I can’t remember when a piece of rugby news has excited me as much as the report that moves are afoot to include the USA in Super Rugby.

There is so much about this that makes sense: from World Rugby’s perspective, it would open a huge new market, with Americans said to be itching to jump on board the rugby train, if only an appropriate outlet for their latent passions could be found. Some estimates have it that as many as 40 or 50 Americans are currently huge fans of rugby, and that number could double or treble with a Super franchise.

Geographically it is a slam dunk as well: after all, it is Super Rugby Pacific, and America is sitting right there on the Pacific, ridiculously excluded. With Los Angeles a short 14-hour hop from Sydney, it’s amazing it hasn’t already happened. Establishing an SRP presence in California would be the first step towards embracing the entire Pacific: teams in Shanghai and Vladivostok could be up and running by the mid-2030s.

And yet, despite my excitement, something about the proposal sounded a note of caution in my mind. Perhaps it was a sort of parochial selfishness: after all, as a patriotic Australian, I would not necessarily be over the moon if World Rugby’s plan to make the United States competitive for the 2031 World Cup came to fruition – the last thing the Wallabies need in the near future is another country that can beat them.

There are a hell of lot of people in America, and most of them are angry and want to hit someone. Bringing them into the rugby fold might make sense from an expansionistic point of view, but it’s unlikely to be good news for our men in gold.

It’s a worry. But the idea of a US foray does interest me: I just think we’re looking in the wrong direction. Instead of trying to drag Americans into our universe, we should be trying to infiltrate theirs. In other words, rather than founding an American franchise in Super Rugby, Rugby Australia should be entering its own team in the NFL.

Think about it: an American football team comprising the best Australian rugby talent, heading to the States to beat them at their own game. Now THERE is something that would unite Australia in pride and support for our brave warriors. There is something that would prove the physical and mental superiority of the noble rugbyist over the simple-minded lunks of gridiron. There is a money-spinner to end local administrations’ financial woes forever.

Now, I am not an expert on the American game: I do not know the intricacies of the rules or have close familiarity with the status of the NFL competition as it is currently played; so it’s a good thing that I do not care. What I do know is that Australians have already proven their natural ability to play the sport – from Jordan Mailata to Colin Scotts to Saverio Rocca to Costas Mandylor, Aussies have proven that they are in fact better at American football than Americans are.

Jordan Mailata gets emotional after the Eagles defeated the San Francisco 49ers 31-7 in the NFC Championship game. (Photo by Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images)

American football is, after all, extremely easy to play: much easier than rugby union. In American football you can pass the ball forward, so in that respect it’s the same as rugby, but in other ways the games differ considerably. In rugby, for example, the ball is in play for around 35 minutes of the full 80, but in American football, the ball is in play for around 40-50 seconds out of the eight or so hours that a game lasts.

Yes, there are myriad ways in which a Rugby Australia-backed NFL team makes sense, if only the stuffed shirts at RA have the will to think outside the stifling box they’ve always lived in and realise that their insistence that rugby players confine themselves to playing rugby is holding the game, and the nation back. It is time that we all admitted that Jordan Petaia was right all along: the future is American and heavily padded, and if RA wants to start kicking goals on the world stage, they better make sure they do so through weird-shaped goalposts.

This leaves plenty of time for tactical discussion and naps, which will come as a great relief to many of our rugby stars. American football also requires players to wear helmets, which would eliminate the number one complaint that many fans have about Australian rugby: the haircuts.

Jordan Petaia. (Photo by Rodrigo Valle/Getty Images)

It’s also a fact that many of the skills rugby players have honed over the years would be brilliantly suited to the American game. A significant portion of the players on a gridiron team, for example, are given the task of simply being enormous and getting in people’s way. You can’t deny that there are quite a few players – I’m not naming names and I suspect I do not have to – currently playing Super Rugby who are actually better suited to this role than the one they currently play.

And look at the kickers. In the NFL, all kicks at goal are taken from directly in front of the posts. Imagine the relief that our goalkickers would feel if they were allowed this luxury. And the kickers don’t have to do anything BUT kick, which would seriously play to some of our fellows’ strengths.

And then there’s the ways in which rugby practice would enhance the game. Imagine, for example, the art of lineout jumping transferred to American football. Just set a jumper and two lifters in the endzone, whip the ball in, hoist them high, and bang, touchdown – and in American football, a touchdown doesn’t require you to actually touch the ball down, so that annoying little chore is out of the way.

Let us look to the States for the great leap forward, but let’s not sully our great game with an American presence, let’s sully theirs with ours. That’ll learn ’em.