Utah County isn't exactly known as a rugby hotbed in America ... but given the direction that things are headed right now, perhaps in a few years it will be.

The most visible reason is the BYU men's rugby club team. The Cougars are coming off their third straight appearance in the national championship final in May 2008.

Interestingly, many of BYU's notable players have joined the team without having any experience with the game of rugby and were not recruited to play at BYU.

The team's most famous alumnus, Salesi Sika, a USA National Team member and professional rugby player in France, walked on to the BYU team in 2000 and quickly ascended to All-American and National Team honors in 2002.

The current roster is peppered with players from such exotic locales as Fiji, Qatar, South Africa, New Zealand and Tonga -- places that any Americans who have heard of rugby might associate with the game.

More surprising is the fact that the team also includes 17 players from Utah on a roster of 47. Nine are from right here in the Valley.

Tuesday evening, the rugby team held winter semester walk-on tryouts in the Indoor Practice Facility. The coaches did identify a couple of prospects they plan to follow up with, though neither of them are local.

In the fall, however, the Cougars picked up a number of in-state players, including freshmen Jordan Lowry and Collin Bush, graduates of Lone Peak, and freshman Daniel Selman, a graduate of Copper Hills.

All three were high school football players; Lowry and Selman also wrestled. That's a common and desired background for rugby players, according to head coach David Smyth, who is from Ireland.

But these three are also among a growing number of BYU recruits who have actual rugby experience as well. The two former Knights are three-year veterans of the Utah County-based United team, while Selman played three years with the Kearns program.

The appeal of the sport to these players can be summarized in three words: brotherhood, teamwork and action.

"In regular football, there's always a few stars who get most of the attention and the seniors tend to look down on the younger players," Lowry explained. "In rugby, it's a different kind of brotherhood. The seniors welcome the younger players and try to help them. We get more close.

"Besides that, I love the coaches. We develop a really good friendship. They know when to coach on the field, but off the field, we just enjoy being together."

For Selman, rugby is the ultimate team sport.

"Everyone runs and tackles," he said. "Everyone's important. It's not up to just a few people whether we succeed or not."

Also, especially compared to conventional football, rugby is a simple game.

"It's very easy to understand," Selman said. "I picked up most of the rules in my first week of practice."

Rush thrives on the constant motion.

"Everyone gets to do something, and it's continuous action," he said. "It's entirely a team sport. You depend on the other 14 guys on the field with you to play as hard as you are."

The paths these three took to get on the squad are fairly typical of the new wave of players. The BYU coaches watched them during their high school seasons, and they also saw them in summer camp.

Two were originally headed to other Utah schools with club rugby teams, but both were persuaded to take a shot at BYU instead. Bush was already admitted to BYU; for him, rugby was an added bonus.

Assistant coach Kimball Kjar is a representative of the more "old-school" background. A high school football player, he had originally planned to wrestle at BYU as a preferred walk-on, but decided at the last minute not to do that.

His roommate had some brothers who played rugby, however, and he convinced Kjar to go to open tryouts. To his surprise, he made the team as a freshman in 1996, and he's been hooked ever since.

"I did get a little help from my mission call," Kjar added. "I went to Australia, and we played touch rugby on P-days."

For him, the appeal of the game is pretty straightforward.

"Anybody can play it," Kjar said. "It's not a brute sport the way a lot of people think it is. It's very much a thinking man's game.

"On the international level, the sport includes all body types. In order to excel, you have to master the tactics, nuances and strategies of the game."

He played until his graduation from BYU in 2003, then returned as a coach in 2007. Like all the rest of the staff, he has a regular full-time job and fulfills his coaching responsibilities as a volunteer.

He has no difficulty explaining why.

"I came to the sport at BYU and I loved my experiences," Kjar said. "Almost all the friends I have from here are through rugby.

"Besides, I still have that competitive spirit," he said. "I want to help build BYU into a national power."

With recruits like Lowry, Selman and Bush to help lay the foundation, along with a dedicated coaching staff, there's an excellent chance that the Cougars will be able to do just that.

• Beky Beaton can be reached at bbeaton@heraldextra.com.