American rugby sevens player Adam Channel says making an NRL debut would be on par with featuring at the Olympics after he was selected among four winners at the league's Las Vegas combine.
Channel, Marcus D'Acre, Renee Gonzalez and Maria Isabel Arzuaga Gonzalez were hand-picked from 50 entrants at the combine held in Vegas as part of the NRL's second trip to the US.
Each is in the running to receive a development deal at an NRL or NRLW club for 2025.
No combine winner went on to train with a club in 2024, but there is a sense this year's recruits are better prepared because all have an elite rugby pedigree.
Canadian D'Acre has played top-level rugby in Canada, Singapore and New Zealand, while Arzuaga Gonzalez and Gonzalez respectively play for Colombia and Canada in sevens.
Channel, meanwhile, featured in the USA's sevens campaign at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The NRL has also introduced financial incentives to sway clubs into helping develop the fledgling pathway from the US to Australia.
Any development deal for combine winners will be exempt from the club's salary cap, and the NRL will foot half the bill.
If clubs choose to take the player on for 2026, they will need to include their salary in the cap.
D'Acre and Channel are also poised for easy transitions to life in Australia.
Channel, 28, has New Zealand heritage, and 20-year-old D'Acre's father is from Melbourne, so neither is likely to face visa issues if signed to an NRL club.
Both men are dreaming of playing in the outside backs at NRL level, with D'Acre already approached by North Queensland.
"If you ask anyone who went to the Olympics, they'll say it's the greatest sporting achievement of their life, and it was, 100 per cent," said Channel, who hails from Long Beach, California.
"Knowing the grand scale of the NRL, and the presence that it has in Australia, having the opportunity to hopefully debut one day in an NRL side is close to par with that feeling of playing in the Olympics, in my opinion.
"I've got such a massive love for the game of rugby league. If one day I get the opportunity to debut, it'd mean the absolute world to me."
The two men follow rugby league, but the two women have come to league a little later.
Renee Gonzalez only began learning the ins and outs of the rules during the week, but has found an unlikely teacher in Russell Crowe.
The Oscar-winning actor narrates the video the NRL produced to educate Americans about rugby league's rules ahead of the 2024 Vegas games, and Gonzalez has watched it many times.
"It's just studying the game. I've watched a few Jillaroos games actually, which was helpful," said Gonzalez, who hails from Vancouver Island.
"I'm a visual learner, so I have to be on the field doing the game. I've still a lot to learn, but I'm excited about this opportunity."
