From London to Lagos

Starting the Stallions journey

Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country with over 225 million inhabitants, but its men’s national rugby team sits 68th in the World Rugby rankings.

This puts the team behind rugby minnows Kazakhstan, Bulgaria and Jamaica and makes them the 12th best African side.

With football the dominant sport in Nigeria thanks to the multiple successes of the Super Eagles at the Africa Cup of Nations, rugby has had to take a backseat.

However, there is still an appetite for rugby, especially in the faster and shortened format of rugby sevens.

This is also the case among British Nigerians, such as those who play for Stallions RFC.

The club, previously called Nigeria Exiles, was formed 15 years ago in London by Mark Dean who saw the talent of Nigerian players in the UK and decided to develop a pathway.

Since then, the club has sent numerous players to the national sevens team, including to the Olympic qualifiers in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Club vice-president Pierre Goualin said: “First of all the focus was to build a community of Nigerian rugby players and from there see if we can get some of these lads to play for the national team.

“Now if we can really make a push and help grow Nigerian rugby, that’s where we’re trying to get to.”

Bumps in the road

Things really began to take off when the national team qualified for the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, a first for the West African side.

However, this did not last for long as the nation pulled the team out of the Games for reasons that are still unclear, and both the national team and Nigeria Exiles were phased out.

As a result, things went quiet for the club for a few years, threatening to undo all the work that had gone into bringing players together and putting them in contact with the Nigerian Rugby Federation.

Fortunately, Dean was able to kickstart the partnership again in 2019 with the aim of building towards the Tokyo Olympics the following year.

The national team was unable to qualify for those games, but fast forward to 2023 and they competed for Paris 2024 qualification with a total of nine Stallions players at the qualifying tournament in Zimbabwe.

Having reached the qualifiers by coming second in a preliminary tournament in Mauritius, Nigeria were knocked out in the quarter-finals by reigning Commonwealth champions South Africa and placed eighth overall.

“We were playing against tougher opposition [than in Mauritius] but it was a great experience,” said co-captain Kolade Awobowale.

“For a team that was unranked at the start of the year, to finish in the top ten, we were really proud of that.

“Representing the country in itself regardless of the popularity is something we take really seriously.

“We’re all Nigerian by heritage and representing the country of our ancestors is something we really enjoy.”

Creating a community

Aside from the competitive side of things, Stallions offers UK-based Nigerian players an opportunity to come together and play rugby.

Players travel from across the country to join even just for training sessions, with some coming all the way from Brighton, Coventry and Bristol.

David Aniebonam, who commutes from Brighton and has also played for Nigeria, said: “It’s like you found your kind of people in the sport, people you really get a sense of community from because they share the same background.

“The team this year is actually quite exciting because a lot of people keep getting involved like a lot of National One players and ex-Championship players.

“They are keen to get involved primarily because we’re all quite similar people in terms of our rugby story and the way we are socially. If you marry those two together then you have the opportunity for a really good side.”

As a sport, rugby union has a reputation of being a sport of the elite known for its prevalence in private schools.

This reputation has made it difficult for rugby to attract players from outside this demographic.

Aniebonam explained that he probably wouldn’t have been in this position if he hadn’t attended Loughborough University.

“Rugby is not really one of the sports that your parents want you to get into because it's a dangerous one and you never see as many people that look like you,” he said.

“That isn’t even strictly for Nigerian people, I’d say the black community too and rugby isn’t the world’s most marketed sport for people like us.”

15 years of Stallions

Growing for the future

Despite rugby being low down the pecking order of sports in Nigeria, players of Nigerian heritage have been incredibly successful at both club and international level.

Premiership winners such as Maro Itoje, Nick Isiekwe and Ugo Monye have all worn the Red Rose of England, while Paolo Odogwu and Andy Christie have turned out for Italy and Scotland respectively.

There is potential for these players to represent Nigeria in the future thanks to a change in World Rugby allowing players to change their nationality.

The new rules allow players who have not played internationally for three years to represent another country of their heritage, but Goualin thinks this needs a bit of planning.

“It will need myself and our team trying to talk to these players and coordinate with them to time it better,” he said.

“We’ve had people like Topsy Ojo who only have a few caps for England so we could have timed it in a way to plan how he might someday represent Nigeria.

“It’s just about talking to the players because if they retire then it might be too late for them.”

All sports teams want to compete, especially when it comes to national level, so the players have set their sights on the next Commonwealth Games in 2026.

As it stands, the Games are in danger of not going ahead after Victoria pulled out as hosts due to mounting costs and another host is yet to be announced.

If they do not go ahead, it could be a big blow to Nigeria Sevens as there is a real feeling that they could go one step further than 2014 and actually participate in these Games.

Not only would this represent a success for the team, it could even kickstart the development of rugby in a country already earmarked by World Rugby as experiencing strong growth.

Awobowale explained: “Nigerians love their football, but if we were to qualify for the Olympics or the Africa Games then that exposure would gain the sport popularity.

“At the moment the team is paving the way for future generations, we just need to be able to put our hands up when it matters and put in performances where it matters.

“The better we do, the more the popularity will come.

“We have the Africa Cup this year and then the Commonwealth Games so qualifying through the Africa route is something that is high up on our priority list.

“Whether we can build on that and push towards the next Olympics in 2028, we’ll see.”

Image credits

Image 1: Stallions RFC

Image 2-7: Eddie McAteer

Image 8-12: Harry Baker Photography @bak3r_harry

Image 13-16: Eddie McAteer

Image 17: Lit7s

Video credits

All videos: Eddie McAteer