1
The Andy Reid verdict on Louis Rees-Zammit's Kansas City Chiefs debut
By Liam Heagney
The online reaction was mixed regarding the American football debut made by Louis Rees-Zammit last Saturday in Jacksonville, but his Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid has given a more positive verdict on the former rugby international’s cameo in the 13-26 pre-season loss.
Back in training ahead of next Saturday’s home pre-season fixture versus Detroit Lions at Arrowhead Stadium, Reid was asked for his thoughts on how the 23-year-old ex-Gloucester and Wales rugby player did during his fleeting debut involvement.
“Listen, it was exciting for him to have a chance to get in there and play,” enthused Reid, the maestro who has coached the Chiefs to four SuperBowl title victories in the last five seasons.
“It’s faster than what he has seen in practice, so from an experience standpoint it was great for him. That was a positive and then just build on it.”
Reid’s judgement, given in a media briefing video uploaded to the Kansas club website, was followed by a social media post on X showing a nine-second training ground clip of Rees-Zammit in action. Titled ‘Can’t catch lightning, but Rees-Lightning can catch’, the NFL apprentice was recorded catching a throw on the run from quarterback Chris Oladokun.
Regarding his American football debut at the Jaguars, Rees-Zammit posted a collection of pictures from the game in Florida on his Instagram account. Those photos were accompanied by the message: “Time to learn from every moment and get better.”
Trending on RugbyPass
2
'All of our own doing': John Mitchell's warning for England
3
Ex-All Black stars for Toulon in last-gasp win
4
Bidding war heating up for 6'6, 18 stone centre Zack Wimbush
5
Latest Comments
Well Nick, you're on the money again.
As a player of league and union and follower and occasional coach at basic levels I can say it is if anything worse.
My take is that somehow or other once we had gone pro, and become a top 2 or 3 team (early naughties) the hubris took over.
At high levels (NSW and Sydney RU in my experience), the money that had previously trickled to things like coach the coaches and special days was redirected to "elite" players and (worst of all) previously unpaid board directors.
We were left with "I want to be a Wallaby" stickers!
There was an actual belief that we had become good because of some inate natural skill we had.
No acknowledgement of coaches or hard work or any activity at all outside of Private Schools.
The ant-league sentiment was palpable, and that alone drove kids playing in my son's West Habour Pirates team away from the game. They were told that they couldn't play League on Sundays and Union on Saturdays by the SRU.
Coaches (including assistant coaches like me) were told to force kids to go to Waratah games after their game. Coach the coaches was replaced by a SRU chap talking over us at training and telling the boys not to tackle low like "mungos", throw the lightest kid up in lineouts, not the tallest. There were many ridiculous things that the kids just laughed at.
The inability to pick out a good player or teach basic skills to anyone went with handing coaching responsibility at representative levels to chaps based on the school they went to, irrespective of whether they had ever played or ever coached.
The money with professionalism had the completely opposite effect to what it should have had when it came to trivial things like skills, coaching and selection.
Rave over...
Go to commentsBut Izack didn't stick around.
Go to comments