Twenty years ago, rugby league took Warriors coach Andrew Webster to the United States.
The year was 2005, when The Killers’ Mr Brightside and Green Day’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams blasted from every car radio, but Webster was very much living the Australian dream of playing rugby league, although across the world in Connecticut.
Andrew Webster (second row, second from the left) 20 years ago at the American National Rugby League grand final with the Connecticut Wildcats.
Webster was a 23-year-old who knew his professional career in Australia was finished, and wanted to use his last years in league to travel. After stints at the Balmain Tigers and Parramatta Eels in the lower grades, he signed on as the player and coach of the Connecticut Wildcats – a semi-professional American team that existed from 2003 to 2015, but now only exists on a Wikipedia list of “defunct rugby league clubs in the United States”.
Twenty years after his first coaching gig, Webster has returned to the USA for the NRL’s Las Vegas opener where his Warriors will take on the Raiders at Allegiant Stadium on Sunday (Australian time).
“I had a big book on how I wanted to coach when I landed in America, and I threw it out after the first week,” Webster said.
Andrew Webster and Nicholas Isbrandtsen when they played for the Connecticut Wildcats.
“I just needed to simplify things. It’s crazy just how simple you need to keep it now. Lots has changed with me, but a lot’s the same. It’s just such a cool part of my journey.”
Nicholas Isbrandtsen remembers Webster’s time in Connecticut well. A fresh-faced 18-year-old who grew up playing American football, lacrosse and hockey, Isbrandsten was dubbed ‘Webby Jr’ when he began playing league with the Wildcats.
“I think it’s mostly just because we both had blonde hair and look somewhat similar,” Isbrandtsen joked.
“[Webster] knowing the rules, knowing the real intricacies of rugby league, really I think set our team apart,” he said.
“And I think he just has this kind of calm confidence about him, that he didn’t need to get strict. You want to impress him, you want to play well for him, and certainly when he’s on the field running with you, it’s easy to do that.”
Curtis Cunz also played alongside Webster at the Wildcats, and went on to play for USA’s national team the Tomahawks along with Isbrandtsen.
Cunz, who lives in New Jersey and is the coach of the Roots Rugby Family who will be competing at the rugby league nines tournament in Vegas this week, said Webster “fit right in”.
Curtis Cunz played alongside Andrew Webster at the Connecticut Wildcats in 2005.
“As a player, he was very intense. A vocal leader who played with passion,” Cunz said of Webster. “As a coach he was sort of the opposite. He was very calm but detailed in explaining things.
“Away from rugby, he had a typical sense of humour any 20-something-year-old would [have]. And as the night went on his voice would get more and more raspy to go along with his Aussie twang and lingo which made him even funnier.”
Webster led the Wildcats to the 2005 American National Rugby League final, where they lost 32-30 to the Glen Mills Bulls. He left the club the next year, moving to Hull Kingston Rovers in the UK as an assistant coach, but the Wildcats went on to be back-to-back champions in 2006 and 2007.
Cunz and other alumni will be in Vegas for the NRL opener for the second year, and said they had plans to go to a Warriors training session.
Webster said he was keen to catch up with his old teammates, who are travelling from across the country.
“I think the game has changed a lot [since 2005], and I think events like this could get the game going here and if it takes off, the American fans would absolutely love it,” he said.
“They love contact, collision, hard sport, so it’s definitely changed in the last 20 years. I know I’ve changed.”
Billie Eder’s trip to Las Vegas was funded by the NRL.
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