By STEVE MASCORD
THE flame of Rugby League in the ‘new world’ – the United States of America – is still flickering . . . just. And recently a pioneer of league in the U.S. came calling to the ARL, 19 floors above the streets of downtown Sydney.
There, for an hour or so, Bruce Maynard and ARL secretary Bob Abbott talked of the impossible dream . . .
Maynard a Rotary exchange student to Minnesota in 1984, is a son of the NSW town of Narromine, home base for such notables as Neil Pringle, John Coveney and David Gillespie.
During his time in the U.S. he sacrificed hours of study time to work with 71-year-old Al Eastwood in trying to convince Oregonian kids that Joe Lydon, and not Joe Theisman, plays the ‘Greatest Game of All’.
“The kids over there take to the game like ducks to water,” he enthused. “I was amazed – you’d get them going in a game of touch and in a few minutes they’d be playing as well as Australian kids.”
Rugby League began in Oregon when Mike Mayer visited Portland to try to drum up support for a pro team. Eastwood, an Englishman, and a former professional boxer with the likely name of Johnny Eagle decided to set up the North West Amateur League. That was 1979 – there were four teams. There still are.
“A couple of years ago he managed to get some adult teams together from a couple of colleges, but then the players graduated and … well, that was it,” Maynard said.
Maynard added that the game was also suffering from a major identity problem.
“The word ‘Rugby’ has a negative connotation. Americans know the word, so ‘Rugby League’ is just seen as being a rugby competition. We’re either going to have to change the name or decide to persevere with the old one.”
‘League Football’ and ’13-man Football’ are terms being mooted as names for America’s newest sport.
The lack of success the game is having is a far cry from the super optimistic rhetoric of Mayer in the mid-70s.
“The potential is enormous. It (Rugby League) simply cannot miss in the States,” he told one and all in 1977.
According to Mayer league had two basic things going for it – it gave the US the opportunity to be real world champions and it gave all those who didn’t make the grade in the NFL an opportunity to ‘make it’.
From the outset, Maynard dispelled such myths.
“We tend to apply our values to America and to think that their attitudes are the same as ours. They aren’t.
“We can’t proceed on the assumption that Americans are thirsting for a new sport in which they can play against other countries and be real world champs. That’s the idea I had when I first went over there.
“Actually, they’re quite content to play against themselves in a ‘world series’ and call the winner ‘world champ’. They see nothing strange in that.
“Americans are very inward-looking people – very conservative. They aren’t interested in what’s ‘out there’.
“There is also a basic difference in the structure of sport in America with comparison to Australia.
“We tend to think that league will get its players from kids who don’t make it in American Football. It isn’t like that at all.
“If kids don’t make the pros, they’re quite happy to give up sport altogether. There’s no lower standard of competition like there is here – no club sport. It’s elementary school, high school, college/university and then the pros or nothing. If you don’t make it, well then that’s fine.”
Such problems seem to have hardly been contemplated when Mayer first had the USRL incorporated in October, 1979. His idea was, basically, to start at the top. Nothing less than a 12-team national competition was planned for a 1980 kick-off. He’s still planning.
“In our opinion there is no way you can franchise in an area with first-class footballers if you have absolutely no junior base,” said Bob Abbott forthrightly.
But there are league outposts in the U.S.
Abbott told of the possible promotion of the game in the universities at El Paso in Texas with our national youth squads and also of a competition in the Ontario-Lake Placid area on the US-Canadian border.
If the latter gets off the ground in time, it will, in its first year, be far more elaborate than anything Eastwood has achieved in seven.
The Tri-counties Rugby League, headed by enthusiast David Silcock, has 12 teams and is due for an April 12-13 kick-off. Clubs include Northern New York, Eastern Ontario and others with more colorful names such as Blue Bombers, Adirondack 13s, Club XIII and Rookies de Quebec. The plan is to have two 10 weekend rounds, followed by two weekends of play-offs.
Maynard suggested that, along with television, contact with such competition from within its own backyard may provide the Portland league with the lifeline it needs.
