That led in the USA to plans for two High Performance Centers overseen by High Performance Directors. All will bring American rugby into the High Performance arena. Which means to a sport that is 182 years old and was founded on amateur sporting principles it didn’t relinquish until 1996 ... exactly what?

High Performance means millions of dollars if a union pledges allegiance to HP rugby. But do they, or we, or anyone, really know what it means?

The first time we at GoffonRugby heard the term High Performance Rugby it was in conversations with former Eagle and current Cal coach Jack Clark. Even then we didn’t ask for a specific definition; we just nodded knowingly. Ah yes, High Performance.

We called Clark up recently, though, to see if we couldn’t more clearly define what High Performance meant, apart from about a million dollars a year to USA Rugby.

What is High Performance? And what is it not?

"What it’s not is a good place to start," said Clark. "I hear High Performance rugby talked about in terms of serious rugby or winning rugby, which is just too vague for my glossary. And lately High Performance is discussed as a replacement phrase for representative rugby. But representative rugby might have a High Performance culture, but not necessarily so."

So it’s not just collecting the best players in a region together, or forming a successful team. What is it, then?

"What I believe HP rugby is, is a no short-cut approach to the sport, and most importantly the utilization of the applicable applied sciences," said Clark. "I’m a member of a High Performance working committee at Cal. It is our medium- to long-term objective to create a High Performance center on our campus which will better support the in our 27 varsity sports. The definition we use to describe and define a High Performance culture is: one that contributes to the enhanced performance of athletes through the integration of scientifically based methodologies in coaching, sports medicine and applied sports science."

That type of approach essentially brings rugby into the mainstream of elite sports. We see every day those commercials where player dehydration is studied under lab conditions. We hear about computer imaging of a baseball pitcher’s delivery, nutritional breakthroughs, stationary pools for swimmers, film analysis in football ... it goes on and on. And perhaps that’s why Clark doesn’t get too far into specifics.

"I’m not sure you have space to discuss all the elements of High Performance," said Clark. "People write books on this stuff. A High Performance team has systems in talent identification, coaching (lesson planning, skill acquisition schemes, tactics), all forms of analysis, electronic and written materials, strength/conditioning/SAQ, nutrition, body composition, sports psychology, biomechanics, medical services. You can literally create a hundred categories or components."

Which sounds pretty involved, and perhaps a little more than what most rugby organizations around the world would be used to. It certainly isn’t a case of once you have video analysis down to can say you’re High Performance. There’s always more to it than that.

But is USA Rugby ready? Do they have the ability to develop a High Performance culture?

"Yes and no," said Clark. "For whatever reason, it doesn’t come naturally to us. For example, there isn’t really a strong High Performance component to our coaching education and certification programs. It is probably not fair to expect the administration to have High Performance skills or appreciation. Most of the USA Rugby’s rep teams don’t really use the components of High Performance. It won’t be easy for us to adopt a High Performance ethos within our domestic game because it’s not just a function of resources, it’s more a function of culture. More than half the teams at the NASC last year didn’t have a meeting room because they believed they didn’t need one over the three or four days of their assembly. These same five teams didn’t utilize video or notational analysis. Come on, high school coaches provide video and stats to their teams. It’s cultural for us to dumb down rugby."

But there are people who believe in High Performance rugby and Clark believes the best chance for American rugby lies with three of the country’s best ever players.

"The good news is our Union has three employees who are practitioners of High Performance in Tom Billups, Dan Lyle and Dave Hodges," Clark said. "All three have mainstream elite athletic experience under their belts, along with professional and international rugby experiences. Tom has extraordinary skills in utilizing applied science in our sport. Both Dan and Hodgie could get High Performance jobs in major rugby playing nations. So yes, USA Rugby has expertise in High Performance in the offices of these men."

And those men, he adds, "are critical to changing the US rugby culture as it pertains to a High Performance ethos. These guys just get it. They are not into using buzz words to make it look like they are doing something. They are professionals and in time will create a very real High Performance culture. But as I’ve said, this won’t be easy. This is unfortunately an alien concept to much of American rugby, and I am not just referring to the recreational/community side of our membership. There will be a degree of push back from all corners of our union."

Developing High Performance models is difficult. Rugby as a whole has had to work hard to adopt them and Clark says the serious rugby unions have High Performance units, and that the unions are sinking millions into these projects.

"The major rugby-playing nations understand what High Performance is," said Clark. "You only need to look at the physiques of the professional player now to see what effect High Performance has had on them. There are no more fat guys playing rugby at the top levels of our sport. And for that matter, not too many skinny guys either. What is on display is mentally focused players that are highly skilled with extraordinarily well conditioned frames of lean body muscle mass."

But it took them time to get there and they had to work very hard at it – sometimes bringing in expertise from outside the sport. The transition in the U.S. will be difficult, too.

"There are most likely a lot of rugby clubs like Cal, who are struggling to create and implement the components of High Performance with varying degrees of success," Clark said, acknowledging that he hasn’t scaled the mountaintop yet. "At Cal, for example, we are razor keen to be good at this stuff, but yet we have no competent approach to something as fundamental as Sport Psych. I have been around the general concepts of performance enhancement sports psychology for a couple of decades now, and try to bumble through some implementation, but I am a layman in the field. When we can ready this component with a professional in the field, is when we can check it off the list and not before."

The very people Clark names, Lyle, Hodges, and Billups, have a tough task ahead of them. They are taking a game that is not infused in High Performance principles and bringing players who might be unfamiliar with the concept into that arena. At the same time, they have to help lead a new High Performance program that also impresses athletes who have been in High Performance programs in other sports.

And as Clark says, you can’t take shortcuts.