Jamaica want to face home nations, reveals Jermaine Coleman

Jermaine Coleman has revealed that Jamaica would like to play home nations next year as well as visiting schools on the island.

The Reggae Warriors became the first-ever Caribbean nation to qualify for the Rugby League World Cup as they beat USA and Canada to claim the Americas Championship in Florida last month.

With three years to go until the 2021 World Cup which is hosted in England, Jamaica coach Coleman has revealed that they would like to play against home nations in the build-up to the tournament as well as visiting the island.

“I think one of the big things that we want to do is to take this squad and group of heritage players to Jamaica and get them into schools, clubs and ultimately get the local public to know us,” Coleman told loverugbyleague.com.

“We need the Jamaican people to believe in us and for them to know how important it is to us.

“We want to get together a proper programme of who we are going to play and when we are going to play them. Hopefully we can speak to Scotland, Wales or Ireland and get some games in because it will be good for our experience but we will have to see.

“There’s going to be a lot of conversations over the next couple of months over what our programme is going to be and to get a mid-season fixture would be fantastic. I think the fact that we are in the World Cup now opens up a lot of doors for us and there’s a lot of avenues for us to go down.

“It might be tough to get people to commit to a full international programme alongside their full-time jobs and their commitment to their professional clubs. It is going to be a long road but a massively exciting one at the same time.”