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HISTORY The American All-Stars One of the earliest attempts to introduce Rugby League to the United States was in 1953, when Mike Dimitro, a wrestling promoter, was asked to organise a tour of Australasia by an American Rugby League side. The team, known as the American All-Stars, was given a huge schedule that included 26 matches against Australian and New Zealand sides. None of the 22 American players had ever played Rugby League prior to this tour, they presented themselves in Gridiron like attire early on in the tournament. The side only won six games as well as drawing two. Their second match of the tour, against a Sydney side, drew a crowd of 65,453 to the Sydney Cricket Ground . After a consistent lack of competition, crowds were good but never reached the great height that the match at the SCG did. The tour did not in turn bring any benefits to American Rugby League . Mike Dimitro did however, not give up, he was able to organise two exhibitions against Australia and New Zealand in California that did not turn out to be a big success. The return of the United States The United States played their first international in 1987 against Canada. They have participated in the World Sevens (1992-1997), Superleague World Nines (1996, 1997), Emerging Nations World Cup (2000) and Victory Cup (2003, 2004) competitions. In 2001 as a response to the September 11 incident the AMNRL setup a rugby league match between local USA born players (USA All Stars) and AMNRL players who were born overseas (World Allies All Stars). The match was won by the USA All Stars 27-26. proceeds from the game were donated to the Red Cross to help with cleanup operations. Since 2002, the Tomahawks have been playing regular international competition in the United States. In 2002, the United States were defeated by Russia 54-10 in front of over 25,000 spectators in Moscow. In 2004 they shocked the Rugby League world by leading the World Cup and Tri-Nations champions Australia for most of the game. Australia rallied in the last quarter of the game and won 36-24. CURRENT USA TOMAHAWKS TEAM For game against Italy "A" (Australian based Italian team) # Waters # Gibbs # O'Donoghue # Manners # Tulio # Duncan # Nicholas # Laffranchi # Cassidy # Hughes # Kosbob # Mathers # Blake (c) # Rahui # Howland # Shannon # Fusco FUTURE MATCHES ''See Also 2008 Rugby League World Cup Qualifying '' In October 2006 The Tomahawks were to participate in a four team Atlantic qualifying pool for the 2008 Rugby League World Cup, but South Africa and the West Indies withdrew. The Atlantic qualifying pool, as a result, was reduced to a single game between the Tomahawks and Japan . The USA won 54-18. They will now play Samoa in the Repechage round. USA REPRESENTATIVE RESULTS International Results
World Nines Results
World Sevens results
Student Results
USA U/21 Results
Other Representative Results
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