Australia rugby news: Portrait of a Melbourne rugger, Sydney Convicts heading for regional championship

Some news about gay rugby in Australia, starting with this profile of Sam Minter,a player on Melbourne's Chargers, FGG member QSAM's rugby club, from Dockland's News:

Melbourne’s first gay rugby union team is on its way to an international world cup and Docklands resident Sam Minter is leading the way. The National Foods employee first started playing with Australia’s first gay rugby union team, the Sydney Convicts, in 2003.

When he joined the Convicts his motivation was to represent Australia in the Bingham Cup, a rugby tournament of up to 30 teams of gay men held every two years.

Sam and his Charger team-mates challenge homophobia in sport. Sam says his sport is diverse and the Bingham Cup shows that rugby union accepts gay people. “It’s good for the gay community to see members of their community being involved in a sport that people thought was inaccessible,” Sam said.

As a child Sam always wanted to play rugby. But fears of not being good enough and being bullied because of his sexual orientation held him back.
“A lot of gay men grow up feel isolated from playing sport, especially team sport,” Sam said.

Keep reading HERE.

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Sydney Convicts, the rugby club of FGG member Team Sydney, are doing well in their local league, as reported in SX News:

"The Convicts are excited to be representing Woollahra Colleagues in the Walker Cup and we are really happy to have won our first semi-final," Convicts president David Whittaker said.

"We will be looking to take our improving form into the Merrylands match with a win for a place in the Walker Cup grand final," he said.

This is the first year the Convicts has entered the Walker Cup after being “given an opportunity to step up to a more consistent grade” and despite entering the competition late, the third grade division team managed to finish third on the overall competition ladder ahead of the finals.

Whittaker said the decision to enter the Walker Cup was to “challenge” the team and an “excellent tool” to develop its new players.

“It has prepared us very well for next year, when the Convicts need to play our strongest rugby ever in Manchester in order to win both the Bingham Cup and Bingham Bowl and bring both back to Australia,” he said.

Two Convicts teams are expected to compete in Manchester for the gay rugby world cup, the Bingham Cup, which the Convicts brought home to Australia in 2006 and 2008.