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I first met Turkey coach and administrator Julien Treu in October last year, at a rugby league weekend on the island of Rhodes in Greece.
He had assembled a development squad to compete in an eights tournament and a one-off international against a Greek XIII.
Turkey made the final of the six-team Rhodes 8s tournament, before being beaten by the Greek-Australian team.
The following night, the Turks were defeated 86-0 by a Greece team that had seven heritage players in their squad.
Treu was philosophical about the result the next morning, pointing out the team’s lack of experience and the lessons they had learnt from the match.
It was obvious he had a passion for the game, and a firm plan to get it up and running in Turkey.
On Christmas Day 2016, the Turkey rugby league competition was born with five teams; Eskisehir Aqua Rugy, Bilgi Badgers, Kadikoy Bulls, Olimpos RK and Bosphorus Wolves. The historic first domestic competition will run until March 2017.
I posed some questions to Julien about Turkey rugby league.
SM: What is your background and why are you so passionate about rugby league?
JT: I actually come from a place in France where rugby league doesn’t exist. I started to play rugby league quite late, when I moved to Ireland. I then moved to the Netherlands, where I met a rugby league fanatic, Ian Thompson, who shared his passion with me. I then moved to Turkey, where there was no rugby league, so after six years we decided to start it.
How did you start a rugby league competition in Turkey?
When we decided to develop rugby league in Turkey, we decided to do things properly by the book. We set ourselves achievable targets and started planning the league step by step, communicating about it in the local press.
So far it looks like our work is paying off. We would like to think it is because we are doing a good job.
The competition was established very quickly?
We’d like to believe our approach is a good one but in fairness there is no miraculous recipe. Each country has its specific needs and approach. In our case, we looked at what would be a best-fit here, starting with a decent amount of dedicated volunteers.
Once you have the people it’s a combination of timing, ideas and work. We believe that rugby league fits the Turkish mentality and has lot of potential here.
Five clubs is a good start. Is there much interest in rugby league in Turkey?
We are very pleased to start our domestic competition with five clubs and the interest in rugby league is growing among the players. We are getting requests to join on a daily basis, which makes us believe we are on the right path.
What about junior development?
We are working on it. We hope to launch an under 18 team by the end of this year, as we are getting more and more requests.
Where do the clubs come from?
We have four teams from Istanbul and one team from Eskisehir; all teams were present during a beach rugby league tournament we organised earlier in 2016 to get players interested.
Your first matches were on December 25. Was there any significance in the date?
Not at all, we set ourselves the target to start the domestic competition by the end of 2016, playing on the 25th was just pure coincidence and we have to remember December 25 is a normal day here in Turkey.
What is the focus internationally?
Once again, we like to set ourselves targets, one being to give local players opportunities to play rugby league at an international level within the next two to four years. We want to give everyone a decent chance as our focus is to develop the game locally and once we believe the game is up and running we will hopefully set ourselves higher targets.
After watching the international against Greece it is obvious your players have talent and passion but need more experience. Is that how you see it?
Well aside from the Kadikoy Bulls players, who played just one full 13 a side game previously, none of the other players ever played a rugby league game before. I was pleased with their commitment and with what I saw.
We started the game well, with some good hits and some good sets, but slowly lost our composure by not completing our sets and also having one of our players red carded early in the game.
At the end of the day, the final score is big but who cares as we have absolutely no pressure. We only introduced the rules to the players two months before the tournament, so we are confident we will do better fast.
We like to look at this experience as an achievement: that is, we managed to get to the final of the tournament on the Saturday and played again on the Sunday, against a team whose level was clearly well above ours. So we believe it was a positive experience.
Do you receive any assistance from outside your organisation?
If we are here today it is mainly due to great support we received from the Rugby League European Federation (RLEF). Our first contact was at the beginning of 2016 and they followed us through each step during our development.
Within a year the RLEF supported us with referees for our tournament, coaching courses, referee courses and all the different aspects of the game. We are grateful and are happy with their support.
We currently don’t have any sponsorship but we are working on it.
What is the dream?
My dream is to see a Turkish National rugby league team qualify for the World Cup.
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