Jacksonville Axemen Announce First Team

[spinnerhowland]

The Jacksonville Axemen are please to announce their team for the clubs first game on May 20th against the DC Slayers.
The Axemen are proud that all except 2 players are from North America and both of those have permanent residence here in the USA, making this a full American Team and all players are able to via for a Tomahawk spot.


After the Axemen confirmed all travel to Washington DC. Axemen Chief and Coach, Daryl Spinner Howland quoted, “Today was an historic day for Rugby League in the USA. Now that we have confirmed our flights and selected the team, it marks the start of true expansion of the sport now that teams have to fly for games.”
With the new schedule seeing 5 teams needing to travel to Jacksonville during the season in addition to the Axemen having to travel for their five away games, he went on to say “People are going to see us in the airports, on the planes and picking up our rental vans. Being dressed in our new travel kits they are sure to enquire about the sport and this will give us plenty of opportunity to promote our team and the sport”.
Spinner also remarked on the sport and the founders here in the United States, “It made me proud today to see the confirmation tickets for our flights. I played my first game for the USA in 1997 and the determination of the guys involved back then like David Niu, Billy Hansbury, Jeff Preston and all the others, has never stopped. It may have taken a little time but those guys have put hard yards in on the field and even harder yards off it to get the sport to this point in the states, and I am just lucky to be apart of it.”

The Axemen understand the challenge of playing away from home for their first game they also understand the importance of getting a win their first time out of the gate.


Bob Knoepfel FULLBACK
Ben White WING
Max Schwartz WING
Sean MacCartey CENTER
Patrick Cox CENTER
Perry Vaught FIVE EIGHT
Spinner Howland HOOKER/HALF BACK
Tom Brumfield LOCK
Maurice Joy SECOND ROW
Bradley Stewart SECOND ROW
Danny Hanson PROP
Robert Tribbey HOOKER/INTERCHANGE
Tim Stouder PROP

Lloyd Keys INTERCHANGE
Joshua Nelkin INTERCHANGE
Max Davenport INTERCHANGE

TWO OF THE FOLLOWING TO BE ADDED AS INTERCHANGE AND ALTERNATE.
Andre Avena
Ben Zelan
Mike Connolly

 

[roopy]

It is great to see that a side can be named.
I suppose you are in training seriously now.
Good luck for the season - and great work.
I sure it will be a proud day for you when you get that first game played.

 

[phat cat]

Spinner,
do you the axemen have many rugby union players? have you made alliences with any of those clubs in the area?

 

[spinnerhowland]

All of our players are or have played union.
Only 5 of those have played any league before and I am the only one how has any more than 6 or 7 games. Yes, we have some work to do on the training field but things are moving well. I now have 26 committed players to chose from and as work spreads the more guys I have come to me to try out.
As far as the Union teams, YES we have STRONG ties to both the Jacksonville and the UNF rugby union teams and we are going to try and share our success with them. i also have a few guys from the Daytona Union Club that are interested and this may be very helpful for next year if we try aand expand again.

 

[hgfds]

How strong is union in the south?from forum posts it would seem union is strong in the west and continuing to expand.