HISTORY

Bond University Rugby Club, circa 1990, established as a Rugby Union Club and Touch Rugby Club for Bond students. It is unsure if the club ran continuously throughout the 1990s.

The club has had a competitive rugby team on and off during the 1990s and early 2000s. Due to decreasing player numbers the club moved off campus and formed the still existing Bond Pirates Rugby Club. Pirates are a club run externally from the university allowing the general public to join. The majority of Pirates members are the general public with very few Bond Student playing for them.

Bond Rugby Club ran a Touch Rugby Competition throughout the 2000s very successfully, becoming less of a rugby union club and more a touch club. In 2008 the club decided that Bond should once again have a team representing the university. At the end of semester 1 2008, Bond was accepted into the 3rd Grade Gold Coast Rugby Union competition, leaving 3 weeks to get a team registered and in training before the competition started. This was done successfully and Bond competed very competitively throughout the season.

A frequently asked question is why we have ‘Bond University Rugby Club Est 2008’ on our jersey when the club has a circa 1990. This is simply to respect and distinguish the Rugby team as being a different club to the Bond Pirates. Pirates are an external club to the university formed from the old Bond Rugby Structure. Bond Rugby Club still has a circa of 1990, but generally could be labeled as a Touch Rugby Club/Rugby Club circa 1990. Under the new structure we currently have, with the ‘new rugby team’, we must distinguish that the Rugby Club did in fact established a new team in 2008 and is not the Pirates.

In 2008 the club had approximately 150 competitive members, including both touch and rugby union players.