The Rugby Radar

The Hotlanta wrap: four divisions, seven states, and a new home in Canton. Apex takes the men's final over the host side; Phoenix sweeps the women's bracket; Atlanta 2.0 Selects works a double shift. Lead Story below.

Fall 7s is here: Rebels conditioning opens Tuesday, August 4; Exiles U19 girls start Thursday, August 6; registration windows are live across the metro. Youth & High School below.

College Corner: USA Rugby and CRAA put money and full-time staff behind the college game, and Life U's men publish a four-home-date fall slate. College Corner below.

A new Eagle with Georgia threads: Julian Roberts, late of Life University, earns his first caps and scores against Spain. Front Page below.

Get certified: a Level 1 coaching course comes to Roswell on Saturday, August 29. Youth & High School below.

📡 From the Radar

The Statewide Calendar Is Live

Every date in this issue, and every one we are tracking beyond it, lives on the full statewide calendar, with a subscribable feed so the fixtures land in your own calendar app. And if your club is missing or wrong in Find-a-Club, submit the fix and we will verify and correct it.

Front Page • Eagles Watch

A NEW EAGLE WITH GEORGIA THREADS

When the USA Men's Eagles opened their Nations Cup run with a 30-29 win over Portugal on Saturday, July 4 in Denver, the bench held a name Georgia rugby will recognize. Julian Roberts, who played his college rugby at Life University in Marietta and scored in the 2019 national final on the way to titles in 2018 and 2019, earned his first USA cap that night.

He did not stop there. Roberts appeared in all three matches of the Eagles' 3-0 sweep, starting at outside center and scoring a try in the 29-22 win over Spain on Saturday, July 18. From Lupo Family Field to a national jersey. Worth a raised glass around here.

Match report →

Old White runs the table, Apex flips the final

The host side nearly wrote the storybook ending at the Hotlanta 7s on Saturday, July 25. Atlanta Old White went four for four through the men's competitive round robin, including a 26-17 win over Apex. Finals are cruel like that: Apex adjusted and closed it 21-10 for the title.

The men's social bracket ran fourteen sides deep across four pools. Clamdigger Selects beat The Fast and The Fragile 21-14 in the final, with Lanier 7s and the Atlanta Renegades falling in the semis. Macon Love, the Peglegs, and sides from six states beyond Georgia all put boots on the grass, which is what an end-of-summer sevens day is for.

Fifteens is next. Athens Rugby starts XVs training Sunday, August 2 at Southeast Clarke Park, and the Ernie Silva Cup kicks off in Augusta on Saturday, August 29. Summer ends when the calendar says it does, and the calendar is starting to say it.

The women's competitive bracket at the Hotlanta 7s on Saturday, July 25 belonged to Phoenix Rugby 7s, who outscored the field 145-14 across the day and beat Raleigh Venom 42-7 in the final. The Georgia story was Atlanta 2.0 Selects, who took third in the competitive draw with a 31-5 win, then went and won the entire women's social division. Two brackets, one trophy, busiest team in the park. The Gwinnett Lady Lions and Lanier 7s Women both reached the social semifinals.

The score of that social final never made it anywhere public; the trophy photo did. If your camera roll knows the number, the Radar's inbox is open.

And circle Monday, August 3: the USA Falcons visit Lupo Family Field in Marietta, streaming live on USA Rugby's YouTube.

A women's match day in October

Put Saturday, October 17 in ink: Atlanta 2.0 Selects host Birmingham Steel at the Atlanta Rugby Grounds on Fairburn Road, part of a shared match day with the kickoff time still to be assigned. A proper women's fixture on Georgia grass this fall. The Radar will carry the time as soon as it exists, and the match is already on the calendar.

The Harlequins check in: founded 1984, forty strong

The Atlanta Harlequins confirmed their listing for 2026-27: founded in 1984, roughly forty rostered players, fielding the D1 fifteens side plus a summer sevens side. Everything the club runs lives at their linktree. First up: the club's pre-season meeting is Sunday, August 2 at 4:00 PM at Manny's in Grant Park, and fixture news lands here as the schedule drops.

Fifteens season stirs

The fifteens revival is under way. Atlanta 2.0 Selects hold a kickoff meeting Sunday, August 2 at Schoolhouse Brewing, with practices starting Monday, August 3 and all skill levels welcome. The Gwinnett Lady Lions are training Thursdays at 7:00 PM at Tribble Mills Park in Lawrenceville with a first match coming in September, and High Country's women return from summer break on Tuesday, August 18.

The fall sevens season has stopped being theoretical. Rebels Rugby opened registration and put dates on the board: high school girls and boys conditioning starts Tuesday, August 4 at Crabapple Field, Roswell Area Park, running Tuesdays and Thursdays 7:00 to 8:30 PM, with the first two sessions free. The season opener is a road trip, the Irish Ruggerfest in Nashville on Saturday, September 12, and players must be fully registered by Friday, August 21 to make the trip.

In Alpharetta, Exiles Rugby starts U19 girls training Thursday, August 6 at 7:00 PM at Innovation Academy, open to high school ages 14 to 18. The club has priced the entire 2026-27 girls season at $50, credit to its sponsors and its senior players, because every girl should get the chance to play.

Golden Eagle Rugby has 2026-27 registration open across U8 through U19, and Forsyth's high school sevens window runs from late July through October. More kickoff dates are landing weekly; the full list lives on the calendar.

A coaching course comes to Roswell

Rebels Rugby is hosting a USA Rugby Level 1 Coach course on Saturday, August 29 at the Roswell Area Park CAB Building, 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM. One day, in person, and the certification every new youth and club coach in the metro has been waiting to get without a plane ticket.

Enrolling takes two steps: join or renew at usa.rugby/members, then register through the Learning Center in your account. The course list also lives at usa.rugby/courses. The course runs on enrollment, so if you have been meaning to get certified, this is the one to fill.

USA Rugby courses →

On Monday, July 27, USA Rugby and the College Rugby Association of America announced a joint venture that puts real money and full-time staff behind the college game, funded in part by World Rugby's investment in the American game ahead of the 2031 and 2033 Rugby World Cups on home soil. Member dues do not go up, existing conferences and leadership stay in place, and what changes is the operational muscle behind them.

The same push accelerates the campaign to make women's rugby an official NCAA varsity sport, a change that would eventually mean real college roster spots for girls playing in Georgia today. The postseason map is already drawn: the Fall Classic runs December 4-6 in Spartanburg, and the spring national championships land in Indianapolis in April 2027.

For Georgia, the short version is this: the college game your players graduate into just got steadier, better funded, and easier to follow. Seasons kick off in September.

The announcement →

The fall is filling in, and you can drive to all of it

For the first time since spring, you can plan a whole autumn of college rugby without leaving the state. Life University posted a nine-match schedule with four Saturdays at Lupo Family Field: Mary Washington on October 3 (the home opener, 1:00 PM), Navy on October 10, Southern Virginia on October 31, and Loyola New Orleans on November 21, with the season opening on the road at MAU on Saturday, September 26. The women's staff head into fall fresh off their girls residency camp, which wrapped Wednesday, July 29 at The Commons, and sign-ups for next summer's edition are already open.

Georgia Tech runs six fixtures with two at Stamps Field, Tennessee Tech on Saturday, September 26 and North Alabama on Saturday, October 17. UGA opens at home in Athens on Saturday, August 22 under new head coach Jesse Posnansky, a former Bulldog, with South Carolina visiting Saturday, August 29 and Kennesaw State up on Saturday, October 24. And in Milledgeville, Georgia College's Bobcats built a season of their own, opening at home against Georgia Tech on Saturday, September 5, a fixture both clubs' graphics agree on, which is how we like our schedules: confirmed from both ends.

The map has one gap, and it matters: not a single women's college schedule in Georgia is public yet. UGA's women, Tech's, Kennesaw's, North Georgia's, and the reigning national champions at Life all have falls coming, and none has dates. The moment they post, they are here. Every home match above is on the calendar.

A free tool for the college search: for high schoolers wondering where rugby fits after graduation, College Rugby Portal is a free directory of more than 900 college programs at every level, searchable by state, scholarships, and academics, with recruiting profiles coaches can find and message. Built by a longtime youth rugby coach. Free, no catch, worth a bookmark for every junior and senior in a club shirt.

Want Your Program Featured?

Through the end of 2026, a featured club card on the Radar is a flat $100, charter rate: your crest, your colors, your links, in every issue and on the site through December 31. College programs, this one was built with you in mind, with fall season arriving and a statewide audience of players and families reading along. Write to hello@therugbyradar.com and we will set it up.

Strip out the competitive brackets and the Hotlanta 7s on Saturday, July 25 was still the biggest pickup game in the Southeast: fourteen men's social sides across four pools, a full women's social draw, and team names that deserve their own hall of fame. Clamdigger Selects took the men's title 21-14 over The Fast and The Fragile. Atlanta 2.0 Selects took the women's social title in a final whose score was never written down anywhere public, which somehow feels right for a social bracket.

The day ended at Hyde Brewing in Milton with everyone welcome and the organizers' shared photo album filling up all afternoon. This is the version of rugby you show a curious friend.

Touch Thursdays roll on

Exiles Rugby keeps free Community Touch running Thursdays at 7:00 PM in Alpharetta, ages 16 and up, no kit and no contact required. A heat note for the dog days: sessions can shift or cancel on hot weeks, so check their page before you drive. Down the coast, the Savannah Shamrocks run co-ed touch Thursdays at 6:30 PM at Forsyth Park, with a Rookie Day and youth clinic there Saturday, August 8, and Southern Touch plays Sunday, August 2, 2:00 to 4:00 PM at Fair Oaks Park in Marietta.

ATLANTA COPPERHEADS RLFC

Rugby league has come to Atlanta.

Open men's & women's (13-a-side) • Roswell Area Park

The Copperheads' 2026 campaign is a wrap. Now comes the rebuild: the club is recruiting for the 2027 season, players from any background welcome, no rugby league experience required. Details at copperheadsrlfc.com.

First TRY Discount

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