Rugby and esports: is there any connection?

Rugby is not the most popular kind of sports, mostly due to a high level of traumatism and a high level of contact between players. At the same time, rugby is way popular than football and basketball in such countries as Australia, Great Britain, Ireland, New Zealand, SAR, and many others. Esports is becoming popular all over the world and might appear in the program of the Olympic Games soon. If rugby is a top contact sport, esports is absolutely non-contact. They seem to be totally different. But there are connections even between these two kinds of competitions.

Rugby and Dota 2

Many rugby players are probably fans of this iconic game by Valve but the world knows not too much about this. And the fact that at least one professional Dota 2 is a fan of this sport is known for sure. And this esportsman is Nikita «Daxak» Kuzmin who played for the Russian team Gambit Esports. While being a schoolboy, Nikita was playing rugby on a pretty good level, participating in the Moscow championship among teams from the capital of Russia. We can’t say for sure if he still practices but now, we can exactly answer the question where he got such a fight character.

Fortnite and rugby: who is not with us is against us!

Fortnite is probably the most popular game among rugby players. And despite all sports newspapers write how this recently-emerged game harmed the career of the 2014 FIFA World Cup winner, Mesut Özil who spends nights with a mouse, rugby players can be noticed on pages of esports editions a bit less frequently but it still quite often. The players of Australian teams Josh Dugan and Blake Ferguson don’t shy to express their feelings to the favorite game.

Josh who plays for the team Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks bow down on one knee like a Fortnite hero, while celebrating after the successful try in the match with North Queensland Cowboys, and portrayed the original mimics from the game. In such a way, the player showed his respect for the game and showed everyone what real men can do in their spare time. It seems that Dugan is not alone in this hobby because at least two rugby players from the teams of Australasian Rugby League (the united rugby league of Australia and New Zealand), Blake Ferguson and Isaiah Papali’i were noticed in a pose from the game while celebrating the earning of points in the game. What is more, the last player often celebrates successful tries with other players from his team in such a way.

However, not all rugby players share their colleagues’ preferences and actions. The rugby player from the Cook Islands who plays on a professional level for the team Warrington Wolves recommends all rugby fans on his Facebook page «to get their children away from Fortnite, keep them away from Netflix and do something real and vital». On the photo, above which there is this caption, the rugby player himself sits with a boy at the stadium and follows the match. Well, but he attracted some attention to the super popular online game, which world championships broke Dota’2 record and the army of fans is more than ten million all over the globe.