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Rugby league football is a sport in the United States. While rugby league has been played in the United States since 1954, with Australia and New Zealand playing games there on the return from the Rugby League World Cup in France, serious attempts to start the sport in the United States began only in the late 1970s. The establishment of a national team and a domestic competition in the late 20th century has seen more recent progress. The United States national rugby league team, previously known as the Tomahawks, now the Hawks, has participated with some regularity in international competition since 1987. In 1998 the country's first domestic competition, the American National Rugby League (AMNRL), was launched. A semi-professional league, it is predominantly based in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states. The national team and the AMNRL are affiliated to the Rugby League International Federation, the sport's world governing body. In 2011 a new domestic competition, the USA Rugby League, was announced. ==History== Games related to rugby football were played in the United States in the early 19th century. During this time the sports had no fixed rules, and were particularly popular in universities and college preparatory schools in the Northeastern United States. The sport of American football evolved from these intercollegiate games. Meanwhile, in England a schism developed in rugby football between those who favored strict amateurism and those who felt that players should be compensated for time taken off work to play rugby. Many Northern English industrial towns tended to be poorer, the working-class players often working in industries that had long hours of manual labour for which they would not get paid for time off. Amateur status for players in these towns was therefore not just financially difficult, but also physically demanding due to the nature of their work. In 1895 this resulted in the formation of a break-away professional sport, rugby league, the rules of the two codes of rugby (union and league) would themselves diverge. The bulk of the clubs conforming to the new sport consisted of Northern English towns. Whilst the new form of rugby was taken to countries such as France and Australia, American rugby continued to be played solely under rugby union rules. The sport was eclipsed by American football and was confined to California by the time of the 1920 Olympics. In 1939, the Californian Rugby Football Union wrote to the governing body of rugby league, the Rugby Football League, to tell them they wanted to switch from rugby union and affiliate to the RFL. In June 1939, the RFL made plans to send a delegation out to California but were unable to do so due to the outbreak of World War II. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rugby league in the United States」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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