with the Washington Irish Tournament, held in the nation's capitol. After a disappointing end to last season, Coach Bruce Hale is looking for another successful year.

"Last spring we started off real well, but then we ended up losing five games, which is a lot for us," Hale said. "In the Midwest (Region) we ended up seventh or eighth, which would put us in the top 30 teams nationally.

"I would say we're as good as we were last year. I think this is a little more spirited group, they don't sit back on their laurels as much. I think we have more depth than we had last year. Last year we had maybe 19 or 20 players, this year we should have 25 or 30 good players, and that will make a big difference."

Life isn't easy for club sports at Penn State, with constant worries about money, fan support and facilities. Rugby is no exception. But the Rugby Club's coaches face some unusual problems that coaches in other sports don't have to worry about. For starters, not many of Hale's players come in with a background in rugby, so Hale has to start at the beginning, the very beginning, every season.

"At least half of them have never seen the ball before," Hale said of his novice players. "Every season we get 20 or 30 new ones out there, so we have to start from scratch.

"It's demanding because you've got maybe 20 or 30 guys we want to get ready for a game each week, but then we have to send someone over with the group that's never seen the ball before to keep them interested and teach them all the basics. We don't want to throw them into a game without them knowing what their doing."

And since the team has been an underground success, a lot of people don't hear about the team until later in their Penn State years, which doesn't give the coaches much time to form an experienced team.

"Our biggest problem has been the continual turnover," Hale said. "It's very difficult to get to University Park for four years, so were getting students for two or three years at the most. It's frustrating because I know how good we could be if we had more players here for four years."

And the players need all the time they can get to master the complicated and unfamiliar rules of the sport. Although the game does have a lot of contact, winning involves more than simply steamrolling the opponent into the ground.

"It's more of a thinking sport that you have to do spontaneously, more like soccer than football," Hale said. "The action is continuous, ebb and flow. And the conditioning is tougher than football -- you have to be ready to run for 80 minutes a game."

But make no mistake, rugby is a physical game. Players do get bumps and bruises playing rugby, although Hale said the threat of serious injury is blown out of proportion severely by some people.

"Many people think they're crazy to play rugby because they don't know what's going on. You tackle just to bring the man down, you don't have to stop him cold in his tracks. It's not a matter of throwing your body around and taking the punishment."

"It's a physically demanding sport, but since you don't wear pads you get away from the broken bones you see in football," junior Pete Skeeles said. "I think people say, 'They're crazy, who would want to get hit without pads,' but the injury rate is less than in other contact sports."

"We have very few severe injuries compared to other contact and non-contact sports," Hale continued. "I'd say we're closer to something like soccer in terms of injuries as opposed to football."

So what possesses a person to try out for rugby, a sport with a violent reputation, little support from the University, and rules that few understand when they first sign up?

"You get the people who are genuinely interested in the sport," Hale said. "They want to try something new. When they do succeed they feel good about it and can take the credit for it because everybody is a volunteer. We all volunteer as coaches and the players come out on their own by word of mouth, and when they do achieve a high standing they do it out of a love for the game."

"We have a lot of people who are very dedicated to the sport," Skeeles said, "people who are maybe missing something and want to get involved in an activity."

And the club is always looking for new people to come out and give rugby a try.

"We will take as many as they send, and they'll play," Hale said. "They'll play for us every week. I would guess we have 60 or 70 players right now, and hopefully we can keep those people and begin building with them."