You can imagine it now.
A massive NFL stadium, a coast-to-coast TV presentation, not a cloud in the sky and rugby league posts at either end of the field.
That’s what will mark the start of the 2024 NRL season this coming Sunday as Manly and Souths face off at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, but it will not be the first time that such a scene has occurred.
On St Patrick’s Day 1995, on the other side of the United States, a very similar set-up could be found: the same giant arena, the same TV exposure, the sun cracking the flags and, yes, rugby league posts.
But while the Sea Eagles and Rabbitohs represent the pinnacle of elite rugby league, the teams that featured in 1995 could not be further away.
The visitors were Ireland, who could boast a recently retired Joe Lydon as a star among a ragtag bunch drawn from the former Ireland Students players, ex-GAA athletes and park footballers from the diaspora in England, but the hosts couldn’t even claim that.
USA Tomahawks had only learned the rules that same week. Their captain, coach and leader was David Niu, the ex-St George first grader, but none of the other players had played a single game before – yet here they were, live on ESPN with a full technicolour production broadcast into millions of homes.
The music was of the diddly-diddly kind and the graphics that began the broadcast featured Gaelic football and hurling, with a cursory, Americanified version of the rules of unspecific ‘rugby’, before making sure that fans knew that the jerseys were on sale.
The brains behind it was John Morgan – best known for a cameo in the classic sports comedy Cool Runnings – who had been involved in trying to break rugby union into the American market, only to pivot to league.
“He’s like PT Barnum,” remembers Niu in conversation with The Roar.
“When I last saw him, he was still going on about it: ‘Niuy, we had it right back then! That ESPN game was the start, I see what the NRL is doing, we were doing it way back then!’
“He was the quintessential American entrepreneur. He saw a product and thought he liked it. Have you seen the Elvis movie? He’s Colonel Tom!”
Nobody who wore the red, white and blue expected to be there. Niu, who had met Morgan through involvement in rugby union in Philadephia, was as surprised as anyone.
“It was a fluke for me to be part of it,” said the former Dragon.
“I came to the States in 1993, and I had gone to league from union, which was then amateur and when you crossed over you were banned. Once you went to league, you couldn’t go back to union.
“My wife’s from Philly, I moved over and there was a union club so I jumped in with that.
“Before you knew it, I got picked to play in the US squad at the Hong Kong Sevens. I thought great, a trip to Hong Kong, let’s go have some fun.
“Right before I was about to leave, I thought ‘maybe I should tell these guys that I’m banned from playing rugby union’.
Joshua Rice of USA at the 2017 Rugby League World Cup (NRLPhotos/Scott Davis)
“I explained it to the coach, he contacted USA Rugby Union, they made some calls to the Australian rugby union and they said’yeah, he’s banned, he can’t play union anymore’.”
“That phone call hung up and the next one that rang was John Morgan, who said he was taking a group of guys to the Coca-Cola World Sevens and that I should join it. I thought: ‘free trip, I’m on’.
“John was just larger than life and he was like: ‘Niuy, when we get back, we’re going to play Ireland in a Test match at RFK Stadium and it’s going to be live on ESPN’.”
The only problem was nobody in America played league – and even the few that had featured in that Sevens tournament, such as Jeff Preston and Duke Ieriko, had never played 13-a-side.
“When we got back, John asked me to put a squad together,” explains Niu.
“We went to Australia and there was just 12 of us, so we had to find 17.
“Back in the day, you’d scratch around rugby union clubs because that was the only source of rugby talent – but we found guys and the next minute, we had a squad and we were there in DC.
“We had nothing. There was no rugby league, nothing, zero. It wasn’t like we were 13 against 13 in a park, there was none.
“It was finding rugby union, American football and other athletic guys that John had found somewhere, we got to DC and had three days to prepare.
“We got them to understand the basics and then we were live on ESPN – action!”
With the game held on St Patrick’s Day, Niu and Morgan had just three days to get a squad, teach them the rules and set them off.
“We had to get the players together, because they’d never met, and then you had a few days to try and get some basic information to get them to understand it,” said the coach.
“You’d start with the play the ball and someone would mistime it, get the ball back and people would be downfield blocking. You’d say stop, let’s try this again.
“They could never get the play the ball. You’d tell them to hit the ground and try to land on their front – they’d snap it or roll it through their legs or they’d turn and face sideways like in union or they’d face you and just hand the ball to you. We had a lot of work to do.
“One thing about the Americans is that they’re always coachable. It’s just part of the culture – they’ll ask you to tell them or show them and they’ll give it a try. In that respect, they picked it up quickly.”
Armed with a cursory grasp of the rules, they rocked up to the famous RFK Stadium, home of the then-Washington Redskins (now Commanders) – and got stuck in.
“We expected to get thrashed,” admitted Niu.
“I expected it, but the Americans didn’t. That’s the thing about trying to develop rugby league in America – they just believe, and they get an opportunity, and they give it their best shot.
“We were fortunate in that we had guys like Jeff Preston and Freddy Gruhler who were so patriotic, ex-servicemen, so I didn’t have to do anything to motivate them. All I had to do was to find enough information that we could fudge it up that we knew what we were doing.
“Get onside, get off the tackle, listen to the referee. Everything else, the chest pounding and the other stuff, there was no problem there. We knew we’d be up for a battle but at some point, we were getting hammered.”
While one might expect the occasion to get to the Americans, in fact the opposite was true. The USA pushed a far more experienced Irish team all the way, eventually going down 24-22 in brutal, physical games with no quarter asked or given.
The whole match is available online and is well worth the running time, because while the skill level is low, the enthusiasm and willingness to put the bodies on the line is undeniably rugby league.
“It was the scale of it,” said Niu.
“You elevate these guys. In the anthems, I looked around at these Irish guys and thought ‘wow, they’re serious’. Looking at my guys, I think – ‘they’re serious too’. The ball goes up into the air and it’s just on.
“And the games were close! They were crackers all the way to the end!”
Ireland prevailed, but enough interest was drummed up to go around again a year later – with another Morgan twist.
“If you could find a producer and a Hollywood studio, it’s worth investing into a story of it because it would be fascinating to think it actually happened,” said Niu.
“The second year, he had it with TV timeouts and it drove everyone crazy. It was wild, we’d kick off, they’d catch the ball and get tackled, then everyone would stop for the TV timeout. You’d have 26 guys on the field getting at each other. But we had to sell some hotdogs!”
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