Friendships Made From Mayhem : Rugby: San Fernando Valley club competes savagely and parties heartily during the summer season.

It is a buzzard-hot Saturday afternoon in July, temperatures soaring into the mid-90s, a combination of humidity and smog threatening to soak and choke all living creatures on the expansive greensward next to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. Proper weather for . . . what’s this, a ruck , a maul , a scrummage ?

Quite. A couple of blondes in swimsuits sizzle nearby in the sun, a Doberman pinscher lopes under a tarp with its tongue dripping on a cooler loaded with beer, and a few yards beyond, two groups of large men in striped shirts and shorts are running up and down a field, tossing around a watermelon-shaped ball, beating each other senseless.

This is the essence, the pure, unadulterated joy of summertime rugby in Southern California. In this case, most of the joy is being had by the San Fernando Valley Rugby Club, which, in the drippy sunshine, is slapping around a team from north San Diego County, 26-4.

“What a beautiful game this can be,” proclaimed Marcello Sala, a player-coach of the Valley club, as his teammates straggle off the field and into their refreshment tent, pitched a few yards from the sideline. “If you play it well, this game can be so very enjoyable.”

And if you don’t, well, then you can get your limbs broken and your face mangled.

Welcome to the Eagle Rock Sevens rugby tournament, an annual competition that this year has drawn 34 amateur club teams, most coming from Los Angeles and San Diego, a few visiting from places such as Fiji and Sri Lanka.

The tournament is divided into three divisions (according to skill level) with each team playing five matches over an eight-hour period.

“Some of the best clubs in the country are here,” said Tony Spinella, president of the Southern California Rugby Football Union, “including OMBAC, the defending national champions.”

That would be the Old Mission Beach Athletic Club of San Diego, a rugby organization that has won the club national title three out of the past four years.

The San Fernando Valley Rugby Club, a second division team, has no such ambitions simply because it does not have that kind of talent.

“We’re not a great team, but we know how to play and we enjoy the game,” said Sala, a 27-year-old native of Argentina. “Mostly, this is a social thing. We have 20 or so players who are very good friends.”

Added club member Eric Sickinger, 27, of Northridge: “We’re just a bunch of guys who like to get together and pound heads on the weekend.”

And they are competent head-pounders.

Good enough to finish undefeated in five games during a recent tournament in Las Vegas, as well as an eventual third-place finish in their division in the Eagle Rock Sevens.

“We have athletes who didn’t fully make it in college sports, but who do have athletic ability,” said Darryl Wagner, swigging a can of beer after his club’s trashing of North County. “Some are former football players, some are former military guys. But this isn’t a macho thing. We play for the camaraderie. Rugby is a social sport.”

To hear the Valley ruggers tell it, theirs is the chummiest of games, perhaps a little rough and a lot misunderstood, but one that promotes brotherhood over broken teeth--among teammates and opponents alike. Even at the most competitive levels.

Just as SFVRC members are waxing poetic about their beloved sport, the Old Mission Beachclub has begun its match on an adjoining field against longtime rival Old Blues, a club made up, in part, of UC Berkeley alums.

“Rugby is fun--a very hard game, but the camaraderie is tremendous,” said Valley club captain Mike Adams, as OMBAC romps up the field for its first score. “It goes back to English traditions. Soccer is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans. Rugby is a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen.”

The sentence barely clears Adams’ mouth when an Old Blues player gets whacked in the nose by an opponent from Old Mission Beach. The popping sound carries well beyond the Valley club’s tent, as does an inquiring coach’s question.

“Did you snap it?” the player is asked, looking by now as though someone has thrown an open can of tomato sauce at his face.

“Don’t know,” the player answered, running back toward the action, wiping the blood away.

Three minutes later, an Old Blues ballhandler is hammered to the ground in quick succession by three OMBAC players. As the ball squirts off in another direction, the injured rugger grunts as he wriggles on the turf.

“That guy has broken ribs,” Adams said. “Look at him, he’s hurting.”

Shortly thereafter, paramedics carry him off on a stretcher. In the spirit of good fellowship, players from both sides, and those gathered along the sideline, applaud as the injured man is wheeled past the Valley club’s refreshment area, and into an ambulance.

The applause doesn’t provide much anesthesia, however.

Somehow, at this moment, he does not seem to be having fun.

Although rugby sometimes appears to be a continual string of human freeway pile-ups, the object of the game is to score points by running, lateraling and kicking a ball into an in-goal area (similar to an end zone in football). No forward passes are permitted.

The idea is to advance the ball across the goal line and touch it down for a “try,” which is worth four points. The team not in possession of the ball attempts to stop an opponent’s forward progress by tackling him. Inflicting pain is optional. The game is played on a field that measures 100 meters by 70 meters.

Traditional rugby, as it has been handed down from its English origin in 1823, has 15 players a side. The summer version usually has seven on each team; hence summer tournaments are often known as “sevens.”

The main difference between 15- and seven-man rugby is an emphasis on speed. “Playing with 15 a side, it’s more of a power game,” said Adams, 28, of Sherman Oaks, who has played both versions for the Valley club over the past 12 years. “In sevens, quickness and speed are more important. You have to be fit to do this properly.”

It also helps to be a quick thinker because strategy plays an active role in the overall scheme of the game.

“You have to think all the time and take advantage of what the opposition is doing,” said Jeff Umland, 28, of Burbank. “You have to recognize situations as they develop and make decisions as opportunities present themselves.”

At one moment during their match against the Bucks Rugby Football Club, a team from Long Beach, Valley players appear to be doing a basketball weave, tossing the ball around like a wasp nest, when, suddenly, Sickinger pops free for a 50-yard gain.

“Beautiful,” yelled Sala from the sideline. “We are really moving the ball good.”

What Sala means is his teammates are sharing the ball, and that is a feature of rugby that all the players say they appreciate. Especially Chris Perkins, a lumbering, 6-3, 230-pound former semi-pro football player from Granada Hills.

“One of the things I like about this game is that it’s a team sport,” said Perkins, 32, a former offensive lineman who is a newcomer to rugby. “In this, everybody can participate and everybody can be a star.”

Now that Perkins is experiencing the glory of touching a ball occasionally, he said he will stay with the sport for another 10 years, or as long as his body holds up.

That’s fine with his wife, Sue Perkins, who regularly attends the Valley club’s games along with other players’ wives and friends. “This is great for him,” she said. “He gets to go take out his frustrations on the field. And it keeps him in shape, but I’d say 75 percent of all this is for the social (aspects).”

Perkins got started in rugby the way many of the club members do--a friend invited them to a game and they were struck by the friendly atmosphere and hearty fellowship. It didn’t hurt that Perkins, from all his years of football, still had a strong inclination to want to smack people around.

“But I’m here because of the camaraderie,” he said, squinting as he leans back on a cooler and surveys the gathering of players, wives and friends sitting on blankets and lawn chairs, awaiting the team’s next match. “These are friends.”

The club is an interesting, varying collection of characters. Perkins is a plumber, Sickinger an engineer, Adams a salesman, Umland a NASA scientist, Wagner an air-conditioning technician, and Larry Wagner, Darryl’s brother, an assistant director for a production company.

The club also has something of an international tint with members originally from Japan, Uruguay, Argentina, England and New Zealand.

“It’s pretty amazing,” Darryl Wagner said. “We have guys who have college degrees, guys from the military, guys from foreign countries, guys from all different walks of life, and we play and party together like best friends.”

They pound heads together.

They bond together.

Said Stu Group, a 43-year-old player-coach who has been part of the club for 18 years: “This game isn’t for the weak-willed. It’s a tough sport, but there’s something about it that draws guys together.”

Indeed, in a bedeviling way, it’s almost infectious.

As the afternoon wears on at the Valley club’s encampment during the Eagle Rock tournament, the odd assemblage of ruggers and fans have the look of a Gypsy troupe--many of them fatigued, bruised, perhaps in need of reinforcements. As the players attempt to cool down, relax and heal, a player asks a visitor, one who has been asking a lot of rudimentary questions about rugby, if he would like to come out and play next week.

The visitor declines, mumbling something about maybe trying it after lifting a few more weights.

“Hell no,” the amicable player yelled back. “Come on and join us. Just drink a few more beers. That’ll do it. Then you’ll play this game just fine.”