Peru Rugby League will create history this weekend when they host their first game of Rugby League ever played in Peru.

The match will feature the Lobos Wolves and the Los Caimanes Crocs and will be played March 8th (15:00 local time), at the La Querencia ground in Lurin, which is one of three valleys in the nations capital of Lima. The La Querencia venue holds special significance for the sport in Peru as it is the same ground where the first ever Rugby League training session in the South American nation was held at the start of November last year.

The Lobos and Caimanes clubs both come from the north, with the players deriving from Rugby Union clubs and other sports after being sounded out by Peru Rugby League President Jaime Perez.

“I had only started recruiting players in Peru during October 2019 after we played our first International game between Peru vs Uruguay in Sydney (Sept 15th). The team comprised of Peru heritage players living in Australia as Rugby League did not exist in Peru,” Perez told Everything Rugby League.

“After personally engaging Rugby Union clubs and other athletes to gauge interest, I decided to travel to Peru with coaching support where we conducted our very first training session on November the 1st. Thereafter, as the playing pool grew, we started weekly training sessions in December up through to now so we could train and educate the players in Rugby League.

“Fortunately I was able to discover a coach living in Lima, Kiwi Mose Tokuma, whom had played and knows Rugby League well and has been training all of our players since then.”

The match is a major step towards Peru Rugby League’s goal of creating a domestic Rugby League competition which will also help in furthering their plans to become a recognised member of the International Rugby League.

“I have been busy organising the recent match against Brasil and the Peru domestic game, but after this weekends game we are fully committed to starting on the application process which has been discussed with the committee. We plan to apply for observer status with the IRL within three months.

“Naturally, we will keep recruiting in order to obtain at least four domestic teams so we meet the criteria for membership in 2020 which is our priority” he said.

Peru Rugby League will be live streaming the game via their facebook page and encourages everyone to tune in.

“We will be live streaming the domestic game. It is pretty much unprecedented in Lima to showcase a domestic non-professional game to the world. This was very important for me since I need a working product for the Peruvian public to see that will assist further growth in development, sponsorship and recruitment.” he stated.

To get in touch with PRL, feel free to contact Jamie directly on +61411 744 587