Month: October 2024

MLR Player Move Summary: October 21-27, 2024

NAR Database

James Deeley

Another week gone by, and another boat-load of player moves to break down around Major League Rugby. This is your weekly summary of new signings, re-signings, and departures from last week, October 21st to October 27th, 2024. It’s a multi-page summary graphic again this week, and here’s Page 1:

Re-Signings Galore

The Miami Sharks are going steady with their re-signings, announcing another pair of returning players for their 2025 campaign. US-born Argentinian back row Ben Bonasso will return for his 5th MLR season and the 2nd with the Sharks, and veteran hooker Sean McNulty will also return for Miami in what will be his 7th season in the competition. Both Bonasso and McNulty are capped USA Eagles and both have also won an MLR Shield in their careers, McNulty with the LA Giltinis in 2021 and Bonasso the following year for Rugby New York, actually playing against McNulty’s Seattle Seawolves in the final that year. Both players also have over 50 MLR appearances, and were core pieces of the Miami Sharks squad for their impressive inaugural season in 2024.

The Chicago Hounds also continue to announce the return of players from their impressive 2024 season. The Hounds confirmed that Canadian National Team captain Lucas Rumball, will return for their 2025 season, as will Irish winger Michael Hand II, who impressed with 3 tries in 8 games while on loan to the Miami Sharks in 2024. Rumball, a long-time Toronto Arrow before their demise in November 2023, currently sits 2nd on MLR’s All-Time top tacklers list on 880, and will no doubt be eying the 1,000 mark in 2025.

Finally for re-signings, the back-to-back reigning Champion New England Free Jacks announced a quartet of familiar faces that will be back at Fort Quincy next season. Canadian international and 2024 S. Marcus Calloway Award recipient Ben LeSage will return for his 6th MLR season (3rd with New England), and back row monster and Namibian international Wian Conradie will also return having missed a huge chunk of the 2024 season with injury. Fellow Namibian international Le Roux Malan also returns after his heroics in the 2024 MLR Championship Game. Malan’s last 2 MLR tries have come in consecutive MLR finals, scoring against the Legion in 2023, and the Seawolves in 2024. Speaking of the 2024 final, the MVP of that game is back for his first full MLR season. Jed Melvin was a late addition to the Free Jacks in 2023, but scored 4 tries in 8 games (including a hat trick), and was named MLR Finals MVP for his performance at Snapdragon Stadium. The New England Free Jacks seem to have the majority of their 2024 roster returning, and will no doubt be a force to be reckoned with again in 2025.

New Signings – Warriors fill out and Free Jacks beef up

The New England Free Jacks weren’t just busy with re-signings last week. The reigning champs also added a pair of new faces to their roster for 2025 in the form of Fijian prop Jone Koroiduadua, and Kiwi lock Sam Caird. Koroiduadua joins the Free Jacks from the Fijian Drua in Super Rugby, and although missing out on the 2023 Rugby World Cup due to injury, earned his test debut for Fiji during the 2024 Pacific Nations Cup. 6’7 lock Sam Caird joins from Northland in the NPC, where he has played since 2019 after a couple of seasons with Waikato. Caird helped the New Zealand U20 side to a U20 World Championship Final victory in 2017, and has also represented both the Waratahs and Highlanders in Super Rugby, as well as the Kintetsu Liners in Japan. Both Koroiduadua and Caird add plenty of size to what is already a formidable Free Jacks pack.

MLR has a strong connection with New Zealand’s National Provincial Championship (NPC) competition, as the two leagues have no overlap, allowing players to play professional rugby year-round between New Zealand and the USA. This is why so many MLR names head to Aotearoa during the off-season, and so many new MLR signings come from NPC sides. This is no different this offseason, and the Utah Warriors added four NPC players last week. The Warriors announced the signing of Logan Crowley (the son of former Canada head coach Kieran Crowley) from the Taranaki Bulls, who was signed with the Warriors ahead of 2024 but did not feature, instead remaining in New Zealand. The Warriors also announced the signing of Australian prop Remsy Lemisio, a teammate of Sam Caird’s at Northland. Lemisio played with the Australian U20 side before moving to New Zealand to play with Northland in 2023. The Warriors also went shopping in North Harbour, adding back row Tamarau McGahan who has represented the team since 2020, and Manawatū, adding Turbos centre Kyle Brown who has played in green since 2023.

The only inter-league move last week saw former NOLA Gold center/fly-half Rodney Iona join the Seattle Seawolves for 2025. Iona scored 4 tries and 128pts in 23 games (all starts) for NOLA between 2023-2024, but his departure from the Gold was announced by the team on October 7th. It seems like the Samoan international then signed on with the 2024 runners-up as a free agent, with the Seawolves announcing the signing of Iona on October 24th.

Departures – Destination Unknown

On the topic of the NOLA Gold, they continued to bid farewell to members of their 2024 team, thanking Sean Paranihi and Sebastiano Villani for their service. Paranihi earned 18 appearances for the Gold (16 starts) between 2023-2024, completing 111 tackles, and US-eligible Italian scrumhalf Sebastiano Villani was drafted 2nd overall by the Gold out of St. Bonaventure in 2022, earning 9 MLR appearances (1 start) since then. This takes the number of departures announced by the NOLA Gold to 9, while former French international Kélian Galletier is the only addition confirmed by the team.

Source: @nolagoldrugby on Instagram

So ends another weekly wrap up of all the goings on during MLR’s 2024/25 offseason. This summary is going up a few days late (apologies for that) so we already know MLR teams are keeping busy as we move into November. Stay tuned for this week’s summary next monday!

If you’re looking to jump into the end of season sales, visit shopmlr.com and use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off your order!

Former MLR runners-up the American Raptors will not play Pro Rugby in 2025

NAR Database

James Deeley

The Runners-Up of Major League Rugby’s inaugural season will not play professional rugby in 2025. The American Raptors were a founding member of Major League Rugby and competed between 2018-2019 as the Glendale Raptors, and in the truncated 2020 season as the Colorado Raptors, before withdrawing from the league. The Raptors finished 1st in the 2018 regular season with a 7-1-0 record, before falling to the Seattle Seawolves in the Final by a score of 19-23. The following season, the Raptors finished outside the playoffs with a 7-7-2 record, and they held a 2-3-0 record in 2020 before the season was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Raptors held an all-time record in MLR of 16-11-2 across three seasons of competition, and are the only team in MLR history to have withdrawn from the league and continued to play elsewhere. So why did they withdraw from Major League Rugby? And what has changed between 2020 and 2024.

The Raptors in MLR

The Glendale Raptors were founded as an amateur side in 2006, winning back-to-back Pacific Rugby Premiership titles in 2015 & 2016, before professionalizing as a founding member of MLR in 2017, owned by the City of Glendale, known as ‘Rugbytown USA’, and playing out of Infinity Park. As mentioned, the Raptors had a strong inaugural season, winning 7 of their 8 games and advancing to the MLR Final before falling 19-23 to the Seattle Seawolves in San Diego. The Raptors won another 7 games the following year, but with an expanded format this was only good enough for 6th, and they missed the playoffs by 11pts. Rebranded as the Colorado Raptors, they looked to be a middling team again in 2020, with a 2-3 record through the first 5 rounds of the season before it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

At the beginning of April 2020, during what would have been Round 10 of the 2020 regular season, the Raptors announced their withdrawal from Major League Rugby. The team claimed that MLR was getting further away from it’s mission of developing American rugby players, and that the Raptors’ “greater responsibility lies in the development of American players…”. The team felt that with MLR’s expansion (that included the Canada-based Toronto Arrows) and corresponding increase in foreign players (unclear if this includes Canadians, still deemed domestic players by the league as of 2024), there would be fewer spots in matchday rosters for American talent, and they would better be able to develop American players outside of the MLR structure.

The obvious counter-argument to this is that you need Americans to play rugby in the first place in order to develop them, and bringing in talented international players raises the quality of the league and thus the profile of the sport in the USA, encouraging more fans to pick up rugby and allowing that development in the first place. Rugby in the USA is still very much a fringe sport even in 2024, but it’s come a long way since 2018.

Source: 9News.com
The Raptors outside of MLR

Following their withdrawal from Major League Rugby the Raptors rebranded as the Colorado XOs, focused on converting athletes of other sports to rugby players. In particular, football and wrestling have significant transferrable skills to the game of rugby. The XOs played a 10-game season through 2021 against a mix of club teams and fledgling MLR academy sides and had some success, finishing with an even 5-5 record with six players then picking up contracts with MLR sides including most notably, 2x Major League Rugby Champion Kaleb Geiger, who won the Shield with New York in 2022 and the New England Free Jacks in 2024.

The XOs lasted only from 2020-2021, before the team realised that it would always play a level below MLR as long as it was not playing in a professional league of their own. In September 2021, the XOs would rebrand once more, returning to the Raptors name with a completely different colour palate as the American Raptors that we’re familiar with today. At the time, Glendale City Manager Linda Cassaday stated that “The Raptors name has long been a symbol of rugby in Glendale”. The new-look Raptors played another exhibition season in 2022, the ‘Challenge Cup of the Americas’ featuring the reigning Súper Liga Americana de Rugby (SLAR) Champions Peñarol and Jaguares XV, as well as the UBC Old Boy Ravens Canadian club side.

In December 2022, SLAR rebranded to ‘Super Rugby Americas’ (SRA – no relation to Super Rugby) and announced that the Raptors would be competing in the predominantly South American competition from 2023. Ahead of their inaugural SRA season, the Raptors entered into a partnership with the Colombian Rugby Federation (Federación Colombiana de Rugby – FCR) and Los Cafeteros Pro, a Colombian professional team that competed in SLAR, but was not going to compete in SRA. The agreement was made so that Colombian players could still play high level rugby with the Raptors. It’s worth remembering that the Raptors withdrew from MLR in 2020 over concerns of increasing foreign players taking spots from domestic talent, only to enter into a partnership allowing 5 foreign players to play with the Raptors, who had 11 South American players on their 2023 roster.

Extreme travel distances coupled with facing essentially National Team development sides meant that the Raptors’ time in SRA would be tough. They finished 6th of 7 in 2023 with 16pts and a 2-10 record and the worst points differential in the league (-176), and finished 6th of 7 again in 2024 with 17pts and an even worse points differential (-221) despite picking up an extra win (3-9), after changing head coaches part-way through the season.

The Present Day

A combined Super Rugby Americas record of 5-19 and score differential of -397 cannot have made for good reading for the City of Glendale. On October 22nd, Maggy Wolanske published an article for Denver7 announcing that the raptors would not be playing professional rugby in 2025. Wolanske writes that “Glendale City Manager Chuck Line confirmed the city is shifting its focus from professional rugby to youth rugby, meaning it will not support the American Raptors.” Ironically, it seems that the reason the team withdrew from MLR may just have been the reason why professional rugby ended, at least for next year.

The article states that the City of Glendale confirmed to Denver7 that “it is more expensive to fund the American Raptors compared to youth rugby programs” which should come as no surprise when considering that the next closest SRA team to the Raptors was over 5,000 miles away in Paraguay. Line also said that the Raptors did not set the city back financially, however. He also stated that the City of Glendale is hopeful the Raptors can return in 2026 “along with several other North American teams competing in Super Rugby Americas.”

This last line is interesting, which other North American teams could be on the slate to compete in SRA in 2026? There have been murmurs that the Vancouver Highlanders might be interested (although that’s even further away than Colorado), or perhaps a team in Mexico may decide SRA is a better fit than MLR? We will have to wait and see, just as we’ll have to see if the Raptors will make another return to professional rugby in 2026. Another question to consider for now though: Although Glendale hosts a number of rugby events outside of the Raptors, including the famous RugbyTown Sevens competition, it last hosted an international match in July 2022 (USA 29-31 Chile), and without a professional team, can you really call yourselves ‘RugbyTown USA’?

Source: @superrugbyamericas on Instagram

MLR Player Move Summary: October 14-20, 2024

NAR Database

James Deeley

The Major League Rugby Off-Season rollercoaster is well and truly off and running, with a second week in a row chock-full of new signings, resignings, and departures! Welcome to NARDB’s weekly off-season summary for October 14-20, 2024, keeping you up to date on all the roster moves around MLR ahead of the 2025 season. For the first time in the 2024/25 off-season, we have a multi-page summary graphic! Page 1 of this week’s summary is shown below:

MLR Player Move Summary: October 14-20 (1 of 2)
New Additions – Mexico Enters MLR and Warriors stay busy!

The San Diego Legion announced a League-first at the start of last week when they shared the news that they had signed Alejandro Pradillo for the 2025 MLR Season. Pradillo has played with the San Clemente Rhinos in the World Rugby Tens Competition, as well as with the Legion Academy side. He’s also a capped Mexican international and the first Mexican player to sign with a Major League Rugby side! Congratulations to ‘Bola’, and welcome to MLR!

A pair of players from the French Top 14 will also make their way over to the US for 2025, for different sides. The NOLA Gold announced the signing of capped French international back rower Kélian Galletier from Les Sang et Or. The Gold’s links to French rugby are baring fruit already, signing the long-time Montpellier player for 2025. Heading northeast from Perpignan to Lyon, the Utah Warriors announced the addition of capped All Blacks hooker and long-time Highlanders player Liam Coltman, who’s impressive resume includes representing New Zealand at the 2019 Rugby World Cup, and even a memorable victory over the British & Irish Lions. Coltman joins from Lyon Olympique Universitaire (LOU) Rugby.

The Utah Warriors weren’t finished with the signing of Coltman, however. The Herriman-based team also announced the acquisition of a pair of test-capped Samoans, in fly-half/center D’Angelo Leuila and prop Aki Seiuli. Leuila is a 2021 NPC Champion with Waikato, played with the Moana Pasifika between 2022-2024, and represented Samoa at the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France. Seiuli has also played in Super Rugby, representing the Highlanders (alongside Liam Coltman) between 2014-2019, before moving to teh UK to represent the Glasgow Warriors then the Dragons in the URC, from whom he joins Utah. Seiuli earned his test debut for Samoa in the 2022 Pacific Nations Cup, which Manu Samoa won. Finally, to wrap up a busy week at Zion’s Bank, the Warriors announced the addition of 6’8 Irish lock Gavin Thornbury who joins following a short-term contract with the reigning Premiership Champions, Northampton. Thornbury is a Leinster academy product and former Ireland U20s player, who spent most of his pro career to date with Connacht in the URC and represented the Irish Wolfhounds in 2022.

MLR Player Move Summary: October 14-20 (1 of 2)
Re-signings A-plenty!

Both 2024 Eastern Conference Finalists began announcing their returning players from 2025. The Chicago Hounds announced the return of their inaugural season co-Captains Bryce Campbell (USA Eagle #497 and Hound #1) and Luke White (USA Eagle #561), as well as stand-out rookie Noah Brown. Campbell‘s agency, BSMI Rugby, announced that his contract runs through the 2026 season. White & Brown’s contract lengths are unknown.

The reigning back-to-back Champion New England Free Jacks also started the ball rolling on their re-signings, announcing the return of FIVE household names in Quincy. Club Captain and capped Canadian international Josh Larsen will return for 2025, as will scrum-half John Poland who missed a huge chunk of 2024 due to injury. I’m sure the fans at the Fort will love to see him back in the 9 jersey. Also returning for the champs is star fly-half Jayson Potroz, who led the league in scoring in both 2023 & 2024, and sits on 327pts scored in his MLR career, all for the Free Jacks. To round out the announcement are a pair of front rows. Fan-favourite Kyle ‘The Eagle’ Ciquera, who has featured for the Free Jacks in the joint-most MLR games in team history (tied with Mitch Wilson, more on that later…), and 2022 S. Marcus Calloway award recipient and capped Canadian international Andrew Quattrin, who will return for a 3rd year in New England.

Also getting in on the re-signing party were the Miami Sharks, who announced a pair of returnees in 50-time Los Pumas capped center Matías Orlando (a late addition for the Sharks in 2024), and the team’s leading scorer and Chilean international Santiago Videla, who finished with 74pts in the Sharks’ inaugural season, 1pt above Uruguayan teammate Felipe Etcheverry.

Inter-League Moves

On top of the SIX new additions from outside MLR, there was a bit of musical chairs within the league last week. The Seattle Seawolves added MLR veteran Siaosi “CC” Mahoni for 2025 from the Houston SaberCats. 2025 will be Mahoni’s 8th season in MLR, having represented the San Diego Legion from 2018-2021, and Houston from 2022-2024. Mahoni has 53 MLR games under his belt and 39 starts, and has recently been included in the USA Eagles squad for their November tests.

The New England Free Jacks also announced the signing of a pair of former Dallas Jackals following their withdrawal from the 2025 season. The back-to-back defending champs signed 2024 MLR Forward of the Year Jero Gomez Vara for their three-peat bid after selecting him 11th in the dispersal draft, an absolute steal. The Free Jacks also announced the signing of capped Canadian prop Kyle Steeves, who was selected 6th in the Dispersal Draft by the NOLA Gold. It’s unclear whether the Gold & Free Jacks were involved in a trade for Steeves, or if he chose to sign in New England as a Free Agent. Steeves joins a strong Canadian contingent at Fort Quincy.

Source: @NEFreeJacks on twitter/x
Departures and Unconfirmed Signings

The NOLA Gold continue to bid farewell to players who will not be returning to the team in 2025. The Gold announced their 6th & 7th departures of the off-season, Fintan Coleman & Dougie Fife. NOLA acquired US-eligible Irish forward Coleman in a trade with Old Glory DC in February 2024, and he earned 10 appearances for the Gold in the team’s best season to date. Capped for Scotland at both 7s and 15s levels, Dougie Fife has played in MLR for 4 seasons to date, with 2 seasons each with the New England Free Jacks (2021-2022) and the NOLA Gold (2023-2024), scoring 13 tries in 55 career MLR games (54 starts) to date, amassing over 3,000m gained in possession. It remains to be seen if Coleman and/or Fife will return to MLR in 2025.

On October 15th USA Rugby revealed the Men’s Eagles Squad for their end-of-year tests against Portugal (Nov 9th), Tonga (Nov 16th), and Spain (Nov 23rd). Within the squad announcement were some little easter eggs that look to have revealed some player moves that were not yet confirmed. For example, the New England Free Jacks had announced the departure of ‘Ironman’ Mitch Wilson back on October 11th, but his destination wasn’t yet known. The USA Squad has him listed as an Anthem RC player. Has the national team inadventantly leaked Wilson’s destination for 2025? This wasn’t the only surprise on the Eagles’ roster. Front row Alex Maughan was also listed as an Anthem RC player after representing Rugby FC LA in 2024 having followed the team from Atlanta, where the he had played for 4 seasons. A USA Eagle and North Carolina native, Anthem is a great fit for Maughan should this be accurate. Finally, the list of reserves looks to have leaked a 3rd new Anthem RC signing, with crossover athlete and former American Raptors lock Mikey Grandy also listed as an ARC player. I know that USA Rugby has a significant stake in Anthem RC and I’m sure this was unintentional, but they may want to check with the team before potentially leaking stuff!

Source: @nolagoldrugby on Instagram

Another chaotic week around MLR makes for another lengthy summary article. Thanks very much for reading, and keep an eye out for next week’s article summarising all the moves from October 21-27, 2024! NARDB is the easiest way to stay up to date on all the additions, departures, and general goings-on around the league.

MLR Player Move Summary: October 7-13, 2024

NAR Database

James Deeley

The 2024/25 Major League Rugby off-season seemed to explode into life last week, with a flurry of activity from a number of teams that made for a busy news week, a welcome change to the sparse announcements through September. This article will cover all the major moves from around Major League Rugby for last week, ensuring you don’t miss a thing! As always, here’s the graphic summarizing all of the confirmed moves from October 7th to October 13th, 2024:

Source: @MLRStats on Instagram
Dallas Dispersal Draft Fallout

As revealed by both NARDB and Americas Rugby News last week, the Dispersal Draft for Dallas Jackals players took place on September 25th, with no public announcement from MLR of either it’s taking place, or the results (despite a statement to the contrary). There were three trades on the day of the Dispersal Draft, but they didn’t appear on the MLR Trade Wire (which is notoriously slow to update) until October 9th, hence their inclusion on this week’s summary.

Two of these three trades are completely administrative, with Anthem RC acquiring the 5th pick in the Dispersal Draft from Old Glory DC in exchange for 2025 Salary Cap Space ($ amount unknown). ARC then flipped this pick to Rugby FC LA (who used it to select Vaughen Isaacs) along with 2025 Salary Cap Space ($ amount unknown) in exchange for the 2nd pick in the Dispersal Draft, which Anthem used to select Makeen Alikhan (who was playing for the Jackals on loan from English Premiership side Harlequins), it’s uncertain if Alikhan will return to MLR. The final trade is for an actual player. Old Glory DC picked up Argentine prop JP Zeiss with the 16th pick in the dispersal draft and immediately flipped him to the Seattle Seawolves in exchange for 2025 Salary Cap Space ($ amount unknown). Zeiss has 46 MLR caps to date across 3 seasons, starting 44 times and scoring 5 tries. He’s also completed over 350 career tackles.

Short Term Stints Across the Pond

We learned of a pair of players headed over to the UK on short-term deals to hone their game. English Premiership side the Bristol Bears announced the return of 2024 MLR Champion and newly-capped USA Eagle Toby Fricker on a 3 month contract as injury cover, and towering Seattle Seawolves lock Isaia Lotawa is headed to RGC 1404 in Super Rygbi Cymru as part of a player exchange made by former RGC player and current Seawolf Huw Taylor.

Fricker joined the New England Free Jacks late in the MLR season, earning 6 appearances including all 3 of their Playoff games en-route to the 2024 Shield, a 11-20 victory over the Seattle Seawolves which Fricker started. Isaia Lotawa didn’t feature in the 2024 final, but came off the bench in Seattle’s Western Conference Final victory over the Dallas Jackals. Lotawa earned 5 appearances for the Seawolves in 2024 and has 9 to date, including 2 starts. Both Lotawa and Toby Fricker will return to MLR for 2025, so no need for fans to worry!

Source: @bristolbearsrfc on Instagram
New Faces

Following news on October 2nd that 17 players would not be returning for 2025, the Utah Warriors began re-filling the roster by announcing the addition of 5 young, local players including two of their three 2024 MLR Collegiate Draftees. 2nd Round Pick (16th Overall) Tielu Sagala and 3rd Round Pick (28th Overall Cole Semu are officially MLR-ers. Sagala won 3 state Championships each with the 7s & 15s side at BYU, while New Zealand born Semu, also a BYU alum, has represented the USA at U18, U20, and U23 levels already. Also added by the Warriors were Papa Matelau & Mason Barker (the brother of Warriors alum Zak Barker), both of whole have represented the USA at age-grade level, and Tesimale Niupulusu, a 290lb monster front row who has been impressive in both Rugby League and Union in the Utah area.

In addition to Utah, Old Glory DC announced their first acquisition for the 2025 campaign, picking up veteran Welsh center Steffan Hughes from the Dragons in URC, where he has played since 2022. Hughes joined the Dragons in 2022 on a short-term basis but quickly earned an extension and became the team’s Captain for the 2023/24 URC season. Hughes had joined the Dragons from his local URC club the Scarlets, where he had played since 2013, earning well over 100 URC appearances and won the URC Championship in 2016/17. He captained the side through the 2019/20 & 2021/22 seasons and will add valuable experience to the Flags squad in 2025.

Source: @OldGloryDC on Twitter/X
RFCLA Build New-Look Coaching Team

Following the announcement from on October 4th that former LA Giltinis Head Coach Steven Hoiles was returning to MLR as Director of Rugby and Head Coach of Rugby FC LA, the team continued to add to their coaching squad last week with another pair familiar names. 2021 MLR Shield-Winning Captain and former Wallaby Dave Dennis returns to LA, now on the sidelines as RFCLA‘s Senior Assistant Coach, and former Austin Gilgronis and Chicago Hounds Head Coach Sam Harris takes up a position as Attack Coach.

Dennis already has an impressive trophy cabinet as a player. A Super Rugby Championship with the Waratahs in 2014, two Premiership trophies in 2016/17 & 2019/20 as well as a European Champions Cup in 2019/20 all with the Exeter Chiefs, and a MLR Shield with the LA Giltinis in 2021. He’ll be looking to add a second Shield as a coach in 2025. Sam Harris is likely well known around MLR already, having led the Austin Gilgronis through the 2021-2022 seasons before moving to Chicago to lead the Hounds through their inaugural season and the majority of the 2024 campaign before being let go in Round 15. He holds a 29-1-31 record as an MLR head coach, but will coordinate the RFCLA attack in 2025.

Source: @RugbyFCLA on Instagram
Steady Stream of Departures in New Orleans

On October 2nd the Utah Warriors announced the departure of 17 players that raised the eyebrows of many around the league, and it seems the Warriors were not the only team going through significant roster changes ahead of 2025. Throughout last week the NOLA Gold announced the departures of 5 players in total, one almost every day. Rodney Iona, Augusto Böhme, Maciu Koroi, OJ Noa, and Sam Klimkowski were all thanked for their contributions to the Louisiana team individually.

No doubt the names to stick out from this list will be Rodney Iona and Maciu Koroi. Iona has scored 4 tries and 128pts in 23 games (all starts) across 2 seasons for the Gold, and Koroi has earned 33 MLR appearances for the Gold over 3 seasons, starting 7 times and scoring 3 tries. Chilean international hooker Böhme and Samoan back rower OJ Noa both joined the Gold for the 2024 season and both earned 9 appearances, helping the Gold to finally end their MLR Playoff drought. Ohioan prop Klimkowski was drafted 13th overall by the LA Giltinis in 2021 and played with the NOLA Gold Academy side in the fall of 2022, finally earning his MLR debut for the Gold in 2024, when he featured in 4 games, starting 1.

These moves were not included on the Player Move Summary graphic as we are not yet sure of the destination of any of these players. It’s possible we could see them suiting up for another MLR team in 2025, for example. If/when I hear of any of these players signing with another team, the move will be included on that week’s graphic. It’s worth keeping an eye on NOLA to see if they continue to announce more departures this week, and who they bring in to replace these names.

Source: @nolagoldrugby on Instagram

A far longer summary article for a far busier week around Major League Rugby to start October. It seems like the off-season is really picking up, and we could be getting many more announcements over the next few weeks. Watch this space for summary articles each week, or follow @MLRStats on Instagram and @JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X.

Dallas Jackals Dispersal Draft Results

NAR Database

James Deeley

In an article from two weeks ago on this site, I mentioned that Major League Rugby had held the Dispersal Draft for Dallas Jackals players on September 25th, 2024 following the announcement on September 19th that the Jackals were withdrawing from the 2025 MLR season. We have heard nothing since then, and the MLR Trade Wire was only updated with trades from the 25th TWO WEEKS later, on October 9th.

While fans have been left out in the cold for the last few weeks, NARDB has obtained the results of this Dispersal Draft and is very happy to finally share these with you. The results of the 2024 Dallas Jackals Dispersal Draft are as follows:

No.TeamViaPlayer
1Sam Golla
2Makeen Alikhan
3Marques Fuala’au
4Nic Benn
5Via Old Glory DCVaughen Isaacs
6NOLA rugbyKyle Steeves
7Darius Law
8Sam Tuifua
9Jason Tidwell
10Dewald Kotze
11Jero Gomez Vara
12Tomas Bekerman
13Lucas Bur
14Ronan Foley
15PASS
16Old Glory DCJP Zeiss
17NOLA rugbyJavon Camp-Villalovos
18Jonah Auva’a
19Evan Conlon
20PASS
21Brock Gallagher
22PASS
23PASS
24PASS
25Martin Elias
26PASS
27Old Glory DCKieran Farmer
28NOLA rugbyPASS
29PASS
30Juan-Dee Oliver
31PASS
32PASS
33PASS
Results not confirmed – Players are not forced to sign with the team that selected them. Any Jackals players not featured above were either not selected, or opted out.

There are a number of things to mention regarding these results. They are not 100% confirmed, but have been verified with a number of sources so until (if) we hear something official, this is what we know. The MLR Trade Wire is notoriously slow to update, so I would not be surprised if we see a flurry of trades from the days immediately following the Dispersal Draft (confirmed to have taken place on September 25th, 2024). Indeed, three trades from the day of the draft were posted yesterday (October 8th), as mentioned at the start of this article.

Just because a player is picked by a team does not force that player to sign there. We have seen with previous dispersal drafts that players picked are often traded to more preferable teams (in the players’ mind). Whether this be because it is closer to a players’ current location or family, or a player feels that they may get more game time with another organization. It may also come from the teams, who could have just picked up players rights to use as assets to flip for Cap Space, draft picks, etc. We already have a player from this dispersal draft on the move. Argentinian prop JP Zeiss was picked 16th by Old Glory DC and, according to the Trade Wire, was traded from the Flags to the Seattle Seawolves on the same day he was picked by DC.

Source: MLR Trade Wire

There are also some things of note among the 33 (22 if you exclude the 11 ‘PASS’ selections). Firstly is the wasted pick by Rugby FC LA in selecting Lucas Bur 13th. Bur has already signed a contract to play with the Sitav Rugby Lyons in Italy, and it’s unlikely he will return for the 2025 MLR season. Anthem RC continue to stock up on promising young USA-eligible talents like Sam Golla (already a capped Eagle), Jason Tidwell, and Canada-born, UK raised USA U20 back row Makeen Alikhan. Alikhan joined the Jackals for the 2024 season on loan from Harlequins of the English Premiership, so it’s still unclear whether he will stay in MLR for 2025.

The Seattle Seawolves grab a pair of Canadian internationals in Brock Gallagher & Dewald Kotze, which is no surprise given their proximity to the border. Kotze will serve as a nice replacement for Peter Malcolm who announced his retirement earlier this year, and Gallagher earned his test debut for Canada in the Pacific Nations Cup in August/September. Gallagher also gave an explosive interview on The Fantasy Ruckers podcast, discussing just how in the dark the Dallas Jackals players were to the team’s troubles.

It’s a slight positive to see that although MLR is losing the Dallas Jackals, many of the players could return to MLR next season for different teams. It’s doubly good news to see that Darius Law, a Life University alum and the Jackals’ sole selection of the 2024 MLR Collegiate Draft, was picked up by the San Diego Legion and will have another chance to make the MLR in California. On the other hand, it’s surprising to see Canadian internationals Mitch Richardson & Liam Murray not selected. Richardson (and fellow Toronto Arrows teammate Nic Benn, selected 4th by the Utah Warriors) has gone through 2 dispersal drafts in as many seasons and although he missed the 2024 playoffs and the PNC after suffering an injury playing for Canada in the July tests, he deserves a spot on a MLR roster in 2025 should he want one. My understanding is that both Richardson and Murray opted out of the Dispersal process.

It’s been two weeks since the Dallas Dispersal Draft took place, and as with other Dispersal Draft before it, fans have had to rely on leaks to find out the results. In fact, we haven’t even received confirmation from MLR that it took place at all. Why? What’s so important about this Dispersal Draft (or any dispersal draft for that matter) that MLR has not made the results, or the date it took place, public? Could it be because MLR is aware that many of the players selected in this draft may not end up on the teams that selected them? Maybe it’s because MLR doesn’t want to raise the issue of a team withdrawing? The cynical view is that MLR just doesn’t care to tell you. It’s the off-season, teams (and probably the league) are running on skeleton staff and some players aren’t even in the country!

I care. Fans care. Especially Dallas Jackals fans that want to know where their favourite players might be playing next season. Especially those hardcore fans that are reading this far into an article in the depths of the off-season. It’s an awful situation to have a team withdraw and leave players and staff in the lurch, but the Dispersal Draft was an opportunity to look forward towards MLR2025, begin to get fans excited again, and show that MLR cares about the fans and players. With new signings beginning to be announced by the likes of the Seattle Seawolves and Old Glory DC, the public release of these results could have marked the start point of the hype train for next season. We all want to see this league grow and succeed, and all want to come along for the ride. Instead, it’s a missed opportunity that has damaged fans’ trust in the league.

Major League Rugby’s All-Time Top 10 Tacklers!

NAR Database

James Deeley

The final entry in NARDB’s series on All-Time Top 10 lists, let’s explore Major League Rugby’s most consistent heavy hitters with the league’s All-Time leading Tacklers. Nothing gets fans hyped up like big hits, and it should be no surprise that 8 of these 10 names are forwards! Complete with Tackles per Game (TpG), the leaderboard is as follows:

To any fans who have been following along with this series over the last few weeks, your eyes are not deceiving you. Dylan Fawsitt is on top of yet another MLR All-Time list. The Chicago Hounds try-machine is a monster on both sides of the ball with 883 career tackles across 98 MLR games, for an average of 9 TpG. 678 of his tackles (76.78%) came as a Rugby New York Ironworker including a PB of 181 in 2019, but Fawsitt still completed 131 tackles for the Hounds in 2024, just above his season average of 126.14.

Fawsitt’s lead is far from safe, however. Canadian international Captain and former Toronto Arrows stalwart Lucas Rumball sits just 3 tackles behind, on 880 in 66 MLR games for a much higher average of 13.3 TpG. as with Fawsitt, a huge majority of Rumball’s tackles came outside the Hounds, with 87.5%, including a PB of 228 in 2021 when he finished as MLR’s highest tackler, coming as an Arrow. Rumball completed 110 tackles in 12 games (only 5 starts) in 2024, way down from his season average of 146.67. He’ll be hoping to get back to his regular numbers to crack 1000 in 2025.

Sitting in 3rd despite retiring at the end of 2023 is Rugby New York legend Nate Brakeley, one of the two inactive players on this list. With 842 tackles in 65 MLR games, all with the Ironworkers for a TpG of basically 13, Brakeley was a monster tackler year-in, year-out for New York. He averaged a huge 168.4 tackles per season, only brought down by the truncated 2020 season, when Brakeley still finished with 96 tackles in just 5 games, leading all of MLR.

Source: @rugbynewyork on Instagram

The top 10 MLR tacklers of All-Time currently includes the only 10 players to have passed 750 career tackles, and of these 10 tackling machines, only 6 of them are over the 800 mark. Sitting 4th is NOLA Gold’s JP du Plessis, MLR’s all-time leading Meter Eater and the most tackles of any back in MLR history. Du Plessis averages just under 10 tackles a game, with 837 total in 84 MLR games and averaging 119.57 tackles per season.

The latest player to pass the 800 mark is Rugby FC LA‘s Matt Heaton, holding the highest TpG of all players on this list with a massive 14.3 tackles per game. The Canadian back rower completed almost 80% of his tackles as a member of Rugby ATL, including a PB of 215 tackles in the 2023 season. Heaton shows no signs of slowing down after following the franchise to the West Coast, completing 166 tackles in RFCLA‘s debut season, just above his average of 160.2. With a strong 2025, Heaton could be knocking on the door of the top 3 soon enough…

Source: @RugbyFCLA on Instagram

Bringing up the rear of this list is New England Free Jacks Club Captain Josh Larsen, who sits in the Top 10 despite an injury-marred 2023 season where he only managed 18 tackles that season. This brought Larsen‘s average down to 125.17 tacklers per season, but he exceeded that with 133 tackles in 2024 and has a PB of 231 in 2022 so could easily be over 800 if not for injury. Here’s hoping no injuries prevent any of these guys from continuing to dominate the tackle charts.

Only 2 other players not on this list are over 700 tackles. Matt Heaton’s former teammate, now Houston SaberCat Johan Momsen on 741 (125 tackles in 2024, average of 148.2 per season) and Larsen’s teammate Andrew Quattrin on 706 (PB of 169 in 2024, way up from his average of 117.67 per season. Could we see either of these two crack the Top 10?

As for MLR’s new Single-Season Tackle Leader, Cory Daniel? His 276 tackles in 2024 was more than any other player in MLR history per season, but he’s had a few that have held his career total back. Daniel currently sits 16th with 651 tackles, but has never finished a season with a tackle count between 100-250. He has either fallen well short of 100 due to injury (totals of 59 in 8 games in 2021, and 61 in 4 games in 2023), or exploded to over 250 tackles per season (255 in 2022, record-breaking 276 in 2024). Daniel’s averages are high, with 162.75 per season and a huge 15.5 per game, but he might need another record-challenging season or two to crack the Top 10. If he can remain healthy, could we see him on next year’s list?

Source: @MLRStats on Instagram

Player Movement around MLR: September 30 – October 6, 2024

NAR Database

James Deeley

Another week deeper into the Major League Rugby off-season, and still no word on the Dallas Jackals dispersal draft. Player moves are still few and far between, with only 1 move confirmed last week. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to talk about however, with plenty of action taking place off the pitch. Here’s everything you may have missed last week:

Kruse heads to the PNW

Last week, the Utah Warriors announced the departure of 17 players that would not be returning in 2025. NARDB understands that this was the choice of the team and these players were let go, rather than leaving of their own volition. One of these former Warriors found a new home almost immediately, with the Seattle Seawolves announcing the addition of USA Eagle #538 Mika Kruse for their 2025 season.

Kruse was the 10th player in MLR history to reach 50 caps in the competition on April 23rd, 2022, and has earned 80 MLR appearances as of the conclusion of the 2024 season including 51 for the Utah Warriors since 2021. Adding his 8 tries in 29 games for the Glendale/Colorado Raptors to his 18 for the Warriors, Kruse has scored 26 tries in MLR. This puts him 8th on MLR’s All-Time leading try scorer list, and he’s the 6th highest MLR Meter Eater, on 4,218m. Still only 26, Kruse is a great addition for the Seawolves and he’ll fill the gap left by Conner Mooneyham on the wing.

Source: Seattle Seawolves
Chicago add Coaching Pair

Moving to the sidelines, newly appointed Chicago Hounds Head Coach Chris Latham announced a pair of Assistant Coaches for their 2025 campaign.

Latham announced fellow Australian Todd Dammers as Forwards Coach, after the pair previously worked together with the South’s Rugby Club in Australia. Dammers has previously served as an Assistant coach for the Samoan National Team in 2019 (also alongside Latham), as well as the Director of Rugby at Sydney University and Forwards Coach with the Tokyo Black Rams in Japan’s Top League. Dammers joined the Hounds from Brisbane Boys College where he was serving as Director of Rugby.

As well as adding Dammers, the Hounds bring in former Leinster centurion and Toronto Arrows center Noel Reid as Backs Coach. Reid, who is capped for the Irish national team and played at Leinster with former Hounds player Dave Kearney, a minority owner of the Hounds with his brother Rob. As well as earning over 100 appearances with Leinster, Reid represented the Leicester Tigers and London Irish in the English Premiership, as well as Agen in France. He finished his playing career with the Toronto Arrows for the 2023 MLR season, where he earned 7 appearances and scored 1 try. Signed to play with the Arrows for the 2024 MLR season, when the Arrows withdrew from Major League Rugby Reid moved to a coaching role with the Arrows Academy, now known as The Rugby Academy. Reid also served as the Head Coach for the Markham Irish in the Greater Toronto Area in 2024.

Hoiles Returns to LA

Moving further from the pitch still, from the sidelines to the offices. Rugby FC LA announced the hiring of former Wallabies international Stephen Hoiles as Director of Rugby for the 2025 & 2026 MLR seasons. The former Waratahs & Brumbies man is no stranger to MLR or even to LA, having served as Forwards & Defence Coach of the LA Giltinis in their Shield-winning inaugural season in 2021. He was appointed as the Head Coach of the Giltinis for the 2022 season, prior to the disqualification and subsequent folding of both the Giltinis and the Austin Gilgronis during the ‘Gilly-Gate’ fiasco. Hoiles returned to his native Australia and took up a position as Head Coach of his former club team, the Randwick Galloping Greens. Hoiles coached Randwick to the Shute Shield title in 2023, the club’s first title since 2004 when Hoiles was a player. He followed his 2023 up by being named as the Shute Shield Coach of the Year in 2024, and now returns to LA.

Hoiles’ appointment with RFCLA is as Director of Rugby, his first such role. It is unclear if he will also be taking on coaching duties while in this role, similar to Seattle‘s Allan Clarke, who serves as both DoR and Head Coach of the Seawolves, or if RFCLA will be announcing a Head Coach in the near future.

Source: @rugbyfcla on Instagram

There’s your round-up for last week around Major League Rugby. These summaries are released every Monday to ensure you stay up to date on all the big news around MLR with NARDB!

Major League Rugby’s All-Time Top 10 Meter Eaters!

NAR Database

James Deeley

Last week we took a close look at Major League Rugby’s All-Time leading try scorers. This week, it’s time for the ‘Meter Eaters’, MLR’s all-time Meters Gained Leaders! Different to Meters Ran (which totals all meters ran by players with the ball), Meters GAINED only accounts for forwards running, and gaining ground. MLR’s All-Time Meter Eaters are as follows:

As you can see from the leaderboard, which includes the average Meters Gained per Game (MGpG) of each player, only 9 players have passed the 4,000m mark. Of those 9 players, only 3 players in MLR history have passed the 5,000m mark. At the top of this list is long-time NOLA Gold center JP du Plessis who has gained 5,849m in his 84 MLR games to date and 3 seasons with over 1000m gained. Du Plessis is roughly 120m ahead of San Diego Legion & Utah Warriors legend Mikey Te’o, who hung up his boots following the 2024 season after 7 seasons, in 4 of which he recorded over 1000m gained. 3rd place is Seattle Seawolves stalwart Riekert Hattingh with 5,221m gained and two 1000m+ gained seasons, the final player over the 5000m mark and MLR’s leading forward in this category.

Of the remaining 6 players that sit between 4,000m & 5,000m, 3 represented the Chicago Hounds in 2024 including back-to-back Back of the Year Billy Meakes (2021-22, the only player in this list with a MGpG over 80), and USA Eagle & 2023 MLR Runner-up Nate Augspurger. The Seawolves’ newest acquisition Mika Kruse is also in this group, having amasses the majority of his 4,218m gained with the Utah Warriors between 2021-2024. The New England Free Jacks’ Fijian flyer Paula Balekana is the final player over the 4,000m milestone, just behind the only other forward in the Top 10 in NOLA Gold‘s 2024 Captain and USA Eagle Moni Tonga’uiha.

Source: @chicagohoundsrugby on Instagram

Bringing up the rear of the Top 10 is Rugby FC LA‘s Irish center Will Leonard, just shy of 4,000m on 3,963m after amassing much of his total with Rugby New York (2019-2021) and Rugby ATL (2022-2023). Leonard is almost guaranteed to pass 4,000m if he returns for 2025, as are a number of big names that are sat on the outside of the Top 10, hoping to break in. The likes of Leonard‘s former ATL teammate, and current Anthem RC standout Te Rangatira Waitokia (3,937m), and a trio of other Chicago Hounds in Julián Domínguez (3,745m), Bryce Campbell (3,715m), and Luke White (3,665m) will be hoping to see their names on this list following the 2025 season.

MLR’s all-time Top 10 Meter Eaters leaderboard is primed to be an entertaining race during the 2025 season with plenty of movement. This will be one of the many sub-plots around MLR’s 2025 season, and keeping an eye on this and other All-Time Top 10 leaderboards could provide fans with an additional level of entertainment to the quest for the Shield next season!

Warriors Announce an Exodus in Utah

NAR Database

James Deeley

The Utah Warriors yesterday announced the departure of a whopping 17 players who will not be returning to the club for the 2025 MLR season. In the post, the Warriors organization thanked the group of departing players, and wished them good luck in the future. So who were the departing players, and what does this mean for the Warriors’ season in 2025?

Source: @utwarriorsrugby on twitter

Let’s start with who is leaving the Warriors. A good number of these will be household names to Utah fans, players like Caleb Makene (part of the leadership group), Mika Kruse, Franco van den Berg, Thomas Tu’avao, Onehunga Havili, and Paul Mullen. Others are newer arrivals to the Warriors, such as Kieran McClea, Nic Souchon, Lopeti Aisea, Robbie Povey (although he was a Warrior in 2020), and Louis Conradie, and others still may be perhaps less well known among fans due to playing fewer minutes but are no less part of the team, such as Mika’s brother Isaia Kruse, Noah Bain, Alesana Pohla, Jonah Dietenberger, Jesse Hamilton, and John DuPree.

There is no arguing that this is a huge amount of turnover for the Warriors, and it has got some fans wondering what is going on. I have seen some people online taking this announcement to ask whether money is an issue for the Warriors. This is likely a side effect of the Dallas Jackals pulling out last week, and doesn’t carry much weight. The Warriors announced a brand new HQ towards the end of last season, which they simply wouldn’t have done if money was a concern, and they hosted ‘WarriorsFest’ at America First Field for their final game of the season in front of over 10,000 fans. The team is strong, and isn’t going anywhere.

Source: @utahwarriorsrugby on Instagram

So why all the departures? For a rather unsatisfying answer, it could be any number of reasons. Let’s first be clear that just because they are leaving the Utah Warriors doesn’t mean they are leaving MLR entirely. It could of course have been the team’s choice to say farewell to these players in order to free up cap space, for example. If that’s the case I hope they all land on their feet, and we see them back around MLR before long. It’s also possible that foreign players want to return home after spending a year or two playing in the US (Makene, Souchon, McClea, Havili, etc.), or that the more fringe players may feel they can earn more game time elsewhere (Hamilton, DuPree, Bain, I. Kruse). This latter point is not even limited to fringe players: Franco van den Berg will be 28 at the end of the month, Mika Kruse is still only 26, and Paul Mullen is 32, the prime age for a front row! Could USA Eagles Kruse & Mullen be on Anthem‘s radar? It wouldn’t surprise me to see many of these names return to MLR on different rosters, but we must accept that at least some will likely be stepping back from playing professionally, and thank them for their time in MLR.

Whatever the reasons behind it, 17 players departing is a high number for any team. After missing out on the MLR playoffs by inches in 2023 however, the Warriors will have been disappointed with their season in 2024. This overhaul of the roster may be the ‘rebuild’ that Utah needs to return to the playoffs for the first time since 2021. It’s not like the roster is barren as is, fans will be delighted that the likes of Joel Hodgson, Paul Lasike, Frank Lochore, Phil Bradford, Dylan Nel, and superstar Michael Manson were not included on the graphic (of these, only Lasike is US eligible, and he’s 34). We’ll have to wait and see who the Warriors add as the off-season trundles on, and Head Coach Greg Cooper & Warriors CEO Kimball Kjar now have a huge chunk of salary cap space to play with, let’s see how they use it. It’ll be a very different looking Utah Warriors side in 2025, but there’s a strong core, and underestimate them at your peril.

Edit: Hours after this article was posted, the Seattle Seawolves announced the signing of Mika Kruse for the 2025 season, so we already know the fate of one of the Warriors’ departures!