Stratford rugby star sets sights on professional career

A Stratford athlete is getting his chance to play with the pros after he was drafted into North America’s only professional rugby league.

Neil Trainor was selected second overall by the Carolina Anthem during the Major League Rugby (MLR) Amateur Draft.

“Rugby really has been my life basically for the past five, five and a half years. Basically ever since I got into Queens,” Trainor said.

MLR was formed in 2017 and gives athletes like Trainor a chance to follow their dreams. Last season, the league included 11 American teams and one Canadian team, the Toronto Arrows. Trainor has previously taken part in the Toronto Arrows Academy.

Trainor is no stranger to the pitch, making a name for himself at Queen’s University while he was studying civil engineering. According to Queen’s Athletics, Trainor helped the team win an Ontario University Athletics (OUA) Championship in 2019 and two OUA silver medals in 2021 and 2023 respectively.

MLR is growing, and the contracts offered to players are still considered to be modest.

“You can’t do it if you don’t love rugby and you’re not willing to invest a lot of time and energy into it and not maybe get the returns that you would get if you were, say, a pro football player, a pro basketball player, anything else you can kind of get in North America,” Trainor said.

When the call from Carolina Anthem came in, Trainor was already on the pitch, running drills.

“The draft actually started while we were on the field training,” he explained. “[I went] right to the locker room, go to my phone, and I see two missed calls.”

For Trainor, his dream of playing rugby professionally started when he was playing in high school and with the Stratford Blackswans Rugby Club.

“That is the starting point for almost every rugby player in North America. It’s your high school coaches. It’s your local club coaches,” he said.

Stratford Blackswans Rugby Club Founder and Head Coach Jeff Wood said he could see something special in Trainor early on. Wood said Trainor’s determination and drive set him apart.

“Neil was a really focused individual even when he came out of high school. He was really dialed in,” Woods recalled. “He knew what he wanted to do. He was usually first to practice and would stay late.”

Trainor said coaches like Wood inspire the next generation of rugby players.

“They do it because they love rugby and because they love helping people find rugby because there’s really nothing else in that for them,” Trainor said.