from rugby league in Sydney to a second NFL Super Bowl

Jordan Mailata is an Australian-born NFL star who plays for the Philadelphia Eagles as an offensive left tackle. This position favours very tall, heavy and strong athletes who also possess good footwork, agility and tactical awareness.

His main job is to protect his quarterback and provide gaps for his running backs to run through.

Mailata is one of four Australians to play in a Super Bowl, with the others being punters (kickers) Ben Graham, Arryn Siposs and Mitch Wishnowsky.

Unfortunately, no Australian has won the game that matters most every year but Mailata has a chance in his second Super Bowl, against the Kansas City Chiefs on Monday morning.

So, how did Mailata reach the pinnacle of his “new” sport?

Read more: It's the most American of sports, so why is the NFL looking to Melbourne for international games?

A rugby league giant

Mailata’s initial sporting success came in rugby league.

He played in the Canterbury Bankstown Bulldogs under-18 team and was offered a contract by the South Sydney Rabbitohs under-20 team. Both of these clubs are part of the elite National Rugby League (NRL) competition.

Mailata, who still hadn’t reached his 21st birthday when offered the Rabbitohs contract, stood out as a giant even in professional rugby league circles at 203cm and 147 kilograms.

But after fainting during a rugby league training session, he was diagnosed with a heart condition that required surgery. He then became even bigger, reportedly tipping the scales at close to 170kg.

Ultimately, this resulted in some of the South Sydney staff and sport agents suggesting American football might be a better option for someone of his stature and physical capacities.

Tranasferring his talent

This brings us to what is known as “talent transfer”.

In high-performance sport, talent transfer refers to a high-level athlete from one sport transferring to another based on their existing skills and physical capacities.

This can be done for a number of reasons, like injury, burnout, loss of interest, or, in the case of Mailata, finding another sport that would suit their physicality better.

Examples of talent transfer include sprinting to bobsleigh (Jana Pittman), rowing to cycling (Bridie O’Donnell and Rebecca Romero) or Sonny Bill Williams, who was highly successful at rugby league, rugby union and heavyweight boxing.

For talent transfer to be successful, there needs to be a lot of similarities between the two sports in areas such as skill requirements (kicking, passing, tackling), physical traits (height, mass) and physiological demands (aerobic vs anaerobic).

These similarities can allow athletes to capitalise on their previous training to succeed in their new sport faster and to a higher level than their competitors.

The similarities between American football and rugby (league and union) – such as catching and kicking an oval-shaped ball, evading or running through defenders and full-body tackling – would have benefited a mature athlete like Mailata to transfer from one code to another.

A whole new ball game

His transition from a monster-sized rugby league player in Australia to a more regular-sized offensive tackle in the NFL was initially facilitated through the NFL International Player Pathway (IPP) program.

The IPP was established in 2017 to provide high performance adult athletes from all over the world (like Mailata) the opportunity to learn the complexities of American football and increase the number of international players in the NFL.

The program has been highly successful, with 37 international players signing with NFL teams, of which 18 are currently on NFL rosters.

When Mailata was drafted to the NFL in 2018, he had to work on many aspects of his body to meet the physical challenges of playing in the NFL against other exceptionally massive and strong athletes.

He also had to learn a range of sport-specific technical and tactical skills.

As a part of the IPP, he started working with coaches including Jeff Stoutland, the Philadelphia Eagles offensive line coach.

Stoutland took Mailata into the classroom, teaching him the intricacies of offensive line play including protection and run schemes. These lessons extended into what footwork patterns he would need to master, where and how to position his body when initiating contact and how to use his hands to control the defensive line.

Such skills are the bread and butter of the offensive line – these athletes provide the quarterback time to make key passing decisions and increase the chance of their running backs making big yards on their carries.

Mailata has also mentioned how Strickland taught him the importance of critically watching NFL games, initially to learn the technicalities of the sport and now to further refine his performance against the best defensive lines.

The next wave

In addition to the IPP that looks at talent transfer from adult athletes, the NFL has developed the NFL Academy for school-aged children.

The first academy was based at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom and the second was developed at A.B. Patterson College on the Gold Coast.

These academies combine full-time education with intensive American football training in the hope of promoting pathway opportunities at US colleges.

Hopefully, these academies will see more young Australians transferring their skills and following Mailata into the NFL.