The Azzurri – a mix of Australian-born NRL stars, homegrown talent and union converts – will forgo match payments to assist development of the game in Italy

In far north Queensland, the Italian rugby league team has been sharing stories. The players come from north and south, from city and country, and can trace their heritage to native-born and immigrant forebears.



Some, like James Tedesco and Paul Vaughan, are Australian-born NRL players. Others, like Joey Tramontana, who played under-20s for the Canterbury Bulldogs this season, are hoping that good performances on the international stage will help secure a senior contract for next season. One of the greatest Italian rugby union players, Mirco Bergamasco, has converted to the 13-man code in order to play. And then there is Gioele Celerino, a hopeful 23-year-old second-rower who was born in Italy but has spent the past few months in Queensland’s far north, picking bananas in Tully and playing for a local side with the aim of being selected for the World Cup squad.

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Geographically, culturally and linguistically, this is a diverse bunch preparing for the 2017 Rugby League World Cup. But last Friday night at Callendar Park in Innisfail, when the Azzurri ran on to the field for its final warm-up match against Tonga, they did so under the slogan una famiglia (one family).

The idea originally came from the former coach Carlo Napolitano, an Englishman of Italian heritage, who took Italy to the 2013 World Cup. And just as it was in 2013, at this World Cup the Italian dressing room will feature a photo montage of parents and grandparents, along with the una famiglia slogan. Una famiglia, said Tedesco from the team hotel in Innisfail, “is [about] everyone working for each other and staying united in everything we do”.

“The first night, we came in here and shared our stories about the pride they have for the Italian heritage and how they’re connected to their Italian roots,” Tedesco said.

“It’s pretty special to hear a lot of guys who are actually from Italy share their story, and their passion for the jersey and the anthem. A lot of guys don’t know it, but we’ve worked hard to learn it all together. It’s a pretty close-knit group here — everyone’s got a similar story with their grandparents coming over for a better life.”



In the 2016 census, Italian was the sixth-most reported ancestry in Australia, and with eligibility rules allowing players to represent their grandparents’ nation of origin, Italo-Australians will form the majority of the Italian squad.

Joining Tedesco and Vaughan in the Azzurri are high-profile players such as Parramatta Eels pair Daniel Alvaro and Nathan Brown, and Jayden Walker from the Cronulla Sharks. The Minichiello brothers, Mark and Anthony, are again involved, although Anthony is now assistant to Cameron Ciraldo, who this season coached the Penrith Panthers Under-20 side to the semifinals of the Holden Cup.



There are also players from the Queensland and New South Wales competitions, such as Joel Riethmuller, Col Wilkie, and the Parata brothers Dean and Ricardo. Rising Newcastle Knights star Jack Johns, the son of NRL and Kangaroos great Matthew Johns, made headlines in August when he agreed to represent Italy.

Naturally, the selection of so many Italo-Australian players has been met with a degree of cynicism. Two of the Italy’s best players, Tedesco and Vaughan, played for the Australian Prime Minister’s XIII earlier this year, and Tedesco is a star of the NSW State of Origin side.

“There is criticism of the authenticity of it,” admits Paul Fioretto, the team’s long-term physiotherapist. Fioretto has a private practice in Leichhardt, historically the heart of Sydney’s Little Italy, and says the criticism comes from fellow Italo-Australians as well as the wider community. “A lot of older Italians don’t even believe there was rugby league in the 1950s,” he said. “A lot of them will say, ‘no, it’s all made up, there was never rugby league in Italy.’”

There is no doubting the commitment of the players, however. All of them have forgone match payments in order to assist the development of Italian rugby league. “I don’t expect any financial return, to be honest,” said Vaughan. “In order to make the Italian team as strong as possible, and get all the funding we need, I think the players will play for passion.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The una famiglia or ‘one family’ photo board curated by the Italian Rugby League World Cup team in 2013. Photograph: FIRL/Italian Federation

The fact that Mirco Bergamasco – who played 89 times for the Italian rugby union team – has converted to rugby league is considered to be a huge coup, not only for his experience but also for the image of the game in Italy. Bergamasco, 34, has been grinning from ear to ear and listening attentively as older Italo-Australians approach him in restaurants in Innisfail, and at Club Marconi in south-west Sydney.

“Australia is full of Italians,” said Bergamasco. “So, it’s funny because I hear the dialects from where their family lives. They are completely different to my dialect. I’m from the north. I understand a little bit, it’s great. Sometimes I smile because you are thousands of kilometres from Italy, and you speak a language that I can understand, but is completely different to my dialect! I love it. It’s an amazing experience.”



The football manager, Mick Pezzano, believes Bergamasco brings “a lot of credibility” to rugby league. “People back home, back in Italy, see a player who has played at the highest level who is now coming and learning a new game,” said Pezzano.

In Begamasco there are shades of Vincenzo Bertolotto, Italy’s first great cross-code international. In the 1950s Betolotto converted from rugby union to rugby league, joining a club side in Torino and helping to organise an Italian national team to tour England, France and Wales. The rugby union authorities did not approve, threatening to ban those who also played rugby league, and the Italian government refused to recognise the sport which starved it of funding and legitimacy. By the 1970s rugby league had effectively ceased to exist in Italy.

The country’s rugby league renaissance began in the autumn of 1993, when Pezzano wrote an article in Sydney’s Italian newspaper, La Fiamma, in the hope of attracting players for a national team to compete at the World Sevens tournament. John Benigni, who had played first grade rugby league in Sydney, spotted the article.

“My parents used to buy La Fiamma to look through the soccer results and all the sports results from overseas,” remembered Benigni. “I read the article that he had written, rang him and asked if he needed players. I played union over in Italy in the mid-1980s, and I said I knew a few players that would be alright for it, so it started from there.

“We put a proposal to the Australian Rugby League, got knocked back, and then in 1994 we had another go. We met a guy called Colin Love, who was the original promoter of the World Sevens, and with his help we were able to get in.”

The article that started Italian rugby league, in Sydney-based Italian newspaper La Fiamma, from Monday 24 May 1993. Photograph: Mick Pezzano collection

Benigni became the manager, Pezzano the coach. Paul Fioretto was recruited after giving a lecture on sports injuries at Club Marconi. Orazio D’Arro, who played club football in Brisbane, was made captain. The rest were a motley crew of Italians recruited from rugby union. Many had watched State of Origin matches from afar and were intrigued to play a different form of rugby. The results were mixed, with many of the recent converts still hazy on the finer points of rugby league, but a foundation had been laid.

All four men are still involved in some capacity. Pezzano is the football manager, Fioretto has been the physiotherapist since 1995, Benigni is a keen supporter and occasionally pops in for pre-match pep-talks, and D’Arro is the president of the Federazione Italiana Rugby League (FIRL), which was established in 2008.

After the breakthrough World Sevens tournament in 1995, the Italian side continued to play international matches and attempted to qualify for the World Cup in 2000. It was slow going. Italians are obsessed with soccer, and rugby union is a marginal sport. Introducing another code of rugby was always going to be difficult.



In Australia, however, there was a significant breakthrough in 2006 when Club Marconi in the south-west of Sydney agreed to back a rugby league side. Benigni wrote the proposal, Pezzano organised the meeting with the board, and the Marconi Mustangs Junior Rugby League Club was born.

“Marconi is known as one of the strongest soccer clubs this country has had, so it didn’t go down too well with some of the faithful there,” explained Reno Santaguida, the president of Federazione Italiana Rugby League Australia (FIRLA). “But we chipped away and I ended up becoming president of the Marconi Mustangs. We had under-6s all the way to A-grade. We won an A-grade competition in the Parramatta comp, which is a massive achievement.”

Marconi Mustangs has since been a home of sorts to Firla, the Australian branch of the Italian federation. Joey Tramontana, for example, came through Firla and played all his junior football with Marconi before playing in the National Youth Competition. Australian-born, Tramontana qualifies for Italy through his Calabrian grandmother, Cathy, who drove him to all his junior matches.

“It’s only because of her that I was able to play rugby league,” he said. “My parents worked on Saturdays. They said, ‘If you want to play footy, go and ask her.’ She jumped at the opportunity. So everything I do at the World Cup will be because of her.”

The biggest concern for Firl, however, is the development of players in Italy. There are clubs in three regions, including sides such as Lions Brescia, Spartans Catania and Brianza Tigers. It is still very much an amateur concern, with the games played in summer to avoid clashing with rugby union, but there are now also women’s teams, school sides, and even a wheelchair rugby league team.

“Rugby league is being played from Sicily all the way up to the French-Italian border, where we have a team called the Saluzzo Roosters playing in the French competition,” said D’Arro.

“Rugby union is an extreme elitist sport, the top echelon of people, so rugby league is truly going to the working class and the grassroots. We’re attracting a lot of people who aren’t accepted elsewhere.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Rugby League World Cup 2017 captains, including Mark Minichiello of Italy. Photograph: Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images

Everyone involved in Firla is extremely proud of the progress of Gioele Celerino, who converted to rugby league five years ago and has been part of the national team for the past four years. He played in Italy’s famous victory over England in 2013, and was the only Italian-born player at the 2013 World Cup. He believes the game in Italy is “a new movement”.

Celerino has played for Saluzzo Roosters, the Italian team in the French competition, as well as the Newcastle Thunder in England. In July this year, he moved to far north Queensland to play for Tully Tigers in the Cairns competition.

Adjusting to life in small country town was not easy, especially the daily grind of waking at 5am to pick bananas for eight hours before footy training, but in his first two games for Tully he was named man of the match. When I interviewed Celerino in late July, just after those man-of-the-match performances, he told me that he had “finally found the confidence to play at my best”. After the World Cup he is keen to stay in Australia to improve his game.

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“He’s a guy who was born in Italy, and he begin to do a sport that not many people know in Italy,” said Bergamasco. “He took his opportunity in England, came for three months in Tully, work in the morning, train in the afternoon and play on the weekend. It’s not easy. It’s a big choice. I hope after the World Cup he will have more opportunity … I’m proud [of him] because he chose something important, and something that can become big if we work hard in Italy.”

According to D’Arro, progress at the World Cup is inextricably linked to the progress of the domestic game. By fielding players such as Bergamasco and high-profile Italo-Australians, the Italian side has been able to raise the profile of the sport in Italy and attract better commercial sponsors. The money earned will be funnelled into the national team, into purchasing new equipment for Italian clubs, and into promoting rugby league back home.

“Money isn’t a real issue for us,” said Vaughan. “I will play for the passion and love for the Italian side. It’s better to put the money into something else so we can get stronger each year and be more competitive.”

The Italians play their opening match against Ireland in Cairns, before travelling south to Townsville to play the US, and Canberra to play Fiji. They are hoping that thousands of Italo-Australians who love rugby league will latch onto the una famiglia concept.

“We’re all working toward one cause, and I think for us, that’s to make the quarter-finals,” said Tedesco. “I think we can definitely do that if we start the campaign strong. We’re all looking forward to getting out there and playing together.”