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NFL teams impressed by athleticism of giant 6'8, 157kg rugby league player
By Ian Cameron
If there's one thing that is bound to spark interest from NFL scouts, it's size; and former South Syndey Rabbitohs forward Jordan Mailata has plenty.
The 6'8, 157kg forward had been attendance at a Pro Day in Florida and the youngster's enormous size has piqued the interest of a number of teams, including the Cincinnati Bengals.
While he faces an uphill battle to come to terms with incredible technical nature of the game, the fact that he is listed as 'international player' stands to the giant youngster's favour.
Each team is allowed an extra international spot on top of their 10 man practice squad as the NFL seeks to find playing talent from outside the US, largely in order to market the game outside of the United States, a task that has so far largely eluded the sport.
According to NFL.com "Mailata measured just shy of 6-foot-8 and weighed 346 pounds. His arms measured a massive 35.5 inches. He was timed at 5.12 seconds in the 40-yard dash, which would have been good for seventh among tackle participants at the NFL Combine in February. He also excelled in the short shuttle with a time (4.67 seconds) that would have been among the top 10 at his position. Mailata put up 22 reps on the bench press.
"I felt today went well," Mailata was quoted as saying on NFL.com. "This was my first chance to go through the positional drills in front of teams and I hope they got a chance to see the progress I have made as I try to master the position."
He impressed at the Rabbitohs as an U20s prospect, but has now set his eyes on a big money career with the NFL.
"Playing with him in the under 20s, you just had to give him the ball 10 metres out and no one could stop him from that close to the line," Rabbitohs halfback Adam Doueihi told NRL.com. "Last year he was unstoppable, and he actually hurt a few kids because he was such a big kid."
Although Mailata came into the Rabbitohs environment weighing over a 160kg, they successfully got him down to a rugby league fit 145kg bodyweight. However, with the low cardio demands of the NFL, he has balooned back up to 157kg, or just shy of 25 stone.
As the above Tweet shows, he's been working out alongside former Worcester Warrior secondrow Christian Scotland-Williamson.
Scotland-Williamson left Warriors at the end of December and headed out to Florida to work with NFL coaches and like Mailata, hopes to earn a place on an NFL team roster for the 2018 season.
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Latest Comments
Cough. Cough.
I’m not sure having the guy who cost you the last game you lost to the ABs in the side as a consultant is a hot idea. Poor timing.
6 Nations. Maybe. This is a bad omen for the Irish.
Upgrading my prediction from ABs by 1 point to ABs by 5 points.
Go to commentsThe problem for me isn't the pragmatic playstyle, it's that there is no attacking gameplan whatsoever.
I've got no issue with a methodical, kick heavy, defense centric gameplan. That playstyle won England our only world cup and it's won SA 4 of them. However! You can play in a pragmatic manner but you have to still play heads-up rugby and have the ability to turn it on when you manufacture prime attacking situations. England work very hard to get in the right areas of the pitch and have no idea how to convert when they get there, hence we tried and missed 3 drop goals as we were completely impotent in the 22. I've not seen any improvement in our attack in the last 4-5 years. The only time we got close to the tryline was from an interception, it's embarrassing. I don't know what Richard Wigglesworth is getting paid for.
I agree that England should have found a way to close out that game. Being able to grind out tough games is critical but I'd argue that being unable to string more than a couple of passes together without dropping it and finding a way to get over the gainline is even more important... But frustratingly, they don't seem interested. All you hear is about how close we are to bring a great team, we just need to execute a bit better. I don't see it. I see a team who are very physical, very pragmatic who do some stuff really well and are useless with the ball in hand which adds up to a very average side. They need to stop focusing on getting 5% better at the stuff we're already at an 8/10 level and focus on getting a lot better at the stuff we're doing at a 2/10 level. We have the worst attack of pretty much any side in the world... Argentina, Scotland, Fiji are way more threatening.
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