Academy director Tony Diprose led a delegation from south-west London to San Francisco as part of an investment in the burgeoning if unsettled US game

Last weekend in California, the former England and Lions No8 Tony Diprose and other Harlequins staff attended the finals of the Cal Cup, at the home of the San Francisco Golden Gate club.



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“Todd Clever was playing,” Diprose said, down the phone from the other coast, “and he’s the most-capped Eagle of all time, along with a number of guys who have been involved in USA level and played in the pro league last year.

“But there were also some raw, untapped people who had probably only being playing rugby for a year, maybe. What there certainly was was a lot of potential.”

Quins’ presence in northern California, and before it Washington state, was all about potential, as part of their partnership with and investment in USA Rugby. Diprose, Quins’ academy and global development director, and others coached men and women at high schools and at Stanford University – a lot of the time indoors as a historic storm battered otherwise drought-stricken parts.

Indicating the strength of Californian rugby union, they also attended a youth festival in Sacramento which Diprose said had “90 teams there and looked just like what I’d see if I went down to Dorking minis”.

Most of the trip was about such work, amongst the grass roots of the American game. The Quins coaches also visited the Seattle Seahawks – prompting the kind of awe about budgets and facilities expressed by London Irish when they bunked with the New York Jets last March – and to the NBA’s Sacramento Kings.

Those sessions were less about converting wide receivers to wings or point guards to props than “sharing ideas and thoughts” about nurturing top young talent, Diprose said. Still, a Seahawk or two will make a return visit to the Stoop in March.

San Francisco being the gold rush city – and Golden Gate playing on Treasure Island, no less – there is always a chance you might pan a nugget from the stream while you’re there.

“It would be fantastic for Harlequins to find the next Samu Manoa,” Diprose said. “Clearly that would be a return on our investment.”

It would: Manoa, a superb back five forward raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, went from the Golden Gate club to Northampton Saints. He now plays for Toulon.

“It might be a youth player, it might a senior player,” Diprose said. “The world of rugby is getting smaller. Clearly we’re interested in developing our own talent and I’m a large part of that in terms of managing the academy. But that doesn’t mean you have to be insular either. You have to look outside your own four walls.”

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In one sense, Quins’ presence illustrated a dilemma facing the US game. USA Rugby’s sanctioned professional league, PRO Rugby, completed its first season last year. Most of its players were homegrown and many were very impressive indeed. The national teams made the Rio Olympics. The profile of rugby is growing.

But Quins are not the only people paying serious attention. Last year the Aviva Premiership staged a game in New Jersey, meant to be the first of three. The chief executive of the Pro 12, meanwhile, mused about putting teams in the US and Canada. That coincided with problems within PRO Rugby and in its relationship with USA Rugby, which remain to be publicly resolved. Out west, Super Rugby has been considering a franchise for some time.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest US Eagles fly-half Kimber Rozier coaches at Stanford University. Photograph: Harlequins

The question is, does such abundant foreign interest bode well for American rugby, in terms of helping it to grow, or does it detract from attempts to create a genuinely strong game from within?

Quins, who have put money down, have a little experience of the difficulties that can arise when raw US talent meets the world game. In 2016 Langilangi Haupeakui, a Bay Area No8, shot like a “human locomotive” from the Sacramento Express in PRO Rugby. He trained with Quins but secured a contract with Glasgow Warriors. His time there has not been easy, however, and he recently returned to the US.

“It’s not a simple situation, there isn’t one size fits all,” Diprose said. “Samu has obviously managed it but it’s a big ask to do that, to move your family halfway round the world for a sport that isn’t in US culture.

“There is raw and untapped talent here and we have committed to being a part of it, to do what we can do. Will that lead to a top-quality American Eagle playing for us at Harlequins? That would be brilliant but there are no guarantees.”

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In fact, Diprose had a top-quality Eagle with him, the fly-half Kimber Rozier. She and Gary Street, who coached England’s world champion women in 2014, took sessions at Bishop O’Dowd high school in Oakland and at Stanford.

The Cal Cup, meanwhile, was won by OMBAC, from San Diego and a long-term power of the west coast game. The competition is in its first year and includes clubs previously part of the Pacific Rugby Premiership, a competition currently on hold amidst the uncertainty surrounding the US men’s game.

PRO Rugby remains on uncertain ground, in Diprose’s diplomatic phrasing having excited most observers in year one but now sitting “not where everyone would want it to be”.

“The concept is right,” he said. “The US is dying for something at that professional level below the international game. It needs that step up for its best players and a professional league would help.”

In California, help was what Harlequins were offering. They went back to London with advice, from the Seahawks and Kings, and plenty to ponder about rugby and its place in America.