Latest / WCBH / AJ Holmes: Multi-Code American Athlete of Rugby League in the USA

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AJ Holmes: Multi-Code American Athlete of Rugby League in the USA · WCBH

0:25
So for the past three seasons, the National Rugby League has taken our season
0:29
opener to the United States to play in Las Vegas.
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Now, the NRL will be doing this for a number of different reasons around growing
0:38
the game, exposing the game to new markets. I suppose in the United States,
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we're looking at a population of 300 plus million.
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Obviously, we want to get more eyes on the game, but we also want more players
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to get involved and to play the game. So we want to speak with an everyday American, an athlete.
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We're going to speak to a multi-code athlete, AJ Holmes, who's got a little
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bit of a background in rugby league. He plays for the Cleveland Outlaws.
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He's also played rugby union and American football as well.
1:12
AJ, thanks so much for joining us on WCBH.
1:16
Yes, sir. Appreciate the invite, Cam. Thank you so much.
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As you saw in my intro, I'm really looking forward to this conversation because
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America is such a huge potential market for rugby league and although they're two different games,
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the NFL and the NRL.
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There's a lot of great crossover and one of the great crossovers that I really
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like is when our season finishes and we're looking for more football to watch but our season's over,
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well the NFL has just started and so you'll find a lot of rugby league supporters
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like myself pivot straight into the NFL and then have a team to follow during
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our off season and by the time the Super Bowl wraps up,
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it's just about time for rugby league season again.
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But can we start off by giving you the opportunity to introduce yourself and
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give us a little bit about your background?
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Yeah, well, glowing introduction. I really appreciate you, Cam,
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but you know, As you so eloquently said, my name is AJ Holmes.
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I am a, I guess, a multi-sport athlete.
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I started off with American football, and then I got introduced to Rugby Union through my coach.
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He is from Bolivia, actually.
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And then I got introduced to Rugby League later on. So, I mean,
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you know, I have a love for the game and, you know, contact is great.
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No helmet, no pads, no problem.
2:57
Yeah, absolutely. We'll talk about the no helmets, no pads a little bit later on.
3:02
That's really interesting, a Bolivian rugby league coach.
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And for the listeners in Australia, you'll be picking up on what AJ is saying.
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He's calling it rugby league and rugby union or league and rugby.
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And you can just hear in the terms that you're using, you've got a knowledge
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and a love for the game as well.
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Now, you're from Cleveland, and if I've got my NFL geography right,
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we've got the Browns, the Bengals,
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the Steelers, the Bills, and the Lions all in a – you could probably cast a net over them.
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Yeah. Yeah. Who's your NFL team? you know
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actually my NFL team is the Lions um I know I'll probably catch a lot of flack
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from you know the Ohio people but yeah you know the Lions are my team but you
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know like you said it's a it's a ton of great football that's just right here driving reach like,
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I don't know, like you can pretty much spit or toss a rock and you'll hit another team.
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Very different from where I'm from. I'm from Darwin, top of Australia in the
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tropics. And we've got such a small population.
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We don't have national codes based in Darwin. We get one national rugby league game a year.
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The Dolphins are bringing up a game once a year now, and they'll do that for the next three years.
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And we get two AFL games. The Gold Coast Suns are bringing games up. So we're small.
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And now the Detroit Lions, I've got a thing for jerseys, and I particularly
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like the blue jersey that the Lions run around in.
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I don't mind the black jersey as well with the blue highlights.
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And I watched a documentary a couple of months ago on Amonrass St.
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John, is it? He's an outstanding player.
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St. Brown. St. Brown, Amonrass and Brown. Yeah, an outstanding athlete,
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multilingual athlete as well, I think, English and German from memory.
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So yeah, a lot of great sporting talent up there.
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NRL season opener? Yeah, so I mean, it's just, the fact that you're just so
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knowledgeable about, you know, even individual players, it's kind of just, it blows my mind.
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I think I might be one of the least egotistical Americans when it comes to sports.
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But I don't know. First, I want to, you know, just applaud the respect that
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you give American football.
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And, yeah, you know, like it's...
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The caliber of athlete that the system that we have here in America produces is very,
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very high, even on an amateur level with programs like AAU and travel leagues of sorts.
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Even the peewee sports are actually highly competitive.
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So it really just breeds a great athlete, honestly.
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A lot of professional athletes talk about it. It certainly does.
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And we'll pick up on that in our conversation today, because I think there's
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an opportunity for rugby league there where athletes have gone through the programs,
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may not have made the NFL, but still interested in being involved in football.
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And I think there's an opportunity for rugby league to try and attract those tremendous athletes.
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We're talking big, fit fast athletes athletes who've got a lot of training and
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conditioning behind them maybe we can attract them into either rugby league
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in america or even attract them down under to join one of our teams and and
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try a different code but a code that they could they could really excel at,
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i believe it i believe you know there's there's so much potential,
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And, you know, who are we to not try to usher in some of that potential into reality?
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And you're right about the training that sits behind those players.
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Been watching the NFL Combine recently and explain it to me if I've got it wrong.
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But is this where sort of your college athletes who are in the realm of being
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drafted, they go away and they're put through their paces, you know, they're weighed.
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See how fast they are they've got to
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run particular drills and plays and and
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all the all the coaches and and organizations get
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a chance to really scrutinize who's on the card for for the potential draft
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is that right yes that is right it's just it's a it's an opportunity to showcase
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not just raw athleticism in things like bench press and 40-yard dash,
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but a myriad of skills challenges that challenge the mind and the reaction of
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athletes and college athletes, I might add, as you said,
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in game-time situations.
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So anything from routes or
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drills where receivers have to
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be able to lightning fast
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off a turn receive a ball
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that's probably going about 60 or 70 miles an hour and yeah I mean it's great
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to watch and the fact that these are these are like some of the top prospects
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and that not all of them get drafted some of these you know they some of these Athletes,
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they get into free agency, actually, when it rolls around for draft time.
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So it's crazy seeing the wealth of athleticism and steel.
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And watching some of the footage of the routes that are being run and how sharp
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these players are, they can turn on a dime, and how impressive they are to throw
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the football and hit the target.
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And if you're receiving the football to, I don't know, a split second after
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you turn the corner and then you receive a very fast football on the chest is very impressive.
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If we can get some of that talent into rugby league, we can build further what
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our great game already produces, I think.
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Oh, yeah. I mean, it's just seeing how my own skills have translated.
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I mean, the sky's the limit.
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Sky's the limit. The NRL season opener has just taken place in Las Vegas.
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We saw an English Super League game and then two Australian games.
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There was the the Knights v.
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Cowboys and the Dragons versus the Bulldogs.
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Did you get a chance to have a look at the games? And if you did what were your thoughts?
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You know, I did I was able to catch a couple of them and,
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on live stream and thank you so much for You know giving me that opportunity
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to do so I'm actually kind of quite shocked that I didn't know about it before
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that but It was it was great exhilarating. I think that and,
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I think that it's kind of a disservice that not more people know about it, honestly.
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Like, especially in the down season of the NFL and the only thing coming on
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is probably just the combine.
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I think it was a great way to engage with rugby league in a way that I hadn't previously.
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And, I don't know, become kind of sort of a fan.
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And this is a great point that you make there.
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The Vegas thing is huge in our world, in Australian rugby league world.
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Like we know that it's coming up where which teams are going to Vegas because
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only four teams get to go to Vegas each year.
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This is huge. But we need to make sure that it's not just Australians who are
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jumping on planes to go to Vegas and enjoy the Vegas experience.
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We need to attract people like yourself, Americans who play football.
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Let's get you to Vegas and get you talking about the sport.
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Then you go back to Cleveland and you go back to college.
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And where is it? Morehouse you go back to and you start talking about the great
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sport that you've just seen.
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And then suddenly more eyes are watching rugby league. For sure.
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It's, I think it's really just all about Just whether people are in the know
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or not, it's a matter of who's willing to share and, you know,
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how willing are you to share it, you know.
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I got a love for this sport that was bred out of people sharing it with me, so.
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Just before we move on from the Vegas game, it was played at Allegiant Stadium.
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We're very jealous of your football stadiums. Yeah, yeah.
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Have you been to one of the sort of the big stadiums, Allegiant or SoFi or Mercedes?
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Have you been to one of these?
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You know, I've been to, I've had the pleasure of being to Benz.
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Crazy experience that actual, the roof actually, it contracts just like a camera lens.
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So it's crazy being in and seeing a roof move like that and seeing a full stadium of people,
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no matter what's going on, whether it's, they have actually a soccer club on
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there. I know you guys probably call it football, but.
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There's a soccer club in Atlanta that comes, and when they play at the Bend
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Stadium, I promise to you, you can literally see people walking from parking
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probably miles away to come to the game.
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And when it comes to stadiums like Allegiant and so far, I haven't had the pleasure
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of going in person, But just from what I've seen,
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like a whole stadium that has a logo with a fountain built on the outside of it, crazy.
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Wow. Crazy. You know, there's a lot of terms that we use differently.
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You know, we talk kilometers, you're talking miles.
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We're talking kilograms, you're talking pounds. But the one thing that we can
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agree on, soccer is soccer.
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And we try to
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use the term football when we're talking i suppose
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with people from um from europe from
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asia and from africa so we sound cultured so
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we sound knowledgeable but australians and americans we call it we both call
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it soccer so we're on the same page there um buffalo bills you know we were
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talking stadiums the other day when we caught up and another documentary that
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I watched is the Bills are building a new stadium and their current stadium,
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as you know, is that open roof stadium.
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And because they play those snow games and it's such a strong home ground advantage
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for a team, let's say that comes out of Florida and they've got to go up to
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Buffalo and play a snow game,
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they're building a new stadium and they're not putting a roof on it.
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They're to keep it open so they they continue to play in the cold and the snow
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that's amazing yeah it is it's i mean it's it's a central part of as you said
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their game like the culture out there in buffalo,
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I don't know. Though America is like, ah, it's America. We all love football. It's really regional.
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Buffalo being not only on the water, but on this eastern seaboard, you get a ton of snow.
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If you've ever been to the Midwest, like Chicago,
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Detroit, Cleveland, we're all on the water as well
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but we're on lakes there's something called like lake effect
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snow so it's like it's it's pillows of snow like just dumped out like somebody
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cut open a pillow and just shook out the feathers and it's an experience that
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you really can't replicate without that true feel of the cold of the snow,
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of the true football weather, in my opinion.
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I come from Darwin. It's a very hot tropical place. It's hot all year round.
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I'm currently traveling in Spain. It's 8 degrees Celsius.
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I looked it up for you before jumping on this call. 46 degrees Fahrenheit.
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Now, I think this is really cold. I'm not used to this weather.
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But those sort of areas, they get a lot colder than 46, don't they?
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Yeah, yeah. Yeah, a ton colder. Honestly, probably like a week and a half ago,
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it was probably snowy and maybe 15 degrees.
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So, and this is March. So it's definitely a culture shock, you know,
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when you come over here for a Bills game.
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Yeah, what you can probably work out is that I love talking about America,
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American culture and NFL.
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Now, this is meant to be a conversation about rugby league. So I'm going to
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do my best to sort of pivot back towards the rugby league, but I suppose that's the power of...
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That's the power of marketing the game so well and getting your game,
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American football, the NFL, into Australian subscription services. So I watch KO.
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KO's where I get most of my sport. But because NFL's got a real foothold in KO now,
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people like myself who really couldn't explain the down system two seasons ago,
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we now can because we now watch and
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love the NFL and that's what that's what rugby league's
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got to do in the US we've got it we've got to make those inroads let's bring
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it back to your journey into rugby league keen to know about what position you
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played the club that you play for the division that they play in all those sorts
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of things about you the athlete and and the rugby league player.
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Oh, yeah, of course. I appreciate that. So if anybody has seen any of the promo
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pictures, I am kind of a slim guy.
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So, you know, I am a back typically at the wing position now, and that's in league.
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In terms of union, I have played fullback and wing, and I've practiced in a
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lot of different positions, but I'll only talk about the ones that I played in.
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And honestly, how long have I been playing?
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Let's see, I started with American football. That was in middle school.
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And then in about, what was that? That was like 10th grade. So maybe I was 14.
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I got introduced to Union. And playing 15s was crazy for me because I didn't
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know that many people would be on the field at one time.
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And not only that many people on the field, but for everybody to have not only
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their own space, but their own place to play.
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And when I got introduced to league,
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that was even a culture shock because it's way faster pace of play.
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And for me, it was more like getting used to being in the action at any second,
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not just as a part of a set piece.
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So that was a little bit different for me.
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It's interesting to hear you talk about the differences in the games.
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You mentioned that you're a slim guy and you play the outside backs in league and union.
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I'm about, I looked this up again, I did my calculations. I'm about 132 pounds.
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So you'd be bigger than that, though, wouldn't you? Yeah, just a little.
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Just a smidge. We're in the same boat, though.
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Yeah, okay. So you don't play those power winger positions.
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If you're playing wing, you're playing more the fast, evasive.
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Skillful winger position. That's right? Definitely. Gotcha.
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Yeah. And look, we've got wingers of both descriptions in the game.
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And do very well you know you've got your big power winger
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who will be close to 100 kg yeah
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in our language who could easily play in
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in the back row but they're big fit fast
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but they they run over players uh and
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then we've got this this collection of of wingers who probably more what you're
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describing yourself as that you know thinner fit fast very athletic i'm thinking
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xavier Coates you may or may not know I'm going to send you some Xavier Coates highlights.
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Yeah after we get off because like he he is I suppose probably the number one
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of that of those lighter wingers just really athletic players and just score
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some amazing tries I'll send I'll send those uh those highlights through to
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you okay you mentioned before no helmets no pads,
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What did your friends and family think when you said, right,
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I'm dropping the helmets, I'm dropping the pads, I'm going to play union,
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I'm going to play league?
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Did they think you were crazy? A little bit.
20:45
I think that it was more so shock
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that I guess a guy as slim as me would commit to something like that.
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Funny story, one of my grandmothers, actually my great-grandmother,
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she watched me play in my senior game at my home stadium.
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And she watched it. She cheered for me.
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At the end of the game, she came up to me and she said, hey,
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I don't ever want to watch that again.
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It was too anxiety-inducing. And I was like, you know what? I respect it. I respect it.
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Because, you know, I guess seeing somebody who's probably 155 soaking wet run through three,
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four people and have dudes hanging on to their legs is probably not a sight
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that a grandma wants to see.
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I think that's just the role of mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers of saying that as well.
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But one of the good things about league and union, you can play the game at any size, you know,
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whether you're halfback or wing or hooker, you know, very different body shapes
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and sizes to playing a lock forward or a front row forward, etc.
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As well. And as you know, the more you play, the more you're able to time your runs,
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the more you're able to anticipate what's coming and design your game a little
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bit around those sort of things as well.
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Yeah, and you mentioned the differences between league and union and American football.
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You know, that league of continuous play, up 10, make the tackle,
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get back 10, up 10, make the tackle, get back 10.
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Or if you're attacking, attacking for your set of six and then chasing the kick downfield,
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very different to the NFL, American football, where you'll often have your,
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depending on your division, your offensive, your defensive, your special teams.
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And at the end of every play, there's a little bit of a break to reset.
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Yeah, that pace thing, that was a really great segue because I feel like that
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was one of my, that was like the hardest thing to adjust to.
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But it made play way more enjoyable for me.
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And I think that was probably also one of my problems in watching American football
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is like we have all of these breaks and all of this downtime and I want to see
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somebody hit somebody. Yeah.
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And I guess I would say the rugby way allowed me to become a more efficient
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and effective player in terms of plays or downs, whatever, whatever game I was playing.
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It definitely sharpened up how I was able to not only react, but respond.
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As an athlete and as a good sport. So when you were playing American football,
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are you in the offensive or the defensive side?
24:02
I was on the, I played defense.
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So position called safety. So our fullbacks.
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Yeah. It's kind of similar to fullback.
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I play free safety and strong safety as well as cornerback. And cornerback is pretty much like wing.
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At least on the defensive side i played some wide
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receiver as well but you know all the slim guy positions i played those as well
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as uh actually a line play dn at one point when i was like maybe 135 pounds
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which is uh kind of crazy so you have to make some tackles there so this weekend
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in the NRL, it's round two.
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If you want to watch the games in America, what do you need to do?
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Is it on free-to-air? Do you need a special subscription?
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Do you have to buy it from the NRL or one of your big sporting subscribers,
25:03
ESPN or one of those, have they picked up the rugby league?
25:06
How easy is it for you to watch the game?
25:09
In terms of actually watching games, I have to do a little bit of legwork.
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Luckily, you know, you helped me out with just giving me some resources, i.e. KO.
25:22
And but I mean, stuff like specific Amazon Prime channels.
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And then, I don't know, maybe some like really, really obscure,
25:33
maybe kind of shady pirating sites sometimes.
25:38
Reggie streams. But I mean, honestly, kind of depend on the goodwill of people
25:44
who love rugby on YouTube sometimes.
25:48
Well, the NRL's got wires around this that you're able to just type in NRL highlights,
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et cetera, and they've uploaded highlights of games.
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And they put them up not long after the game concludes as well.
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So you're able to get your fix for free and legally through NRL.
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And there's also the NRL.com, but the NRL on YouTube. and I suppose the rise
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of what people do on social media around putting clips as well.
26:19
But that's good that you can get it, but it sounds like we need to do a better
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job of making sure you know that it's there and that it's available and that
26:29
it's a great product to watch.
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Now, Vegas is, you know, one of the global homes of entertainment,
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but is it the heartland of rugby league in the States If I was to ask you,
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where should we invest our time, our money? Where should we actually take a game to?
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What region is really going to really grab a hold of rugby league?
26:56
In my personal opinion, I would say the South, honestly.
27:01
And that would just be anywhere from Tennessee, Georgia, Louisiana, honestly Florida too.
27:09
Yeah. And, you know, just great, great sports cultures, but also some really
27:15
great grassroots rugby just going on.
27:20
Shout out to the Little Leagues. They are in Nashville, Tennessee,
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and also Cleveland, Ohio.
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They do a lot of great outreach and just education in terms of getting the youth
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excited about something that isn't just a sport that they know about,
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but getting them active, too.
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Now, you mentioned Tennessee, that's the home of the volunteers, and this is a,
27:45
This is something that I really love watching their highlights.
27:49
This is a university, and when they're playing football, they pack out their stadium.
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It looks like it must be close to 100,000, maybe 60, 70, 80, 90,000.
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Everyone's wearing orange. Everyone's screaming voles. This is a sporting heartland, isn't it?
28:08
Yes, sir. It really is. And, I mean, just understanding how just a game can bring people together.
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I mean, that's just why, like, the South, I think, it's an untapped gem,
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especially for, like, a market like America and just what league can do here.
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And a few weeks ago, I caught up with Kavonte Moses, who plays for the Atlanta Copperheads.
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You know, they've moved from Florida. That team's moved from Florida into Georgia now.
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So there's certainly rugby league taking place down there.
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And you, yourself, you go to college in Georgia? Yes, I do.
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I attend Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia, and the Maroon Tigers.
28:56
Yeah, great. And what are you studying?
28:59
I am studying applied physics and mechanical engineering.
29:03
How good is that? Now, Morehouse, that's a fairly famous college.
29:06
I've heard of it, and I think it's featured in a few TV and movie series over the years as well.
29:13
So how long until graduation? A couple years.
29:18
And then I will be getting a master's in biomedical engineering. How good is that?
29:27
NRL, have you got a team that you follow?
29:30
Not particularly just yet but i'm
29:33
looking at the teams and everybody is had
29:37
their own particular style of play so i'm kind of just trying to fill out who
29:41
feels at home for me now we've seen um some australians come into the nfl particularly
29:48
from australian rules football they've ended up on special teams as punters and Jordan Maialata,
29:57
who played rugby league for South Sydney Rabbitohs in the lower grades,
30:01
has just won a Super Bowl with the Philadelphia Eagles last season.
30:06
Let's try and flip the table on that. What do we need to do to entice American
30:13
footballers down under to play?
30:20
Honestly, I think it would just be like knowledge, like letting people know,
30:25
because just as there's punters, like you just said, who are in the league,
30:31
who are doing really, really well from Australia.
30:34
I think that it's really just letting people know and getting in early, too.
30:40
You know, there's tons of great collegiate talent.
30:43
We were just talking about the combine.
30:46
There's tons of D2 athletes who end up going D2, not because of lack of talent, but just spaces.
30:54
You know, there's just not enough D1 spaces who get all of the attention that, you know, they earn.
31:03
And I think it's just there's a treasure trove of athletics,
31:08
of skill, of willingness. And it's sometimes all it takes is just sharing the
31:13
love of the game to have somebody else love it, too.
31:17
And what about yourself? When you graduate in a couple of years after you've
31:20
done your master's, any chance that we can get you down under to maybe watch
31:25
an NRL game or even play some ball?
31:27
Oh, yeah, I'm definitely lacing up my boots for sure.
31:32
Yeah, absolutely. AJ, it's been so good to talk to you today about rugby league,
31:38
about your career to date and your studies as well.
31:42
If there was a parting word that you sort of could give advice to the National
31:46
Rugby League in Australia on how to grow the game in the United States, what would it be?
31:52
I would say don't ignore the little guy.
31:56
You know, the grassroots programs that already exist, the communities that are already out here.
32:01
You know all it takes is a little bit of support to get a movement going and
32:07
really enact on something that's that's marvelous and that's sharing the love
32:12
of league with everybody else.
32:15
Fantastic look it's been so good to talk to you as i
32:18
said at the top of the interview the national rugby
32:21
league we've taken our season opener to the states for the past
32:24
three years and just hearing you talk today
32:27
says to me that the game is growing in
32:30
the states that we're heading in the right direction there's a
32:33
lot more work for us to do particularly around the marketing
32:37
of of the game week in week
32:40
out to the everyday american athlete we've been talking with aj holmes multi-code
32:46
athlete american football rugby union rugby league plays for the cleveland outlaws
32:53
aj thanks so much for joining us on wcbh i appreciate you cam it's been a pleasure There we go.