Floris Kruger is a senior at FHN and is an experienced rugby player. Kruger was actually born in Pretoria, South Africa. In South Africa, Kruger calls rugby “the football of Africa.” Kruger has played the sport ever since he was little, and has gotten used to the aggressive play rugby offers.

“I think a big reason I began to play rugby is because it’s different from other sports,” Kruger said. “It’s not really that well promoted. It relies on team chemistry, and also lots of physical contact.”

Rugby consists of two halves, with each half being 25 minutes. However, professional rugby is 40 minutes per half. A player needs to be very well-conditioned in order to keep from fainting on the field. This is a lot to ask of Kruger’s club team. His team only has 15 players, and the required amount of players on the field is 15 per team. This means that Kruger and his teammates must play the full lengths of each game.

“We only have 15 players on the team and it’s rather hard for us to play both halves with no breaks,” Kruger said. “We hope next year’s freshman are interested in playing because we could always use some extra players.”

Kruger hopes he can still pursue rugby even after high school. He says he’ll most likely play in a club during his time at St. Charles Community College, and then will transfer to a school that has rugby. One of these schools is the University of Lindenwood. His goal for this year as well is to make it to state and win it all.

“I hope to keep playing rugby even after I graduate and continue my rugby career at an actual four-year college,” Kruger said. “Playing at Lindenwood would be an awesome experience. We’ll just have to see where it goes.”