LAS VEGAS — Sometimes, dreams aren’t too big to come true.
Twenty years ago, Andrew Webster was a player-coach for the Connecticut Wildcats in a fledgling rugby league that’s now long defunct.
Back then, Webster was an expat Aussie trying to satisfy his love for rugby and happy if enough players turned up to the dusty pitch in South Norwalk so he could field a team on a game day.
That was in 2005, Webster’s only year in America but a highly impactful one.
On Saturday, Webster will be coaching the New Zealand Warriors in a National Rugby League match against the Canberra Raiders in front of an expected crowd of 50,000 at Allegiant Stadium, where the Super Bowl was played last year.
The 43-year-old native of Sydney is at the pinnacle of his profession.
That makes him a poster child for persistence paying off, an example that dreams, even if seemingly unrealistic, do come true.
Webster called his year in Connecticut “an amazing experience … such a cool part of my journey.”
“It was exactly what I wanted,’’ Webster told The Post on Friday. “I wanted to transition my life into coaching but keep playing because I was still young, only 23. But I wanted to do it on the other side of the world.
“Turning up in Norwalk, we had no goalposts, no one really heard of the game, no one really even spoke about it,’’ Webster went on. “And now to be playing in Las Vegas in such an amazing stadium where an NFL team plays is something I never thought of in my life, and I’m glad it’s come true.’’
Richard Portale, one of the founders of the Connecticut Wildcats, on Friday vividly recalled the moment Webster randomly reached out to him about joining the club.
“I want to play for the Wildcats,’’ Webster told Portale.
“I was like, ‘Well, we’re kind of short of players here, so, yeah we could use a guy,’ ’’ Portale recalled to The Post over the phone Friday.
“ ‘Do you want to just run with us and see how it goes?’ ” Portale recalled asking Webster.
“He was amazing,’’ Portale said. “He was the best player in the field, so composed. We played a game against the professional side, and he was like the one guy who was standing up and putting in hard hits and making hard tackles and had blood coming out of his mouth at the end of the game.
“Afterward, he was like, ‘What do you think?’ And I said, ‘You’re a Wildcat.’ ’’
Now Webster is a Warrior, coaching one of the best rugby league teams in the world, Saturday night gracing the biggest global stage of all in the sport.
Webster recalled “bringing a big book on how I wanted to coach when I landed in America, and I threw it out after the first week.”
Portale now laughs at the memory.
“Him showing up here with the playbook is true,” Portale said. “He was ready. And what he found was a bunch of guys at a park. We didn’t have locker rooms. The funding was me and my buddy giving the guys a few dollars, and he lived with me and my wife.”
Nicholas Isbrandtsen is a Greenwich, Conn., native who also was a member of the Wildcats with Webster and became nicknamed “Webby Jr.” because he had the same long blonde locks as Webster.
“Even at 23, he was like an old soul — very calm, very welcoming,’’ Isbrandtsen told The Post. “He built a culture and a community that guys wanted to be a part of, and I think that’s why he was so successful. He was very confident in his coaching style.”
Under Webster’s watch, the Wildcats went to the 2005 American National Rugby League final, which they lost 32-30 to the Glen Mills Bulls.
“I remember his coaching style was very, very laid back and also very specific to details,’’ former Connecticut teammate Curtis Kunz, who now lives in New Jersey, told The Post. “He had a very approachable demeanor both on and off the field. As a as a player, though, he was an absolute savage, a vocal leader who played with passion.”
Now, Webster’s former Connecticut teammates are watching with pride, some in awe at the level Webster has taken his career.
Portale isn’t one of them.
“I think we knew,” Portale said. “Webby had that kind of persona and energy about him that you knew he was going to do what he said he wanted to do. He’s one of those kids where if he said, ‘This is my dream,’ he was going to accomplish that dream.
“Webby was one of the most can-do, go-forward guys that you’ll ever meet. He’s sharp. Men follow him. One hundred percent, I always knew he would make his impact in the world, and this was the impact he wanted to make.’’
Dreams do come true.
