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Wolfpack sign first USA player

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14,139

One of the USA's more accomplished players, Ryan Burroughs, is also the first fair dinkum North American to sign on.

Hopefully there will be more, especially with the tv show try-outs going on.
 

flamin

Juniors
Messages
2,046
https://www.torontowolfpack.com/2016/11/17/american-jerome-veve-signs-toronto/

Another "American" in the squad.

Played in the Titans structure but not for USA which suggests he's not too bothered about his American status, but might find his way into the World Cup squad now that he'll be in that part of the world.

He's repped for the USA at high school level in union. He's only 19.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/quest...loser-to-reality/story-fn8odwua-1226532096155

Born in Utah, Jerome spent his first three years in the US state before his parents moved to New Zealand and eventually Australia, where the powerful front rower has carved out a reputation as a brutal football enforcer.

When coaches from the US high school team learned of Jerome's past earlier this year, they promptly invited him to take part in a winter training camp in Arizona from December 26-31.

From there, a sevens team and a 15-a-side squad will be chosen to take part in international tournaments next year.

A gifted rugby league player in Palm Beach Currumbin's Sports Excellence Program, Jerome said he now had his heart set on representing his country of birth.

"Now that the opportunity has come, it's really good. It's something I really want to do now," the Queensland Schoolboys rugby league star said.

"I'm pretty confident. When I was young, we used to watch the sevens (in America) and dad used to say I could play for them if I wanted to.

"My long term goal is to train and work hard to become a candidate to represent USA at the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil."

Jerome said the training camp, an official pathway to the senior American team, would help take his game to the next level.
 

johnny plath

Juniors
Messages
385
Seems they're hunting far and wide to make a roster. Brian Noble running trials in Jamaica:

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/former-gb-rugby-league-boss-9237137

It is rugby league’s very own version of Cool Runnings – 50 Jamaican athletes attending a trial for a Canadian team that will play in England.

Toronto Wolfpack will compete in League One next season as the first professional transatlantic sports team ever, and their extensive search for talent has already taken in Philadelphia and Tampa in the USA.


Now attention has turned to the Caribbean, looking at players hailing from Jamaica’s amateur league, athletics clubs and tough local neighbourhoods.

Former Great Britain coach and Wolfpack director of rugby Brian Noble has overseen the trials, and believes there is a wealth of untapped talent.

“It’s been an awesome experience,” Noble told Mirror Sport.

“To have 50 players turn up at the prospect of a road trip to Canada, via the UK, has been pretty humbling.

“We haven’t much equipment – half a dozen balls, some tackle shields and cones. But these guys are unbelievable athletes and have absolutely smashed each other at the trials.

“You don’t realise the work that is going on over here – there are guys who are true missionaries for the sport.

"There’s a lot of talent and these guys are hungry, some walked miles to get to the trials or caught three buses.”

Noble - who took time out to experience the ultimate trailblazing path of a Jamaican bobsleigh - intends to try and find English clubs for players that don’t make the Wolfpack’s final squad.

At the end of Toronto’s five-stop bus tour, which is being filmed for a documentary, they will take around 15 players back to England to play a trial match against an amateur club.

And Noble expects there to be some Jamaicans among them.

He added: “Some of them have had difficult up bringings, but rugby league can take them out of a circle of violence and give them a new focus.

“We held a beach party after the trials, and 20 or 30 of them turned up early to play rugby on the beach first.

“It was quite the contrast - you had this beautiful sunset and then all these great kids smashing into each other.

“Some of them have difficult life stories, and seeing them walking to the trial and giving everything to play a game of rugby league took me back to my youth.

“Everybody out there is playing the game for the right reasons.”

In the 1993 film comedy Cool Runnings, John Candy scours Jamaica to put together a Winter Olympics bobsleigh team.


Out of curiosity, does anyone know why rugby league has an interest in Jamaica, but haven't heard anything about any of the other Carribean islands.
 
Messages
14,139
It started in Jamaica like in other places via keen expansionists like Dane Campbell and picked up by a group of locals who then grew the game through universities and more recently in schools. The original plan was for a West Indies RL with other countries taking it up. It just never really happened. I mean, it's been a relative success story but at the end of the day it's still RL. It couldn't have all gone to plan.
 
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