By STEVE MASCORD
A TEAM from Venezuela will meet a United States/Canada representative side early next month in one of the most unusual Rugby League matches ever seen.
The Tri-Country Allstars, selected from the new competition based in Ontario, Quebec (Canada) and New York State (US), will meet the touring Maracaibo Oilers Sports Club of Venezuela on September 3rd underlights in Montreal.
Beside being an international breakthrough for league, the match promises to be one of the most peculiar 13-a-side games yet played.
“They (the Venezuelans) will go for anything – any kind of sports at all. They’ve never played the game before. I don’t know what it’ll be like – it might be a shambles,” laughed Dave Silcock, the founder of the Tri-Country Rugby League.
“The Oilers will take part in a Rugby Union sevens tournament on the weekend of August 30-31, and then on the following weekend will be involved in a Canadian touch football tournament. I think they’ll also be playing indoor soccer.”
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Silcock said that he was also trying to organise an exhibition match against the French Universities team, returning from the Students World Cup in New Zealand, in Ottawa the following weekend.
This would be the first game of league in Ottawa ever.
The zeal – and success – with which Silcock and his cohorts are furthering the international expansion of the game is already enough to put administrators in some of the game’s more established nations to shame.
After the six-week round of the Tri-Country Rugby League, the four team competition has gone almost without a hitch. The abandonment of one game after 53 minutes due to thunderstorms in the fifth week was the only hiccup.
Silcock told RLW that Sydney football has been a “fabulous” success on Canada’s TSN Network.
“When I phoned the TV station, they said that they had been flooded with letters and phone calls about league. Obviously, there’s a lot of people watching it.”
RUGBY LEAGUE WEEK August 13, 1986\
