The NFL are on the lookout for new stars. Jarryd Hayne's meteoric rise to the NFL has got the Americans thinking about the possibility of rugby players transferring their skills to gridiron and Rugby World Cup has been viewed as a decent place to go shopping.
The Mirror have been speaking to Osi Umenyiora, the NFL's UK ambassador and he confirmed that two stars of the World Cup will be offered the chance to move to the NFL when the tournament finishes this weekend.
There's been a number of scouts in England over the past couple of weeks and it seems two players in particular have sufficiently impressed. Umenyiora refused to name the players in question but he did say that these offers are very much serious.
No doubt about it, the guys in question are genuine candidates. Their particular skill sets transfer over. We think they will be very good.
Even if he did refuse to reveal the names, Umenyiora did name a 'fantasy team' of rugby players who, having watched them at the World Cup, he feels would be suited to the NFL. We're still dreaming of possibility of Ronan O'Gara lining out for the Miami Dolphins but it seems there's three other Irish players who could be dreaming of making the big money stateside.
Umenyiora named 24 players in the correct position and included among them was Sean O’Brien at offensive tackle, Cian Healy at guard and Jamie Heaslip at middle linebacker.
While the scout's targets are being kept under wraps, it will come as no surprise to rugby fans that Umenyiora did give special mention to Julian Savea.
His hat-trick of tries blew me away. The guy ran over people for his second try and you definitely sit up and notice.
For the sake of Irish rugby, we sincerely hope the Irish trio remain at home but seeing Savea as a wide-receiver in the NFL would be very welcome indeed.
We're not exactly NFL scouts but if they are looking for a bit of a hand when it comes to the Irish set-up, we've already made an NFL team out of the Irish squad.
