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Rugby League: Peters points the way forward

Home-grown talent is dispelling notion that rugby league's London Broncos rely exclusively on Australian imports.

Dave Hadfield
Thursday 22 April 1999 23:02 BST
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I HAD THEM London Broncos in the back of the cab the other day, guv. Bunch of Aussies, in't they? Well, yes and no, as their line-up for next weekend's Challenge Cup final will demonstrate. OK, the club's coaching and administrative staff speak predominantly in Australian accents and their continuing exemption from the full rigours of the international quota allows them to bring in antipodeans en bloc.

There is really nothing new about this. The club, right back to its days as Fulham, has always been sustained by foreigners, but now they come from Wagga Wagga and Woy Woy, rather than Wigan and Widnes. On the other hand, of their first-choice back division at the start of this season, five players were British-qualified. And then there is Dominic Peters, living proof that the Broncos are starting to home-grow their own.

A combination of injured imports and his own good form have made the 20-year-old Londoner a regular member of their pack this season and he is now in line to become one of the least experienced rugby league players ever to trot out at Wembley. "It all started at school in Gunnersbury," he recalls. "One of my teachers was Jason Wing, who played for the London Crusaders, and he said that my game was more suited to league."

Wing, a British bobsleigh international who was one of the wackier signings by the club that later evolved into the Broncos, has turned out to be a good judge, but Peters did not agree with his assessment initially.

"I went into the Broncos' Academy side in 1996 and it was a shock to the system at first. I remember my first game against Wakefield Trinity; I was knocked out in the first five minutes. I was very soft at that time and I thought it wasn't for me. I'd tried and failed."

It was another young Londoner of whom the Broncos have high hopes, the winger Wayne Sykes, who persuaded his mate to come back and have another go. Easy for a winger - especially one who is allegedly quicker than Martin Offiah - to say. "But I'm pretty glad now that he talked me into coming back."

The Broncos' Academy side that year was a strange hybrid, with a handful of Australians on scholarships mixed in with raw talent like Peters and Sykes, but the evidence now is that it was a blend which accelerated the development of the locals.

The problem for Peters last year was that there was no reserve side for him to graduate to, so he was forced to take what looked like the backward step of playing for West London Sharks in the Rugby League Conference. That competition, based primarily in non-traditional areas in the South and Midlands, is one of the code's recent success stories over the last couple of years, giving it a foothold in all manner of unlikely places and providing a stepping stone for players of promise who just happen to have been born in the wrong place.

Apart from Londoners like Peters and Sykes, the Broncos have signed an outstanding prospect in Darryl Griffin from the Oxford Cavaliers and their chief executive, Tony Rea, is convinced that there will be more to follow. "From my point of view, it was just good to be playing and the level [in the Conference] was pretty good," Peters says. But not good enough to stop him standing out; after monitoring his form there for four games, the Broncos hauled him back and gave him four games, three of them as a substitute, towards the end of last season.

Nothing in rugby league is neat or smooth. An administrative oversight meant that West London were deducted four points for fielding an unregistered player, but at least they had the satisfaction of relaunching a career. "I would have been the last person to expect to play as many first team games this season, but I feel I've pleased my coach and I've pleased myself. I'd like to think that he'll have faith in me at Wembley."

If Dan Stains does select Peters for the final, it will be a remarkable rise from obscurity and one that the player believes will encourage others to try to follow in his footsteps.

"I think it will open doors of opportunity for other young people," Peters says. "Rugby union is more of a middle-class game and I never really felt welcome, so league has been a great opportunity for me."

Or, as Rea puts it: "He's a great role model for other kids. He's shown that if you do what he's done, you can get into Super League."

And to Wembley, however far it must have seemed from the playing fields of west London less than a year ago.

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