Sonoma’s Riebli brothers in separate rugby halls of fame

Dominick and A.J. Riebli each put their best foot forward in rugby, and have now found honor in the international sport.|

Two local brothers who both discovered rugby after leaving Sonoma are now in separate rugby halls of fame.

In October, 2016, A.J. Riebli was inducted into the Santa Clara University Rugby Hall of Fame while his younger brother, Dominic, was inducted into the Santa Monica Rugby Club Hall of Fame in April of this year.

But neither had played rugby in high school. A.J. took up the sport when he was a freshman at Santa Clara University while Dominic took it up after a collegiate football career at Columbia University.

'I was going to walk on and play football (at Santa Clara),' A.J. said. 'But the guy across the hall convinced me to come out for the rugby team.'

The SCUTS (Santa Clara University Touring Side) were a club team, but played league games and toured. The first year A.J. was a member, the SCUTS traveled to New Orleans as part of a tour where they played a number of games facing teams from Tulane, LSU, the University of Southwest Louisiana and Harvard.

'I think my defining moment came in my second year when we played in the Pebble Beach Classic,' he said. 'It dawned on me that this was an international sport.'

During his junior year, the club traveled to Ireland where they played four games in 14 days against teams from Cork and Galway.

'It was quite the experience,' he said. 'We were in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day.'

By the time he was a senior, Santa Clara was in the top 10 in the nation. Cal and St. Mary's were the dominant rugby programs on the West Coast, but Santa Clara was third. 'We were 27-3 my senior year,' he said. 'We lost to Cal twice and to Stanford.'

After college, A.J. played club rugby in Calgary for three years and played all over the world including South Africa, Hawaii and Ireland. He finished his career playing for the Petaluma Leghorns.

In October, he was inducted into the SCUTS Hall of Fame for his contributions to the program.

'This is a great game,' he said. 'And it's nice to see it's growing. I've been blessed by the people I've played with.

'And I'm proud of my brother, Dominic,' he said.

A.J. traveled to Southern California to see his brother inducted into the Santa Monica Rugby Club Hall of Fame.

While at Columbia from 1994 to 1998, Dominic played strong safety on the football team and won Academic All-Ivy honors one year. But it wasn't until after he graduated from Columbia that his thoughts turned to rugby.

'After I moved to LA, I wasn't used to not being an athlete,' he said. 'So I joined the Pasadena Rugby Club.' In 1999, he was the Rookie of the Year and the next year, won the Most Valuable Back, Coach's Award.

He joined the Santa Monica club in 2001 and was named the most valuable newcomer, and added the club MVP award the next year.

Dominic started as an open side flanker which involves plenty of tackling but he also played the lock and hooker positions and qualified for the national team in 2002. A serious hamstring injury in 2003 put him on the shelf for 18 months.

'I was only the second person to have this surgery,' he said. 'But it forced me to reinvent myself.'

The club won back-to-back national titles. 'Back-to-back titles is exceptionally difficult,' he said. 'Once is tough. Twice is difficult. You just don't get people to stay together that long.'

Besides playing, he was also coaching youth rugby – U-8s, U10s, U-15s and U-19s.

While he was still playing, in 2008, he became the general manager for the club managing all aspects and overseeing a $40,000 budget. He stepped down from playing in 2012 and as general manager in 2013.

But he didn't walk away from rugby. In 2015, he became the director of the University of Southern California Men's Rugby Club.

'The last administrator had been there 20 years,' he said. 'And they won five games the last three seasons.'

Dominic didn't waste any time turning the program around. He hired a new head coach, made it to the playoffs the first season and lost to the eventual national champion, UC Davis. The club also joined the PAC Rugby Conference.

'We have to recruit word-of-mouth,' he said. 'We're not able to offer anything to play.'

He likes the challenge at USC. 'We want to keep Southern California kids in Southern California,' he said. But he also has to recruit against UCLA and San Diego State.

'Cal is still the best in the country,' he added.

'I'm happy in my career,' Dominic said. 'My biggest challenge is to hire Loa Milford as our full-time head coach.'

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