The 2022 club season is over. World Cup season is upon us. From Cumbria to Cabramatta, international rugby league sickos the world over are rejoicing right now. I am one of those sickos.
I am also Italian. The Italian national rugby league team, the Azzurri, will play in their third World Cup after qualifying in 2019. They smashed Spain and got smashed by Ireland for a 1-1 record that saw them finish second in their group and with a ticket to the big dance.
This October they’ll travel to England to play Australia (yikes), Fiji, and Scotland with the dream of once again finishing second but this time to qualify for the knockout stages.
Can they do it? Well, through God all things are possible, so jot that down. Will they? Probably not.
But enough of that, let’s get to what we came to do here. Talk about all some of the Italians that have played for the Cowboys!
I know there is probably more than I talk about here but I have no way of knowing if Shannon Gallant or whoever’s grandparents are actually from Bari or wherever, so I’ll just stick to the ones I’ve found through my research (Wikipedia).
Laurie & Ben Spina
Alright so first off, Wikipedia doesn’t mention either Laurie or his son Ben actually being Italian but their surname is Spina and they’re from Ingham and they’re Italian, okay?
Anyway, Laurie was the club’s inaugural captain. The local kid done good, he gets pulled out of retirement at age 31, five years after his last first grade game to captain his local team in their first ever game. It’s the stuff dreams are made of.
But little do people know that 1990 Dally M Rookie of the Year, pop star, and all-round heartthrob Jason Martin was actually named inaugural captain but missed the first 10 weeks of the season due to injury.
No offense to Jason but I think it was for the best. A pop star and heartthrob leading out the part-time Cowboys, part-time groundsmen onto the field for the first time? Ay madone.
Spina retired at the end of the 1995 season, later becoming a commentator for ABC Townsville and getting an under-11s carnival named in his honour (the Laurie Spina Shield), which has run annually since 1996.
19 years later, Ben made his debut for the club, becoming the first father-son duo to do so. Ben was a member of the Cowboys’ 2008 under-20 squad before heading to the Northern Pride, where he earned another contract with the club in 2014. A reliable squad player, he played 16 games over four seasons, scoring three tries.
Martin Bella
Big Marty Bella came to the club in 1995 as probably the most high-profile recruit for their debut season.
30 at the time and coming off a Grand Final appearance with Canterbury, he’d played 186 first grade games, 21 Origins for Queensland, and nine tests for Australia. A Sarina junior, it was a nice homecoming for the veteran.
It was actually terrible. He played 14 games and then was sacked due to disciplinary issues. He finished his career playing with his brothers Robert and Anthony at the Crushers.
20 years later, Marty’s son Ross joined the Cowboys under-20s side and played in a trial game for the club against South Sydney earlier this year.
Dean Schifilliti
Another Ingham boy, Schifilliti was a cult hero for the Illawarra Steelers, playing 102 games for the club. He and fellow Good Italian Boy Neil Piccinelli were even affectionately/racistly known as the “Spaghetti Brothers”.
Schifilliti was the club’s first major signing in 1993 but in doing so fell out of favour with the Steelers and was eventually dropped to reserve grade. He spent 1994 with South Sydney before his move to Townsville.
His time at the club was decimated by injury. He had to pass a late fitness test just to play in the inaugural game, wearing jersey #22 instead of his usual #9. He lasted 24 minutes, reinjuring his knee and missing the rest of the season.
In scenes I imagine were the rugby league equivalent of Rocky, Schifilliti got back up off the canvas to represent Italy at the Super League World Nines in January 1996. He played 10 games for the club that season before departing.
He then spent time with the Adelaide Rams and Parramatta Eels, actually playing a decent amount of games (65) over his final four seasons.
Jason Erba
I, unfortunately, don’t have much info on foundation Cowboy Jason Erba. He’s another Ingham lad and his last name is Erba, a comune in Lombardy and site of a massacre, so he must be Italian.
Erba was a Queensland under-17 and under-19 representative who made his debut with the Brisbane Broncos in 1992. He spent time with the Gold Coast without playing first grade before returning north in 1995. He played just five games and later popped up for the Sheffield Eagles in 1997.
Paul Pensini
Hailing from Cairns, Pensini spent four seasons at the club, playing 17 games, and entered his name into club history when he represented Italy at the 1999 Mediterranean Cup.
That’s right folks, Paul Pensini is the Cowboys’ first-ever Italian international.
He played in one game, a 14-10 upset win over France in Avignon, which denied them the top spot in the tournament, handing the trophy to Lebanon. Did Pensini’s inclusion inspire the Azzurri to victory? Hard to say. But I will. Yes, it did.
Pensini has since gone on to play in numerous old boys and legends games for the club. A true pioneer.
Paul Dezolt
Well, what do we have here? If it isn’t Paul Dezolt, the club’s second-ever Italian international. In what was a banner five years for North Queensland-Italian relations, Dezolt represented his homeland in a 2003 clash against Greece, scoring the game-winning try and being named Man of the Match.
Dezolt, a crafty hooker, played 30 games for the Cowboys between 1999 and 2003 and finished off his NRL career with three games for the Warriors in 2004.
Daniel Sorbello
A mere year after Dezolt’s heroics inspired a nation, the Cowboys gained their third, yes that’s right third, Italian international in fullback Daniel Sorbello.
A Mount Isa junior, Sorbello played just two games in two seasons (2003-04) at the club but got his name in the record books when he scored a try in Italy’s 58-14 thrashing of Greece in Sydney.
He returned to the Queensland Cup in 2005 and featured in a trial game for the Canberra Raiders in 2007, scoring a try in a win over the North Queensland Young Guns.
Grant Rovelli
Remember that classic 2003 Italy-Greece game I mentioned earlier? The ‘Paul Dezolt Game’ as the locals call it? Well, guess who was the halfback for the mighty Azzurri that day? A 20-year-old Mackay local by the name of Grant Rovelli, that’s who.
Rovelli was a product of the Cowboys’ Young Guns system but in 2003 he was in his first season with the Sydney Roosters. God, we came so close to having TWO Cowboys in one Italian side.
After a few years with the Roosters with no first grade and three years at the Warriors with lots of first grade, Rovelli joined the Cowboys in 2009, playing 26 games over two years.
Rovelli also apparently played for Italy in 2012 against Fiji but I can only find two articles about it - one saying he was selected and one saying Italy lost - with nothing on Rugby League Project or Wikipedia. Huh.
Joel Riethmuller
After quite a drought of Italian players at the club, we were blessed with the emergence of Joel Riethmuller from Tully in 2011.
After toiling away in the Queensland Cup for years, Riethmuller joined the Cowboys that season and made his debut at age 26. He capped off the year with his first Italian jersey, scoring a try in the Azzurri’s 92-6 thrashing of Russia in the 2013 World Cup qualifiers.
After helping them qualify for their first-ever World Cup, Riethmuller then became the first Cowboy to play for Italy at the event.
He left the Cowboys at the end of 2014 but not before helping them win the coveted Auckland Nines earlier that year. He would represent Italy six more times, including another World Cup appearance in 2017.
Jake Clifford
And finally, we have Tully junior and current Knight, Jake Clifford.
Clifford was a standout coming through the club’s junior ranks, winning the Holden Cup Player of the Year in 2017 and representing Queensland Under-20, the Junior Kangaroos, and the Prime Minister’s XIII in 2018.
Clifford had a mixed career in Townsville, playing 42 games but never quite nailing down a consistent spot in the halves. Much the same has happened since arriving in Newcastle last year, a bright start but a difficult 2022, in which he was dropped to reserve grade. Let’s hope he can turn it around.
Bonus Italians
They may never have played first grade for the club but here are some Italians that featured in the Cowboys Under-20s side - Ross Bella, Ty Carucci, Tom Humble, Ben Lancini, Kieran Quabba (three games for Italy), and Aaron Solari.
Looking ahead to the World Cup and, unfortunately, there are no Cowboys in the Italian squad. Even worse there are, to my knowledge, no players of Italian descent in the current Cowboys squad at all (although I’m happy to be corrected).
But that doesn’t matter, what matters is we get behind the lads and support the only Italian team playing in a World Cup this year. Forza Azzurri!