Month: October 2024

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!