In 2010 a young businessman returned to Afghanistan with a dream about starting a Rugby league in the war torn country. He had fallen in love with the game and the physicality of play and thought that it would be a popular sport to introduce to his homeland. There was then the challenge and recruiting entire teams from a population that probably had never seen a rugby match in their life. The athletes of Afghanistan were more than willing to learn and take up a new sport, so they went about teaching and learning games. At first they started with just five people but continued to add them so that it was then ten people, then forty people . Then after they played for awhile they had a one month camp in Kabul and then chose the very first national rugby teams from that tryout.
The players on Afghanistan's first rugby team seemed to take to the game right away, learning all of the rules and nuances of the game by playing, practicing and by watching games from other nations on television. Their skill grew over the years and now they have 25 rugby clubs in Kabul, Afghanistan and over 250 players. The international team has competed against other countries and have a pretty decent little winning streak. They played in a tournament in Pakistan and finished third out of 15 teams and they have also played in Dubai.
There are many challenges for the Afghanistan National Rugby team to face from funding, to proper practice facilities but most importantly it is getting a coach that will help them train properly that is the biggest issue for them.
Rugby is important for Afghanistan because of how it will allow Afghanistan to participate in the world socially in appropriate ways. Soon when the US pulls its troops out of the country then there will be a desire for people to pull away from the world and perhaps return to the ways of the past. This means that the more connections that the country makes and maintains will make it more difficult to become removed from the world. On an individual level the more an athlete is engaged in the craft of their sport the less likely they are to become involved in activities that are bad for them and for their country. Hopefully rugby will survive and they will find a proper coach and trainer to help propel their skill to the international level.
