RUGBY league’s Toronto Wolfpack has beaten the NFL to become the first trans-Atlantic sports team — and a one-time NFL hopeful hopes to join their charge into history.

When the Canadian outfit makes its debut in the Kingstone Press League 1 next season, they could be packing the added punch of Monte Gaddis, a college football linebacker turned rugby league second-rower from Cleveland.

“Man, I love it. It’s still football to me,” Gaddis said of his new-found code.

“We kick the ball, we tackle, we run the ball, so it’s still football in my eyes and I just love the way that we have six downs to get a try. It’s a similar game, just a lot quicker.”

Toronto’s emergence as the home to North America’s first professional rugby league team is a fascinating one.

While rugby league has the tendency to dream small and live within itself, the Wolfpack can’t help but be ambitious.

media_camera A former linebacker, Gaddis has fallen in love with rugby league.

The NFL has flirted with the idea of a team in London for years but they’ve been beaten to a piece of sporting history by a mob that will run around in the third tier of British rugby league.

Rugby league has been played in America since the 1980s and the USARL currently boasts a robust, 14-team competition. Canada has three competitions, one in Alberta, one in British Columbia and one in Ontario.

While their beginnings are humble, the Wolfpack represent an exciting, professional, possibility for the entire code.

Part of that possibility is Gaddis, who played college football at Towson University and professionally for the Gdynia Seahawks in Poland and in the Indoor Football League for the Iowa Barnstormers before the opportunity came up to trial for the Wolfpack.

When the 24-year old began he didn’t understand the difference between rugby league and rugby union. Now he can’t get enough of the 13-man game — and he reckons his fellow Americans can follow suit.

media_camera The Wolfpack scored a win in their first ever match.

“I think that rugby league really has a chance to go well with the Canadians and Americans because it gives guys like me, football players, another outlet to impress and a chance to play football,” Gaddis said.

“It’s a very aggressive game (and) that’s what we love in America. Since we haven’t been playing it for so long I definitely think it has a chance to grow. I know for sure that I have open eyes with that.”

Gaddis is a player of uncommon drive — when he wanted a trial with the Cleveland Browns in 2015 he camped outside their practice facility until they gave him a shot — and he’s one of several former American football players who have had a go at this strange new game.

The Wolfpack have cast their net wide ahead of their 2017 debut, holding trials in Toronto, Philadelphia, Tampa, Kingston and Vancouver in an effort to cultivate homegrown talent for their first match against London Skolars in March.

Gaddis joined 17 other finalists to head to the UK in December for the Wolfpack’s first trial match, a clash with Brighouse Rangers, with the knowledge that a good performance could be enough to earn a roster spot.

Like many of the trialists, Gaddis is still finding his way with the skills side of the game. But he loves the contact and the collisions and relishes the constant intensity.

“I’m still a student of the game so I’m still learning a lot of things every day,” he said. “Learning game IQ and having experience is probably the hardest part.

“The different tackling too, I find I have to tackle more fundamentally with technique and up a little higher rather than the football equivalent where I could just dive at someone’s legs or just lunge at someone.

“It (the tour) was what I expected and a little more. But the training was awesome. I love how intense it always this. I’m trying to take rugby league very far.”

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Coming off the bench and playing second-row in the 28-26 comeback win, this was the first game of rugby league Gaddis had played in his entire life.

“Once I got in I made sure I didn’t have any missed tackles, coming into the game with impact,” Gaddis said.

“(I was) telling the coach my strong points were my defensive standpoints, putting pressure on the kicks, coming down and tackling off the kick-offs and hyping my players up.

“I really didn’t get a chance to run the ball as much as I wanted to but that’s a play that’s going to happen once I get more game experience.”

The majority of the team’s roster has come from England. Wakefield winger Craig Hall, Sheffield Eagles fullback Quentin Laulu-Togaga’e and Warrington pair James Laithwaite and Gary Wheeler are the marquee signings thus far but the star of the show will be Fuifui Moimoi.

Even though he’s 36, Moimoi is a cult hero waiting to happen and after two years with Leigh Centurions he’s followed coach Paul Rowley to Toronto.

media_camera Moimoi is the Wolfpack’s star signing.

Moimoi and Gaddis also hit it off straight away during the development tour to England.

“That’s a legend right there. I want to give him thanks because he’s been a big part of my inspiration with the rugby league,” Gaddis said.

“I’ve been watching his highlights and when I first got a chance to meet him we hit it off, we’re something like almost best friends even though I’ve only known him for a couple of weeks.

“He really loves me and my personality and the way I work hard.”

Of the 18 who went to England, three were offered a contract but Gaddis missed out.

Quinn Ngawati, formerly of the British Columbia Bulldogs, Jacksonville Axemen second-rower Joe Eichner and Nathan Campbell, who had been running around for the Duhaney Park Red Sharks in Jamaica, got the call instead.

Gaddis isn’t discouraged. He has another tryout for the Wolfpack lined up in a couple of months

Gaddis is now a rugby league man and therein lays the true potential of the Wolfpack.

Former Great Britain coach Brian Noble, who has joined the club as their director of rugby, once said “everyone loves rugby league, we just need to show them” and the Wolfpack give the game a consistent visibility and high-level presence in a part of the rugby league world that has never had it before.

Earning even the tiniest slice of the vast and untapped North American market would be an incredible boost for the game, especially with the ambitious decision to take the 2025 World Cup to this brave new world.

It won’t happen overnight, but the Wolfpack are a team of endless possibilities.