Wallabies in USA: rugby union gets cold shoulder in Chicago

THE Wallies ... er, Wallabies, are preparing for their last warm-up match before the World Cup against USA, but perhaps their biggest challenge is filling Soldier Field.

CHICAGO, IL - NOVEMBER 01: A general view of Soldier Field as the United States of America Eagles take on the New Zealand All Blacks during an International Test Match on November 1, 2014 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

SO I’m in a cab from O’Hare Airport headed to downtown Chicago three days before the Wallabies take on USA in a Rugby World Cup warm-up at Soldier Field.

The cabbie asks me where I’m from, what I’m doing. I tell him I’m here for a rugby game.

“Rugby?” he says. “No. I don’t think we play rugby here. We play football, and soccer. Not rugby.”

So I tell him about the Big Three: Wallabies, All Blacks and Quade Cooper.

Just then, we hear sirens. The driver looks in his rear-vis and pulls over to the right side of the road (yeah, I know, but that’s how they drive over here).

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The All Blacks perform the haka at a sold-out Soldier Field.

“Hey,” he says. “This will be your guys. The Wallies, did you say? Whenever a big team comes from the airport, they get an escort.”

A police car cruises past, lights flashing, followed by a tour bus. Then another bus, and another. Another police car. Two more buses.

We watch them go by.

“How many players in a rugby team you got?” the cabbie asks, impressed.

“Not that many,” I say.

After the last bus there’s another police car, and then two big removal vans. On the back of the second is a large sign and logo.

“Proudly moving the Chicago Bears.”

The cabbie nods knowingly.

“That’s the football we play here,” he says.

And right now, despite the fact that a Test match is being played in just a few hours’ time, that’s the only kind of football the good folk of Chicago know anything about.

Those that are not rugby folk that is. Chicago actually has a strong rugby community, with a 16-team multi-division competition made up of such clubs as the Dragons, Lions, Riot, Misfits, Woodsmen and Roosters.

One, the Chicago Blaze, owns its own 14-acre property boasting three fields and a clubhouse.

They’ll all be at Soldier Field Sunday morning (Australian time). And so will any Aussie ex-pats, and Kiwis and Irish and Brits, you would think. But as for anyone else?

The Wallabies showed that they are in the US for a business trip, not a flag-waving exercise, by ensconcing themselves in the magnificent training facilities of Notre Dame University, two hours away in Indiana, rather than shaking hands and kissing babies in Chicago.

Any promotion for the match has been left up to Team USA and it would be fair to say it hasn’t exactly been on everyone’s lips.

Still, Donald Trump could shave his head and run down Michigan Avenue in the nude and it wouldn’t knock news of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady having his four-match suspension over “Deflategate” thrown out of court off the front page.

But it’s not as if Soldier Field is unknown to rugby fans. Last year its 61,500 seats were filled when the All Blacks thumped the Eagles.

And the Wallies … er, Wallabies, got the chance to see it up close on Thursday night when they went to watch a game.

The Bears versus Cleveland Browns.

After all, that’s the type of football they play here.