The New Zealand lock Ali Williams has signed to captain the NRFL Rough Riders against Leicester in Philadelphia on 8 August.
The “home” team at Lincoln Financial Field, home of the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles, will be the first fielded by the National Rugby Football League, an organisation attempting to convert American football players to rugby and launch a professional league in the US.
Williams, 34, won 77 caps in the second row of the All Black pack and was part of the 2011 World Cup-winning squad. Now based in Europe, the 6ft 8in lock was man of the match in Toulon’s European Champions Cup final victory over Clermont Auvergne at Twickenham last week.
His recruitment by the NRFL came via the former All Black prop Craig Dowd, who has been advising the project from New Zealand.
“Craig asked if I’d be willing to play,” Williams told the Guardian on Friday, speaking from France where he is in his last month as a player, “and I put my hand up and said: ‘Yeah, it’d be great to come and play a competitive game in the States and also to check out the lay of the land, so to speak.’
“It’s very interesting for me how rugby is developing around the world and how things are progressing. The big question everyone wants to know is: ‘What’s America doing?’”
The NRFL is one of a number of organisations seeking to professionalise rugby in the US. The national governing body, USA Rugby, is in negotiations to launch a pro league before the 2019 World Cup; the national team will also play in Philadelphia in August, against Harlequins. Other groups, stimulated by the sport’s inclusion in the Olympics, are pursuing the concept of professional sevens.
“Different groups all around the world have been trying to get rugby off the ground in America for a long time,” Williams said. “Have they been going about it the right way? Yes, no, who knows?”
He added: “There is a formula for how it could work in America.”
Asked what that formula was, Williams said: “First and foremost you’ve got to understand what spectators want to see, and for me you have to look at America and how sports fans there have adapted to UFC [Ultimate Fighting Championship]. They love that. Then there’s the NFL – there’s no doubting that.
“I believe that rugby is that ultimate mix. It’s got the physicality, it’s got the camaraderie, the team ethic, it’s got the blood and guts, the combat type of stuff with no protection.
“And it’s constantly evolving, it’s a professional thing, it’s getting bigger and better, stronger and faster. I’ve noticed that Americans like to see the best of the best, and that is what rugby is. That’s where rugby’s going. You only need to look at the All Blacks’ record, the best in world sport. It’s all ahead of rugby, really, in America.”
Williams’ season – and his top-level playing career – could finish on 13 June, with the French Top 14 final in Paris. He is due to link up with the NRFL in early August.
All being well, the former Auckland, Blues and Crusaders lock will captain a team fielding former college football players in some positions. The 300lb former Oregon defensive tackle Isaac Remington, for example, has never played rugby but was presented in Philadelphia last month as one possible partner for Williams in the second row. More imported professional talent, as yet unannounced, is set to start in specialist roles such as front row.
Suggesting that if players the size of Remington were “coming down the track it might be time for me to transition to coaching”, Williams said his main experience of American athletes’ potential for rugby had been gained during “a three-month stint in athletes’ performance in Los Angeles, in Carson at the Home Depot Center”, during his recovery from a serious achilles injury.
“I trained with some guys and the physical attributes of those guys and the way they could train was just incredible,” he said. “America’s got power of numbers in that sense.”
Williams’ role with the NRFL team will not primarily be a coaching one, and he said he envisaged his first steps post-playing being more in the direction of “helping structures around the world to evolve the game”, “not in a management-type of role but a visionary type of role … to enhance the game so it truly is a global sport”.
He continued: “There’s no doubting America’s got the talent pool, there’s no doubt America’s got the people who support sport. The gap we can maybe fill is the education around rugby, how you play it on the field. It’s about creating a job, an entity in which these guys can make money.”
The game between the NRFL team and Leicester – who will not include any players selected for the World Cup which kicks off in England on 18 September – was announced last month, two sometimes challenging years after the NRFL announced itself with plans for a game against London Irish in Boston. The American team in that game was due to be coached by the dual-international back Henry Paul.
Since then, the NRFL, run by businessmen Michael Clements and George Robertson, has staged talent-spotting combines in Minnesota and, most recently, Los Angeles.
The former Ireland and USA coach Eddie O’Sullivan has been involved. Two American football players who attended combines, Wisconsin River Falls fullback Joel Yogerst and Temple linebacker Quinten White, spent a short time in England with Bristol.
