History was made on Sunday afternoon as Israel’s first professional rugby team took part in a friendly match in Hendon.
Tel Aviv Heat were only formed in March 2021, though were in London to take on English giants Saracens and came away from the StoneX Stadium with a 29-26 win.
The Israelis scored four tries, Sebastian Jobb claiming two of them, with Niall Saunders, Sailasa Turaguluvu also crossing the line to the delight of the visiting fans.
The fixture was first spoken about at the end of 2021, as Pete Sickle, the club’s co-founder and CEO, explains: “This friendly was the product of a combination of luck and relationships built on trust, collaboration, and the classic, core values of rugby. This invitation to play them represented an incredible opportunity to play at the highest level of professional rugby while engaging with supporters based in the UK.
“Furthermore, playing this fixture only thirteen months after our first ever match serves to validate the vision and efforts of the Tel Aviv Heat to elevate Israeli rugby amongst the international rugby community.”
While still a minority sport in Israel, Sickle, hopes to one day “build Israel into a rugby nation.”
Describing how the club came into fruition, he explains: “In 2020, Rugby Europe, with the backing of World Rugby, issued a plan for a new competition – the Rugby Europe Super Cup. Open initially for the seven highest-ranked countries below the Six Nations, other Unions were given the opportunity to bid for an eighth ‘wild card’ slot, which the Israel Rugby Union submitted a formal bid for in December 2020. Having won that slot in March 2021, a founding team was put together to build a professional franchise from scratch.”
Tel Aviv Heat catch a successful line-out in their game against Saracens at StoneX, November 27, 2022 (Credit: Matt Impey, Saracens)
Supported by founding investors from USA, UK, Australia, South Africa, and Israel, the Heat started contracting players from abroad, to augment the limited number of domestic players who could compete at the Rugby Europe Super Cup level.
Not only competing in that tournament, they’re now looking to win it and used the Saracens fixture as a warm-up for their semi-final against Portuguese side Lusitanos, which takes place on Sunday.
“In the immediate term, our goal is to win the competition and over the long term, our strategic goals are to leverage the Heat to drive transformational change – to provide the foundation for building Israel into a rugby nation”, Sickle says. “The ultimate measure of success would come with Israel qualifying for a Rugby World Cup and an Olympics. To achieve this, we want the Heat to help grow rugby at grassroots and youth levels, to host a professional academy for domestic and international players, to establish a competitive women’s 7s team, and to inspire the next generation to play rugby and to pursue high performance pathways.”
Looking further afield, Sickle says the club is also focused on helping Jewish rugby players around the world reach their goals. “We know that the global Maccabiah rugby community represents the most natural and passionate body of supporters of the Tel Aviv Heat and we’re dedicated to making meaningful connections throughout the world and to provide valuable experiences through the likes of sessions, events and academies, exchanges.”
