The Great American Experiment: the history of rugby league’s attempts to break into the USA
RUGBY league has a fascination with the USA that extends far beyond New Zealand and England’s Test match this weekend. NICK CAMPTON takes a look at the history of the 13-man game in the land of the free.
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OF the 300-odd rugby league games Anthony Minichiello played, the match in the City of Brotherly Love was probably the strangest.
At the tail-end of the 2004 Tri Nations, Wayne Bennett pitched his Kangaroos into a historic showdown with the USA at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.
“It was pretty exciting going over to America,” Minichiello told League Central.
“I remember Wayne Bennett said before the game, ‘Have fun out there, don’t go out and embarrass them.’
“We came in at halftime and he said, ‘You’re embarrassing yourselves out there!’”
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The game was played in four quarters and at halftime, the Americans had a shock 24-6 lead.
Bennett, who will return to the US this weekend as coach of England to take on New Zealand in the Denver Test, gave his side a rev-up and Australia were saved some red, white and blue blushes with a 36-24 victory.
The game is just one of a number of flirtations rugby league has had with cracking America over the past 60 years, with a renewed effort this weekend with the Denver Test.
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The mid-season match is locked in for at least the next two seasons and the NRL is exploring playing games in California next season. And with the rise of the Toronto Wolfpack, rugby league’s more than half a century of occasional flings with the Yanks has given way to something much more tangible and solid.
The England-Kiwis match doesn’t have to capture the imagination of every American out there. It just has to be a start that can be built upon.
They have been starts in the US before.
In 1987, a one-off fourth Origin match for the year was played in Long Beach, California. Such a situation seems unthinkable today.
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There was minimal local press coverage but a crowd of close to 12,500 piled into Veterans Stadium to watch 30 lunatics in blue and maroon hammer into each other, with neither a pad nor helmet to be seen.
“They loved it,” recalls Blues enforcer Les Davidson. “The crowd seemed to really enjoy it, I thought it went down well with them.
“‘You goddamn Aussies are crazy!’ — they thought it was weird we played without helmets, no body guards — standard stuff for the Americans.”
A decade later, the first fully fledged American competition was born and today the USARL is charged with spreading the gospel.
Former Bears and Raiders forward Sean Rutgerson is in the thick of things in the quest to boost rugby league.
The 40-year old, who coaches the Jacksonville Axemen and the national side, has been in and around American footy since a playing stint with the Axemen in 2009.
“It’s building every year,” Rutgerson told League Central.
“The competition is getting better. We’ve just got to get to the stage where we’re finetuning it, making bits and pieces better all the time, making it a little more professional.
“As soon as we get some coverage from a TV station, we’ll go ahead. I mean, they have Cornhole (bean bag tossing) and Ultimate Frisbee on TV.
“If they can get that shit on, then surely we’re a chance.”
The Axemen are in a competition alongside sides along the East including the Brooklyn Kings, New York Knights, Boston 13s, Tampa Mayhem, South West Florida Copperheads and Atlanta Rhinos.
It’s a hand-to-mouth existence, with only three non-Americans per team allowed to take the field each week.
Rutgerson believes the players that rugby league has to target are high school and college football players who don’t go to the next level.
Almost 1.1 million youngsters play high school football across the United States, and only one in 35 ends up on college teams. That’s a lot of athletes without a lot of options who have a taste for carrying the pigskin.
“We say to American footballers, ‘You get to run and you get to tackle’,” Rutgerson said.
“We’re not going to compete with the NFL. The goal is to find a niche.
“A lot of kids don’t make it (in other sports) and we want to get them when they’re young and turn them on to league.”
The key for rugby league to grow in America is exposure — and the best way to get that is playing international games on US soil.
The Denver Test might be an inconvenience at NRL club level, but it has the potential to reach far into the future.
Rugby union in the United States has known it for years — last weekend their national side downed Scotland 30-29 in Houston, their first victory over a major rugby nation.
With the Denver Test, the Wolfpack, plus Rutgerson and his ilk, rugby league has a more solid foundation in North America than ever before. The players who have been part of rugby league in the US believe there is a future for the game.
“Every American I speak to that watches our games says we’re mad,” Minichiello said.
“They enjoy it. If we were go into America and we did it right, marketed it right to the right people, then I think it could have legs.”