Alexis Creek’s Jake Ilnicki is taking his rugby talents south of the border.
The 24-year-old tighthead prop specialist and member of the Canadian national rugby team announced earlier this week he signed a deal with PRO Rugby’s San Diego club.
PRO Rugby will begin its inaugural season April 17 with five teams — San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento, Denver and Ohio — and 12 regular season games with the intention of growing the sport in North America.
Ilnicki said he was contacted by the league, along with fellow Canadian teammates, about playing in the professional league’s first season.
“They’ve been looking for international players to take the spots,” he said. “Canada was going to put a team in but decided not to, to see how it goes. I said I’d be available and here we are.”
Ilnicki will join two other Canadians, Phil Mackenzie and Hubert Buydens, with the team in San Diego.
“I’m super excited to get down there and play with a couple Canadian guys in this new pro league and just loving the support from back home still,” he said.
“I’m very hopeful it’s going to be tough competition and the way it’s been put together so far it looks like it from the players they’ve signed, it’s really exciting. It will be a really good year to set the bar and keep the competition to build on.”
Playing in the league also will not affect Ilnicki’s status as a member of Team Canada. Players in the league will be free to join up with their respective national teams once the regular season is over for international play.
“I’ll be back with Team Canada in June to play those next three [international] games,” he said.
Ilnicki said PRO Rugby is modelling its league based on what other countries have successfully done.
The sport, while gaining steam in North America, is still relatively unpopular in comparison to other professional sports such as football, baseball and basketball.
“Other countries have been doing it and they have their pro leagues and they’ve been successful,” he said, comparing it to the way Major League Soccer has grown since its inception in 1996 with 10 teams.
Since then the league has expanded to 20 teams and has a massive following throughout North America.
Ilnicki first came to national attention as the captain of the Canadian under-20 team that competed at the 2012 World Rugby Junior Trophy tournament in Salt Lake City. He won his first senior cap a year later against Georgia and in 2014 earned his first test start against the U.S. Eagles in Sacramento.
In 2014 he went on to play for New South Wales Country Eagles in the Australia National Rugby Championship (NRC) and started five matches.
After a standout display with Team Canada at the Pacific Challenge in Fiji, he returned to Australia in 2015 to play for Eastern Suburbs in Sydney’s Shute Shield competition, before being recalled to the Canadian squad.
Also a player for the Castaway Wanderers in the Canadian Direct Insurance Premier League, he most recently started the first three matches of the new Americas Rugby Championship, however, an injury knocked him out of the South American leg of the tournament. The most recent of his 12 international starts came against Brazil in Langford.
– With files from the Americas Rugby Union
