westside

Great post agree completely.

Not in college, but many play both sides of the ball in high school and everyone does at youth level. I posted Champ Bailey’s high school stats a while back but he did literally everything including kick. Most football coaches will take their best few athletes and plan around them. When you get to the college level, the players are mostly these “best athletes” from high school.

He’s originally from American Samoa - they mainly play gridiron there.

That’s better than after university, no disagreement here.

Joe Taufete’e converted from football to rugby at age 18/19. Now a top professional player in Europe.

This is true but are the guys that switched necessarily the top Fijian RU talent? I’m not sure. Canada produces some talented RU players though. If a guy like Taylor Paris had been signed up by TWP he would be good at league. Obviously certain positions (halves) require more game sense and are going to be harder for converts.

Just had a look at their RLWC squad on wiki and four of them converted from RU after playing RU in school. Mikaele Ravalawa didn’t play RL until 2017 (age 19-20) and is now in the NRL. https://www.nrl.com/news/2019/04/17/ravalawa-travels-light-from-fiji-to-bright-lights-of-nrl/

Soccer and hockey are more weighted to skill, rugby (especially league) to athleticism. Plus you have RU players to draw from in Canada so it isn’t a blank slate. I think Fiji have drawn on quite a few RU players to get where they are.

To reiterate a point I’ve made before - most (virtually all) grow up playing both offense and defense. The elite players do it the most since you want your best athletes on the field as much as possible.

He’s a big name in France, it would be great publicity for them.

St Helens is basically Liverpool... if they can’t develop a bigger base there that’s on them.

Working for Columbus... on the verge of winning their first playoff series in franchise history vs a Tampa team described by many as one of the best ever. #8 seed vs #1 seed... gotta love the Stanley Cup playoffs.

In Europe they should look at multisport clubs that already run basketball etc teams. FC Barcelona being an obvious one.

Why is an actual North American posting on a thread about expansion to North America? You tell me.

I think it’s settled. The RFL should add a maple leaf to its logo to acknowledge this history.