Round 7 of the 2025 Major League Rugby season saw all 5 games on Saturday for the 3rd week in a row, with every game kicking off within 3 hours of each other, so tries, kick-offs, and (most importantly) stats were coming thick and fast! Welcome back to Midweek Milestones, a weekly article that highlights the big achievements and standout stats from each round of the MLR season.
In case you haven’t read any of the previous Midweek Milestones, these weekly articles highlight milestones or standout stats achieved by players and teams that might have gone under the radar in order to bring more attention to them, as well as inform fans of some of the big milestones and the less publicized (but no less deserving) achievements around the League for each match week. If you want to read previous Midweek Milestones articles, feel free to search ‘Midweek Milestones’, or click on the category just below the title of this article!
NOLA Gold reach a century!
Following Utah last week, the NOLA Gold played in their 100th MLR game to become the 3rd team to play their century game this season, and the 5th team in MLR history to reach triple-figures! The Gold broke a strange pattern in their 100th game, becoming both the first team to play their 100th game in front of a home crowd, and the first team to face an expansion team in their 100th game, falling 18-20 to the Chicago Hounds in a nail-biter!
With the NOLA Gold reaching their 100th game, all five of the still active MLR founding member teams have now reached a century of games played! It’ll be a little while before the next team reaches this milestone. The New England Free Jacks are closest, on only 81 games, so we’ll have to wait until at least the 2nd half of the 2026 season!
LA & DC play a Slobberknocker!
The Flags travelled to Los Angeles to face RFCLA in a chaotic cross-conference clash! There were 13 tries in total with a final score of 54-44 to the hosts in what was the 3rd highest scoring game in Major League Rugby history! The total of 98pts falls just behind the 108pts scored in a 49-59 victory for Rugby New York in 2022, and the 101pts scored in a 42-59 victory for Houston the week before!
Unfortunately for Old Glory DC, they have now featured in all of the 3 highest scoring games in MLR history, and have been on the losing side of all three. For 2025, DC seem to be following a pattern of alternating wins & losses. So far this season they have always followed up a loss with a win, and always lost the game after a win. Are they destined for another .500 season?
Moving over to the home side, Rugby FC LA were able to hold on for a victory despite a handful of cards including two yellows and a red to scrum-half Gonzalo Bertranou. This victory puts LA on their longest win streak as a franchise, winning 3 on the trot to even up their record at 3-3 so far in 2025! Helping them to that victory was Christian Dyer, a California native and USA Eagle who joined RFCLA from the Houston SaberCats ahead of the 2025 season. Dyer scored his first try with his new team in this game, also marking the 20th try of his MLR career and entering the Top 20 players all time, tied for 20th with the likes of Sam Windsor and JP Smith. Congratulations, Christian!
Appearance Achievements
Checking in on some appearance milestones for last weekend, there was a 50th appearance for the Seattle Seawolves as well as a pair of MLR debuts which is where we’ll start, with Old Glory DC. The section above covers much of the Flags’ game from Round 7, but it didn’t highlight a MLR debut for Welshman Joe Rees. A native of Swansea and former Wales U20 prop, Rees was signed early in the off-season from the English Championship, where he captained London Scottish. Congratulations, Joe, and welcome to MLR!
Round 7’s other debutant was also in the Eastern Conference, for the other team in red, white, & blue, the New England Free Jacks! Canadian Sevens star Josiah Morra came off the bench in the Free Jacks’ sensational comeback victory over the Utah Warriors. Morra is capped for Canada at both Sevens and 15s levels, and actually featured for the Ontario Arrows (the precursor of MLR’s Toronto Arrows) in a 40-14 victory against the Free Jacks in New England’s first ever game as a team. Morra was on the bench earlier this season but didn’t feature, so congratulations on your debut Josiah, and welcome to MLR!
Heading to the Western Conference to recognise a half-century of appearances, Seattle Seawolves center Dan Kriel earned his 50th Major League Rugby appearance in a hard-fought 25-17 victory over Anthem RC in front of a home crowd! The Cape Town native and brother of Springbok Jesse Kriel, Dan joined the Seawolves for the 2022 season and has been a mainstay of the Seattle lineup ever since, becoming the 7th player to earn 50 appearances for the Seawolves. He has recorded well over 3,000m made in his MLR career to date as well as just shy of 450 tackles, scoring 11 tries and 55pts in total. Kriel and the Seawolves have finished as MLR Runners up twice, in 2022 and in 2024, and he was the recipient of the S. Marcus Calloway Award in 2023, honoring the player who shows remarkable passion, excellence, and integrity on and off the field. Congratulations on your 50th MLR appearance, Dan!
Scoring Standouts
Moving from appearance milestones to standout stats around scoring. There are now 14 teams in Major League Rugby that have scored over 1,000pts, after the Chicago Hounds reached 4-figures during their hard fought victory over the NOLA Gold on Saturday. The Hounds were sat on 996pts scored coming into Round 7, and Dylan Fawsitt’s try (who else?) just before half-time took Chicago over the 1000pts mark! With a 18-20 victory they now sit on 1,016pts scored as a team, and begin the long march to 2k.
Moving from team scoring milestones to player milestones, and moving from Chicago in the Eastern Conference to the Houston SaberCats in the West. The ‘Cats dominated the San Diego Legion (who seem to hate playing at SaberCats Stadium!) to put an end to the Legion’s 5 game win streak, and extend their own win streak to 5 games. South African scrumhalf André Warner dotted down for the SaberCats’ first try in a 34-14 victory, marking his 10th try in MLR! Warner is only the 8th Houston player to record 10+ tries with the team after recording 8 in 2024 and bagging his 2nd in 2025. Congratulations, André!
Staying on the Houston SaberCats, in the same game that André Warner recorded his 10th MLR try, AJ Alatimu came off the bench and slotted a penalty kick to pass 100pts scored as a member of the Houston SaberCats! Alatimu, who started his MLR career with the Seattle Seawolves in 2021, is only the 3rd SaberCat to pass 100pts with the team, behind Davy Coetzer (340) and Sam Windsor (432)! This proved to be a very important 3pts for Alatimu because not only did he pass 100pts with Houston, but it took his career total to 422, passing San Diego Legion legend Joe Pietersen (420) for the 2nd highest poinst scorer in MLR history! He now only sits behind Sam Windsor (595). Congratulations, AJ!
AJ Alatimu moving into 2nd wasn’t the only bit of movement at the top of the All-Time Scorers List! The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that the above graphic lists Old Glory DC‘s Jason Robertson in 5th place All-Time which, after this weekend, he is! The Kiwi playmaker recorded 13pts in the Flags’ high scoring defeat to Rugby FC LA, setting the MLR Round-High in points for a second week in a row, moving ahead of Mack Mason and into the Top 5! He’s almost guaranteed to pass Toronto Arrows legend Sam Malcolm for 4th this season, too. Congratulations, Jason!
Wrapping Up
The last active founding member team reaches a century of games played, Old Glory DC‘s unfavourable record in high-scoring games, and plenty of scoring & appearances achievements in this week’s edition of Midweek Milestones! Be sure to check back next week to see what standout stats Round 8 of the 2025 Major League Rugby season holds!
Thank you for reading! If you like this series, please get in touch on social media and share this article to help highlight these achievements! If there’s anything that has been missed that you feel is worth mentioning, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site. Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB or James on social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, @JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay and @NARDB on Bluesky!
Finally, If you’re looking to get your hands on some of the new Macron merch for 2025 or add to your jersey collection, visit shopmlr.com to get your hands on that new gear, and remember to use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off your order!