(Story by Brad Zigler) - Two Redwood Empire forwards, and products of the Elsie Allen Lobos youth program, are about to make history as members of the nation’s first professional rugby league.

Josh Inong and Robert Meeson, both veterans of the Santa Rosa Rugby Club and Elsie Allen, have accepted contract offers from the Professional Rugby Organization’s (PRO) Sacramento franchise and will report to camp ahead of the March 14 pre-season kick-off.

That’ll make this Saturday’s match against the East Palo Alto Razorbacks a Santa Rosa swan song for Inong and Meeson.

PRO inaugural season features five teams, skewed heavily towards the West Coast and Northern California. In addition to the Sacramento squad, franchises in San Francisco, San Diego, Denver and Columbus (Ohio) will each contest a 12-game home-and-away schedule culminating in July. Credit Northern California’s heft in the new league to the fact that more national caliber players and teams originate in this region than in any other U.S. market.

Inong’s career is testimony to the local rugby heritage. Inong credits his older sister, a player for the Elsie Allen High School Lobos, for piquing his interest in rugby. “I remember getting up at 4:30 in the morning on Saturdays for family trips up to Sacramento when I was seven or eight. Back then, that’s where the girls’ sides mostly played.”

He stepped up to play rugby himself in his freshman year at Elsie Allen under the tutelage of longtime Lobos coach Alan Petty.  By his senior year, he’d been tapped to captain a team twice crowned as state champions as well as making the 2005 national final. In 2005, he’d been offered a slot in the USA U19 rugby development camp when his high school career was ended by violence. Inong and his mother were among six people shot in an unprovoked attack shortly after his graduation party in his Santa Rosa home. (See original story here.)

Inong took six bullets in his legs, back and arm, career-ending injuries according to his physicians. At the time of the shooting, even Coach Petty fretted about Inong’s future, saying the All-American would “probably never play rugby again.”

Inong spent three months in a wheelchair and another three months on crutches learning to walk again. Inong was undaunted. A year later, he was coaching rugby and taking classes at Santa Rosa Junior College. In 2007, he started playing rugby for SRJC coach Steve Wren and soon moved up to San Francisco’s prestigious Olympic Club rugby side. He joined the Old Mission Beach Athletic Club when he transferred to San Diego State University and, in 2010, won a national championship for OMBAC. His performance caught the eye of the Philippines national men's team head coach who invited Inong--who is part Filipino--to a try-out camp in New York City. As a result, Inong was offered a chance to move to the Philippines to play for the Volcanoes. Inong earned international caps playing for the Philippines in tournaments throughout the Far and Middle East.

Inong credits his time in the Philippines teaching him rugby professionalism. “It was then,” he says,” that I realized ‘We’re here for one reason: to play ball. This is truly a job.’”

Inong returned to Sonoma County in November 2011 to again play for the Santa Rosa Rugby Club. Inong’s front-row contributions helped Rosa advance to the 2012 national club championships. He’s remained a stalwart on the team ever since, though he returns to the Philippines in the summer off-seasons to play for the Volcanoes.

Robert Meeson has his own rugby lineage.

“I've been following the sport since I was a young boy. Both of my parents are English and my dad played rugby starting at age 11. I used to watch VHS copies of international rugby matches sent from our family because my dad couldn't watch them any other way.”

Meeson, though, admits that his rugby career was delayed. “I got invited to go play rugby for the Elsie Allen Lobos when I was a senior at Sebastopol’s Analy High School. It was a very experienced group where my fellow team mate, Josh Inong, was the captain.”

After high school, Meeson moved up to play five years for UC Davis while working towards a degree in exercise biology. “During my first year I was able to work my way onto the first team and we made a run into the national Sweet 16s. Our team was ranked among the nation’s top five at that time,” he says.

Returning to Sonoma County in 2011, Meeson joined the Santa Rosa Rugby Club to again play with prep team mate Inong. “We had a run to the Division 2 playoffs that year and made it to the Sweet 16s. In 2012 and 2013, we made it to the Final Four in the national championships as well.”

“In 2014 and 2015,” adds Meeson, “the club decided to move up to the first division and we've been runner-up to league champion both years. In 2015 I was invited to join the Pelicans, a Northern California Rugby Union All-Star team. I broke my jaw that year before being able to play but the training experiences were great and a precursor to the type of environment we’d expect for the PRO.”

Meeson, current president of the Santa Rosa 15’s side, is humbled by his PRO contract offer. “As an inaugural selection for the league,” he says, “the knowledge that my teammates and I are the foundation upon which the future of the league will be made is daunting to think about. I have a greater focus on the responsibilities of professionalism and representing our sport in the best possible light.”

“For my future,” says Messon, “I'll be looking to dive into this league head first. I have a second-tier contract so I'll be working hard to earn a pay raise for next year. Outside of that, I'm going to be aiming to create any opportunity I can with this rugby league.”

As well he should. Meeson finished his college career with a degree in business administration from Sonoma State University last year. “I've always like the media aspect of sports,” he says, “but I have a background in business. Hopefully there's a chance to merge the two of these passions in the near future.”