There’s no denying that it’s been a very slow Major League Rugby off-season for player movement so far. Aside from the now routine migration of players from North America’s top flight to New Zealand’s National Provincial Championship, fans haven’t really been given a great deal to talk about in terms of transfers. You would’ve been forgiven if you were expecting a flurry of activity immediately after the draft but it seems like teams are staying quiet on signing their new draftees for the time being.
The good news is that player contracts for MLR expired at the end of September, and with the vast majority of the league on 1yr contracts for the 2026 season that means that all 5 teams are going to have a lot of work to do over the next few weeks and months to build their rosters for 2027. While we wait for that news to come out, there are a few sparse moves to talk about.
Welcome back to NARDB’s Player Movement summary article, covering each and every signing around Major League Rugby during the 2026/27 Offseason. These summaries aim to keep fans engaged in MLR and keep a bit of attention on North American rugby while fans wait for the games to kick off in the spring. It’s also the only place that provides a recap of every MLR signing on a regular basis, providing fans with an easy way of keeping up to date with both their team and the competition in the run-up to the 2027 season!
Intra-League Moves
Fans have waited almost 2 months since the 2026 MLR College Draft and 4 months since the end of the 2026 season, but finally on 21st October the first confirmed signing for the 2027 MLR season was announced when the Seattle Seawolves confirmed the signing of former NFL Defensive Tackle and California Legion front row, Justus Tavai!
California native Tavai grew up playing football, playing at the University of Hawai’i and San Diego State before signing with the NFL’s New England Patriots as an undrafted free agent in 2023. He and his two older brothers, Jahlani and J.R. Tavai, have also featured in the NFL, with Jahlani representing the Patriots in the Super Bowl in 2025. After Justus was cut from the Patriots roster, he joined the American Raptors organisation in Colorado, specialising in converting crossover athletes to rugby. He earned a spot on the Raptors roster for their 2024 Super Rugby Americas season and following the SRA campaign, he joined Belmont Shore RFC back in California. Belmont Shore served as a feeder team to Rugby FC LA for the 2025 MLR season and, with RFCLA dealing with an injury crisis in the front row, Justus Tavai was signed to the MLR side in April.
Tavai would earn 4 appearances for RFCLA in his debut season, starting once and adding two tries for 12pts total to help the team qualify for the post season for the first time in their short history. Tavai didn’t feature as LA fell to the Houston SaberCats in the Western Conference Semi-final. Following the 2025 season, RFCLA merged with the San Diego Legion to form one team representing the whole of California, and Justus Tavai was re-signed to represent that team for their inaugural 2026 campaign. In his sophomore season in MLR, Tavai tripled his appearances from the season before, appearing as a reserve in all 12 of the California Legion’s games in 2026, including both their semi-final victory over the Seattle Seawolves, and the Championship Final where they fell to the Chicago Hounds. Tavai added a third career try last season, and set career highs in both metres gained (74m) and tackles made (43).
As mentioned, Justus Tavai is the first confirmed signing of the offseason not just for the Seattle Seawolves but for any MLR team ahead of the 2027 campaign. This makes it difficult to say where he might fit into the Seawolves lineup, but at 6’3 and over 290lbs Tavai has proven himself as a reliable front row reserve on a team that made it all the way to the Championship Final, and Seattle fans should be excited about that!
Departures
Even though this article only goes back as far as late September, there was a move all the way back on September 10th. The DHL Stormers of the URC and Currie Cup competitions announced their lineup for a pre-season clash with the Bulls. Nothing unusual there. However, starting at scrum-half for the Stormers was former SaberCats and Seawolves 9, Andre Warner.
The Saffa-heavy Houston SaberCats announced the addition of Andre Warner back in January 2024 ahead of that year’s campaign, and the Cape Town native deservedly earned All-MLR First XV honours for his performance in his debut MLR season, scoring 8 tries in 15 games (all starts) and completing just shy of 120 tackles. He returned for a second season with Houston in 2025, recording another 4 tries in 12 games as well as 5 try assists to help the ‘Cats earn their first MLR Championship appearance, falling to the New England Free Jacks in Rhode Island.
After scoring 12 tries in 27 games over 2 seasons with Houston, the SaberCats’ shock withdrawal from MLR meant that Warner had to find another team to represent. He headed from Texas up to Washington State to join the Seattle Seawolves, who had a healthy South African contingent of their own in 2026. Warner added another 4 tries in 11 games as a Seawolf, also contributing 8 try assists and 13 defenders beaten in a solid season in the PNW, helping Seattle to finish the regular season in 2nd place before falling to the California Legion in the Semifinals. He was named both Seawolves Players’ Player of the Year, and Coach’s Player of the Year for his performance in 2026. Over his 3 seasons in MLR, Warner scored 16 tries in 38 games, starting 37 times and recording 13 try assists and over 250 tackles made (as a scrum-half!).
A couple of weeks after Warner appeared in the Stormers lineup, the team announced that Andre Warner had joined the team on a 6-month loan from September 2026 – February 2027 as part of the partnership between the URC side and the Seattle Seawolves. This suggests that Warner will likely be returning to Seattle for the 2027 Major League Rugby season which could make for quite a crowded scrum-half position with JP Smith and Solomon Williams.
The month of October kicked off with another departure and it was a biggie. Old Glory DC fans may want to skip over this one. The Flags squeaked into the postseason in 2026 but were without their talismanic playmaker Jason Robertson, who had quite rightly returned to his native New Zealand to be with his partner for the birth of their child. Robertson then linked up with Bay of Plenty and joined the Steamers for the 2026 NPC, where he’d previously played between 2018-19. On 1st October, the Yakult Lavins Toda of Division 3 of the Japanese Rugby League One announced that they had signed Robertson for their 2026/27 season!
Robertson was playing for the Bay of Plenty Steamers in the Mitre 10 (now the NPC) when his signing was first announced by Old Glory DC in November 2019, ahead of their inaugural 2020 campaign. Even though that season was cut short by COVID-19 after only 5 rounds, DC were sitting on a 4-1 record with Robertson leading the league in scoring on 67pts in just 5 games, and 3 Team of the Week selections to boot. He kept up this lethal scoring with the league returned in 2021, recording his first 100pt season with 108pts in 14 games to finish 3rd league wide, also racking up a career high of 908m gained and 92 tackles completed. With a full MLR season under his belt, Robertson then headed to France having recorded a huge 175pts in just 19 MLR games.
Following stints with RC Narbonne in the Pro D2 and Aviron Bayonnaise in the Top14 between 2022-2023, in September 2023 Old Glory DC announced that Jason Robertson would be returning to the club for the 2024 MLR campaign, and he picked up right where he left off. Robertson appeared in all 17 games for the Flags in 2024, starting 15 times and recording over 500m gained in possession and career highs of 129 tackles made (his first 100+ tackle season) and 138pts scored which remains a single-season Old Glory DC scoring record through 2026. Unfortunately for Robertson and DC, he suffered a season ending injury mid-way through the 2025 campaign, and was sidelined for the rest of the year but not after adding 54pts to his career total in just 7 games played. Robertson returned to fitness in time for 2026 and it was like he’d never been gone. He was selected for the Team of the Week five times and finished 4th in scoring with 88pts in 10 games and a career high 3 tries to take his MLR total to 10 before heading back to New Zealand. For his efforts in 2026, Robertson was named to the All-MLR First XV (his second All-MLR selection), named Old Glory DC Players’ Player of the Year, and was the inaugural recipient of the MLR Comeback Player of the Year Award.
All in all, Jason Robertson has proved a prolific points scorer as well as a first-class playmaker in Major League Rugby. He finished the 2026 season with 455pts scored in his 53 game career with Old Glory DC, making him one of only 6 players to score over 400pts in MLR where he sits as the league’s 4th highest scorer. Robertson now takes his many talents to Division 3 of the JRLO, which runs from December 2026 to late May 2027 so rules him out of almost the entirety of MLR’s 2027 season. Congratulations, Jason! You will be missed in MLR and in DC especially!
For the Flags, following Simon Cross’ move to Director of Rugby Development and Player Pathways, they recently appointed Agustin ‘Cuca’ Cavalieri as their Head Coach, formerly of Anthem RC. Could Old Glory DC bring in a certain USA Eagles Fly-Half who played under Cavalieri for the Rising Stars in 2026? We shall see.
Typical for the 2026/27 MLR offseason so far where we have been drip-fed news and signings, the next departure wasn’t until a few weeks after news of Robertson’s move to Japan broke. On 14th October KHAOS Sport, the agency that represents Chicago Hounds back row and test capped Canadian Matt Oworu, announced that Oworu had signed with Biarritz Olympique in the French 2nd tier, the Pro D2.
Born in Canada, Oworu was raised between Canada and Zimbabwe, where he began playing rugby and represented both the Zimbabwe U18 & U20 sides, captaining the former at the famous Craven Week. He returned to Canada for University and joined Canada’s High performance program, the Pacific Pride, before entering the Canadian Sevens system. Oworu made his debut for the Canada Sevens side in Vancouver in 2021, and has since played over 100 games across 25+ tournaments for the Canada Sevens team. His performance for the Sevens Squad soon got the attention of the Canadian Men’s XV side, and Oworu was included in the squad for Canada’s 2022 summer tests, where he earned his test debut off the bench in a 45-0 win over Belgium. He’s earned 17 test caps for Canada to date, with his most recent coming in November 2025.
After committing to the 15s game in 2024, Oworu signed with the Chicago Hounds ahead of their 2025 campaign. He earned 13 appearances in his debut season, starting 3 times and completing just under 100 tackles to help the Hounds qualify for the postseason, where they fell to the New England Free Jacks in heartbreaking fashion in the Eastern Conference Final. Oworu came off the bench in both of the Hounds’ playoff games that year, and returned for a second season in Chicago in 2026. Oworu’s 2nd season in MLR was interesting. His season was significantly impacted by injury which ruled him out of a large chunk of the campaign (as well as national team selection), managing only 3 appearances on the year. He had a huge impact in those 3 games, however. Oworu started all 3, earned a MLR Team of the Week selection in Round 5 where he recorded his first of two MLR tries, beating 12 defenders on 130m gained to equal his 2025 total in 10 fewer games. As well as an offensive threat, Oworu averaged over 14 tackles per game for 43 in his limited appearances in 2026, helping the Hounds to record MLR’s first ever perfect season and ending the year as a Champion.
Matt Oworu now takes his talents to France where he joins the likes of fellow Canadians and MLR Champions Andrew Quattrin and Cole Keith (both in the Nationale), as well as the likes of Tyler Ardron (Top14) and Evan Olmstead (also Pro D2). The Pro D2 has probably the longest season in pro rugby with a 30-round regular season followed by playoffs running until early June. Unfortunately for Hounds and Canadian MLR fans, this all but rules Matt Oworu out of returning for the 2027 season, but is an fantastic opportunity for a talented player. Congratulations, Matt!
Oworu wasn’t the only Canadian making the trip across the pond however. In fact, he wasn’t even the only Chicago Hounds player to do it recently. On 21st October, a week after Oworu’s representation announced that he had joined Biarritz in the Pro D2, the Newcastle Red Bulls announced that they had signed 2026 MLR Forward of the Year Mason Flesch until the end of the 2026/27 PREM Rugby campaign! With the English top flight running to at least early June (before playoffs), this rules him out of returning to MLR in 2027.
Flesch is one of a number of Canadians heading to the UK for the 2026/27 season following Rugby Canada’s partnership with the 2nd Tier CHAMP such as former Arrows teammates Spencer Jones and Shane O’Leary, but his move is not part of this agreement and he is the first Canadian to sign with a team in the top flight PREM in 7 years. The Cobourg, ON native developed at the Al Charron National Training Centre between 2019-2021 where he played with both the Rugby Canada Men’s Development Academy, and the Pacific Pride. Flesch also represented the Canada U20s at the Junior World Trophy in 2019. He first stepped into professional rugby with the Toronto Arrows during the 2021 MLR season, where he earned 7 starts in 10 games during a tough season that the Arrows spent entirely on the road (due to COVID-19 restrictions). His solid debut season got the attention of the national team and in September 2021, Mason Flesch earned his test debut for Canada (#478) in a 34-21 victory over the United States in St. Johns, NL. Flesch would represent Canada’s lone MLR franchise for 3 seasons between 2021 and 2023, when the Arrows ceased operations. He earned 27 appearances in total for Toronto, starting 22 times and enjoyed a breakout year in a another tough season for the Arrows in 2023, when he started all 14 of his appearances, made over 100 tackles, and gained over 400m in possession.
Following the demise of the Toronto Arrows organisation, Flesch was selected by the Chicago Hounds in the dispersal draft along with former Arrows Captain Lucas Rumball. He made an immediate impact in his first season with the Hounds in 2024, starting 13 of his 14 appearances during the regular season and scoring his first 3 MLR tries. He started both of the Hounds playoff games that year as they advanced to the Eastern Conference Final where they fell to the Free Jacks. Flesch finished his first year with the Hounds with career highs across the board, gaining over 500m in possession and completing over 130 tackles to earn a spot in the All-MLR Second XV. The big 6’5 forward continued to improve in 2025. Although he took a step back in metres gained, he doubled his try total from the season before, scoring 6 times in 13 games during the regular season to ensure the Hounds made the playoffs, where he once again started both of their postseason games, but where Chicago once again fell to the Free Jacks in the Eastern Conference Final, this time in heartbreaking fashion. Along with his 6 tries Flesch set a career high of 165 tackles made and was named to the MLR Team of the Week 3 times.
Mason Flesch has just continued to get better and better, as shown by his incredible 2026 season. A lethal ball runner and potent offensive weapon, Flesch scored 8 tries in 9 games as part of a formidable Chicago Hounds side that romped through the regular season. He would add another try in each of their playoff games, this time lifting the 2026 MLR Shield to cap off the league’s first perfect season, 12-0. Flesch finished the year with a ridiculous 10 tries in 11 games, scoring more tries in 2026 than he had in his 5 previous seasons combined! With 100+ tackles made for the 4th consecutive season to boot, Flesch hoovered up the awards. He was named Chicago Hounds Player of the Year and Players’ Player of the Year, earned his first All-MLR First XV Selection, and capped it off by being named MLR Forward of the Year for 2026.
Flesch has been a standout for club and country for a while. In the international game, Flesch has started every game for Canada in over a year and has earned 27 test caps to date including their most recent win over the USA in Japan, in which he scored a try. With Canadians now counted as international players in MLR, Flesch was one of a handful of Canucks that is good enough to warrant using a precious foreign player spot on, but it was becoming obvious that he was good enough to play in some of the top leagues in the world. The question was where he would end up, and now we have our answer! The Newcastle Red Bulls are looking to make a mark on the PREM this season, and hopefully Mason Flesch will be a key part in their success. At only 26, he has a lot of rugby left to play. Congratulations, Mason!
Wrapping Up
Given the whirlwind that was the 2025/26 MLR offseason, it seems hard to believe that MLR fans have gone roughly two whole months with only 5 moves to discuss but as mentioned in the intro, the 2026/27 offseason is proving very slow to get started on player movement. There have been a handful of test capped Canadians that have found contracts in England thanks to a partnership between the English 2nd Tier CHAMP Rugby and Rugby Canada, but these Canucks were not current MLR players in 2026 so haven’t been included in this article. Nevertheless, this is great news for fans of Canadian rugby and NARDB wishes them the very best of luck as roughly the same amount of Canadians that played in MLR in 2026 are now playing pro in England!
These Canadians looked farther afield than MLR for professional contracts in large part due to MLR’s reclassification of Canadians as international players as part of a shift towards a larger focus on US talent. This had a massive effect on the number of Canadians playing in MLR in 2026 and looks set to continue into 2027 as a pair of the Chicago Hounds’ Shield-Winning Canadians found spots overseas with Matt Oworu signing in Biarritz, and MLR Forward of the Year Mason Flesch joining the Newcastle Red Bulls in the PREM. Another international player, MLR’s 4th highest scorer Jason Roberston, heads to Japan so Old Glory DC will be without their talismanic playmaker next season. Robertson won’t be adding to his career total of 455pts scored for the Flags, at least not in 2027.
The rest of this articles news comes from the Seattle Seawolves. Fans will probably be relieved that Andre Warner’s move to the Stormers in the URC was confirmed as a 6-month loan as part of the agreement between the two sides. Warner’s likely return in 2027 gives newly drafted Seawolf Solomon Williams another mentor along with JP Smith. Seattle were also the first MLR team to start announcing their roster for the 2027 season with the addition of California Legion front row Justus Tavai, fresh off a Championship run! Fingers crossed that we’ll hear about a few more Seawolves signings in this coming week, as well.
Thank you as always for giving this article a read and making it all the way to the end! If you enjoyed it, please share it so other fans can stay informed of all the player movement around Major League Rugby. If there are any moves that were missed, please let us know by tagging us on social media or sending them our way directly. James and NARDB can be found on social media here: @MLRStats on Instagram, JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky! Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site.
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