Super League champions Leeds Rhinos will be aiming to win friends and influence people when they take on South Sydney in Jacksonville on Saturday.

The challenge match with the Rhinos' Australian sister club is the brainchild of Academy Award-winning actor Russell Crowe, the Rabbitohs' co-owner, to promote both rugby league as well as everything Australian in Florida.

Leeds' new coach Brian McClennan, who met Crowe during a fact-finding visit to the Sydney club last year, is passionate about rugby league and delighted to be playing a pioneering role.

"It's a very important occasion," he said. "We've made a joint effort to try and promote our wonderful sport in the American market.

"There has been lots of interest in Saturday's match and rugby league as a whole.

"I'm sure when the Americans watch league they will enjoy seeing it does have some qualities of the NFL except there is endurance.

"There is the pressure of having to endure the physicality of collisions." Rugby Football League executive chairman Richard Lewis has an open mind as he prepares to join Crowe and golfer Greg Norman among an anticipated 10,000 capacity crowd at the North Florida University.

"The organisers seem to be switched on," said Lewis. "There is a foothold in America but whether there is an opportunity to grow the game I just don't know.

"Russell Crowe has certainly given the match a lot of visibility. They have had league going for quite a while over there and they made an effort to compete in the World Cup."

The match is the culmination of Leeds' 10-day training camp in Jacksonville ahead of the start of their title defence against Hull KR at Headingley next Saturday.

The Super League team appear to be taking the match more seriously than Souths, whose NRL campaign does not get under way for another seven weeks and will be well below strength.

The Rhinos will kick off with the team that started October's Grand Final - substitute prop Ryan Bailey is the only absentee with a groin injury - but McClennan intends to give all 24 members of the tour party a run-out.

"It is important that we don't lose our focus on the Hull KR game next Saturday and, with that in mind, we have named a larger bench than normal, which will be important especially in the hot conditions with a 1pm kick-off," added McClennan.

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