Australian rugby league team attracts massive crowd to training session

The pair will battle for the inaugural Pacific Championships title early next month, with the national team based at Albury until Thursday, ahead of the final regular round clash between the rivals in Melbourne on Saturday.

"I think so, there's so many great Kiwi internationals in the NRL, even though they're missing guys like Shaun Johnson, Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and other guys who have played New Zealand for a while, the forward pack is obviously really strong," Kangaroos' captain Tedesco replied when quizzed if this is the best Kiwi team in his Australian stint.

"And all their young blokes, (Matthew) Timoko in the centres, obviously there's Joey Manu, there's real strike out wide."

It's enormous praise from the Kangaroos' skipper as he's been a permanent member of the Australian team since 2018 and one of the game's greatest players since debuting for NSW in 2016.

The Kangaroos' visit to the Border has already proven an unqualified success after an amazing crowd attended the open training session at Lavington No. 2 Oval on Sunday afternoon.

Officials were stunned by the turnout, which was conservatively at least 1000 and probably more.

"First of all we're excited to have the team here and excited for the community to support it," AlburyCity Council leisure facilities officer Jack Bradley enthused.

Fans travelled from as far as Hay, a three and a half hour trip.

"It's outstanding, it's something we only started promoting a week to 10 days ago and it's not just the Border community, but the Riverina and into Victoria, everyone has got behind this," NRL regional manager (South West-Western) James Smart praised.

"We're also hosting a coach education workshop on Monday night, which has been really well supported."

Kangaroos' assistant coach Michael Hagan will feature at the coaching seminar at Lavington Sportsground and while it would naturally improve rugby league mentors, it's expected coaches from all sports would benefit.

For the swarming mass of league lovers at Lavington, the Kangaroos' training session was a surreal moment.

"It's fantastic to have the opportunity to see the Kangaroos and Roosters' players running out, considering Albury is an AFL town," Roosters' fan Josh Little said.

And his neighbour is also a James Tedesco fan.

"I just like him because of his agility and how fast he is," nine-year-old Tyler Marcus added.

Lavington has hosted a NRL competition game between Manly Warringah and Canberra, along with a host of pre-season games, but there's no doubt the buzz generated by the Kangaroos' visit will have AlburyCity and prominent rugby league officials working to best capitalise on this momentum.

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