Category: Stats

Scoring and Parity in MLR: What are the Trends?

James Deeley

Coming into the 2026 Major League Rugby season after a catastrophic off-season in which the league contracted from 11 teams to just 6, newly appointed Co-President Alex Magleby frequently mentioned the level of parity and competitive nature of the competition. MLR clearly prided itself on the relatively high proportion of ‘1-score’ games. Prior to the start of the 2026 Campaign, Magleby mentioned multiple times that ‘almost 60% of games…with 10 minutes left, there’s only a 7pt differential or less‘, suggesting that 60% of MLR games remain within 1 score, and therefore competitive, with only 10 minutes to play. This figure is indeed accurate and was a testament to the competitiveness in Major League Rugby between 2018-2025, but that qualifier of ‘with 10 minutes left’ is doing a lot of work. This was said before this year’s season kicked off, but this was not the case in 2026.

In this latest season of competition, a losing bonus point (earned by losing within 7pts) was a rare commodity. Only 18.2% of games (6 in 33) saw a team earn a losing bonus point. So what happened? Is this the next step in a year-on-year trend that has seen margins of victory growing? Is it a case of scoring increasing in general and a sign that teams are becoming more offence-oriented and less focused on defence? Is this specific to MLR or is it in line with what is happening in other leagues around the world? That’s what this article intends to explore.

This is a rare NARDB Deep Dive that can only be given the time it deserves during the MLR Offseason. in 2024 we explored disciplinary trends and the numbers of yellow/red cards handed out in Major League Rugby, while last year we explored the possibility of a Cup Competition with Super Rugby Americas. With all the talk of the relative parity around the league heading into 2026, exploring the scoring trends seemed like an obvious choice. Does 2026 fall in line with these trends? Is it a blip? Or is it somewhere in the middle? Let’s find out.

Scoring Trends in MLR – Points Scored Per Game

The obvious starting point when tackling this subject is to answer the question: ‘Is Scoring in MLR Going Up?’. The short answer to that question is yes. Based on the average total number of points scored per game (PPG), the 2026 Major League Rugby season was the highest scoring season to date. Additionally, the PPG average has increased year over year for the last 3 seasons, with the last drop in PPG average coming in 2023. However, with such a jump between 2025 and 2026 it’s hard to argue that this is a ‘trend’ more than an anomaly for the 2026 season.

The graphic below (recently posted to the MLRStats Instagram page) displays the average PPG for each MLR season to date from 2018-2026. Rather than a steady increase over time, this is more of a shallow ‘U’ or ‘C’ shape. The first thing to notice is just how much higher 2026 is than previous years. Most seasons of MLR (6 of 9) have hovered around 51/52ppg, while 2026 is almost 10ppg higher on average, becoming the first season in history to eclipse 60ppg. Secondly, if scoring was regularly increasing in MLR one would expect the second highest PPG average to be recent, but that’s not the case. After 2026, the season with the highest PPG average was MLR’s inaugural season back in 2018, with 57.2ppg. This average then dropped to 51.8ppg in 2019 and remained around that mark up until this year, with a slight uptick in 2025.

The above table shows that scoring has increased in Major League Rugby for 3 consecutive seasons. Rather than the gradual, steady increase in scoring that one would expect from a general trend however, the vast majority of this 3-year jump from 51.9ppg to 61ppg was seen in 2026. 2024 was in line with previous seasons, 2025 saw a slight increase to 54ppg but was still far below the high of 2018, and 2026 jumps massively. Why?

Looking at the two highest scoring seasons in MLR history, even though they took place 8 years apart there’s an interesting coincidence. As well as being the highest scoring seasons, 2018 & 2026 are also the shortest seasons in MLR history. It’s the only two times where the regular season has been intentionally fewer than 16 games per team, and involved the fewest teams (7 in 2018, 6 in 2026). Both 2018 & 2026 consisted of just over 30 games in total, with the next lowest full season consisting of 75 games in 2019, more than double the number of games. Taking the average PPG of the first ~30 games of the season between 2019-2025 as a way of adjusting for season length proved inconclusive. the averages for 2021, 2024, and 2025 increased to 54.9ppg, 53.6ppg, and 57ppg respectively, but the averages for 2019, 2022, and 2023 fell to 49ppg, 48,4ppg, and 44,7ppg respectively.

Based on the above, it seems reasonable to conclude that fewer teams and a shorter season results in higher scoring. There is a hefty elephant in the room that hasn’t been brought up yet though: 2020. For newer fans to Major League Rugby that aren’t aware, the 2020 season was planned as a 12-team competition broken into two conferences of 6, with each team playing 16 regular season games followed by a 3-round postseason. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic had other plans. Just 5 rounds into the planned 17 round regular season, MLR rightly cancelled the season. Coincidentally, this put the total number of games played in 2020 at 30. Almost exactly in line with the total number of games in 2018 & 2026. Looking at the above graphic though, if a shorter season with fewer teams does indeed result in higher scoring, why was the average PPG of the 2020 season only 50.8? Lower than the season before and exactly in line with the season after.
Of course, the teams and players didn’t know that the season would be cut short in 2020. They were preparing for a 20 week slog of a season where they might play up to 19 games. If the season was always meant to be a lightning quick, 5-round sprint, it’s possible that the average PPG would’ve been much higher, but we’ll never know. The idea that fewer teams and a shorter season results in higher scoring still seems plausible. The 10-game 2026 regular season was even billed as a ‘sprint season’ which lent itself to higher scoring and less defence. With a similar season length likely on the cards for 2027, it’ll be very interesting to see where the PPG falls at the end of next season.

The Impact of the Referee Review System

There’s another factor that comes to mind when trying to figure out why the average scores per game were so much higher in 2026. Prior to the start of this year’s campaign in early 2026, Major League Rugby announced the Referee Review System (RRS) in place of the traditional Television Match Official (TMO) that’s commonplace elsewhere in professional rugby. NARDB posted a full breakdown of RRS shortly after it was announced that can be found here but in essence, RRS was intended to speed up the game by removing the ability for the TMO to intervene in decision making unprompted. This proved largely successful, however it was introduced alongside a team challenge mechanic and it was this that slowed games down in 2026 more than RRS itself.

RRS does seem to have had the desired effect, though. By Major League Rugby’s own figures and putting the team challenges to one side, there were a total of 44 referee initiated reviews in 2026 which were correct 86% of the time, averaging out to 1.33 reviews every game. This clocks in lower than the average number of TMO interventions per game in overseas domestic competitions (1.5-3) and test match tournaments (2-4). The exact number of TMO interventions in MLR during the 2025 season isn’t widely known, but for the purpose of this deep dive it’s fair to assume that it’s around 1.5-4 interventions per game. In this regard, RRS has reduced the number of interventions and sped up the game by removing most of the unprompted TMO checks, but is higher scoring a side affect of that?

It’s becoming a bit of a running joke in professional rugby that you can’t celebrate a try when it’s scored just in case the TMO spots something to overturn it. With RRS replacing that and referee-initiated reviews being far rarer, it’s possible, even likely, that fewer tries were disallowed in 2026 than they would’ve been if the TMO was still operating in MLR. It’s also possible that a number of penalties may not have been given or may have been reversed as well. Both of these factors would’ve brought the average number of points scored per game down, and with the 2026 average sitting an even 7pts higher than 2025, all it would take is an average of 1 fewer converted try per game to bring the 2026 average right in line with previous seasons.

It seems even more likely that replacing the TMO with the RRS led to higher scoring when you take into account that Major League Rugby didn’t fully implement the TMO for every game until the 2022 season. Prior to that it was used sporadically and for MLR’s resource-strapped inaugural season in 2018, the second highest scoring season in league history, it was used for a total of 1 game. The Championship Final. Does a shorter season with fewer teams and fewer/no TMO interventions lead to higher scoring? On paper, it appears so.

The Question of Parity

Of course, just because the scoring is higher does not necessarily mean that the games and competition as a whole is any less competitive. The easiest way to determine league competitiveness and parity is to look at the average winning margins for each Major League Rugby season from 2018-2026, displayed on the graphic below (also posted to the MLRStats Instagram page recently).

While higher scoring doesn’t guarantee less competitiveness and therefore parity, unfortunately that is what the numbers seem to suggest for the 2026 season. Including the latest campaign this year, the average margin of victory across MLR history is 11.5pts per game. From the graphic below, 6 of Major League Rugby’s 9 seasons fall reasonably close to this with a possible exception being the shortened 2020 season which saw a record low average winning margin of 10.3pts to go with a joint-lowest average points per game of 50.8 as shown above. The remaining 3 seasons saw average winning margins rise far higher than the league average, with 15.6pts in 2022, 14.7pts in 2023, and now an all-time high of 17.2pts per game in the 2026 season.

The above graphic also highlights the obvious relationship between winning margins and 1-score games, which are inversely correlated. Generally speaking, a larger average margin of victory results in a lower percentage of 1-score games, meaning that the games were decided by less than 1 score (between 0-7pts). This ‘within 1-score’ designation is a fairly reliable way to determine whether or not a game was competitive with a higher proportion of 1-score games suggesting that a season was more competitive, and a lower proportion of 1-score games suggesting lower parity that year.

To provide a baseline, across all 750+ Major League Rugby matches since 2018, just under half (47% – 355/755) have been decided by 7pts or fewer. This was a completely different story in 2026. Last season, only 18.2% of games in 2026 ended within 1-score (7pts or fewer). This is a significant drop from the 44.2% just last season, and even a drop from the 30% in 2023, the season with the previous lowest proportion of 1-score games. 18.2% during a 33 game season works out at nearly 1-in-6 games which, considering that there were only 6 teams therefore a max of 3 games per week, equates to roughly 1 game every 2 rounds that finished within 1-score. Losing bonus points were incredibly hard to come by last season, almost twice as rare as the all-time league average.

So the 2026 Major League Rugby season had the highest average points per game of any season to date, as well as the largest average margin of victory of any season to date. On the surface, it makes sense that higher scoring games lead to larger winning margins and 2026 definitely supports that, but that isn’t always the case. As already established, the 2018 season saw the largest average points per game prior to 2026 at 57.2ppg. If points scored per game was directly related to average winning margin, one would expect the average winning margin to be on the higher end as well, but it isn’t. In fact, the average winning margin of 11.8pts is only slightly above the all-time league average and that’s despite less than 40% of games ending within 1-score.
It also seems like a higher average margin of victory does not inherently mean that there are more points scored per game, either. Take the other two years that saw significantly higher than average margins of victory. In 2023 the average winning margin was 14.7pts and the year before in 2022, it was 15.6pts. Despite these margins being 3-4pts higher than league average, the PPG average for these seasons are right in line with all years between 2019-2024, at 51.9ppg in 2022 and 52.2ppg in 2023. Unlike in 2026, these two seasons saw winning margins increase while points per game stayed roughly flat, suggesting that competitiveness dropped in these years which is supported by the fact that both years hovered around 30% of matches being decided by 1 score or less.

Mapping Each MLR Season by Average Margin of Victory and Average Points Scored Per Game

Looping back to the top of this section, the numbers suggest that the obvious link between higher margins of victory and lower proportion of 1-score games appears to be the only consistent link. The table above maps out each season of MLR as well as the all-time league average. Lower scoring doesn’t necessarily mean that winning margins will be lower and games will be closer (look at 2022 and 2023), just as more points scored on average per game doesn’t necessarily lead to larger margins of victory (look at 2018). But the table above highlights just how much of an anomaly the 2026 was. Far higher than average scoring did lead to far higher than average margins of victory last season, and it’s a real anomaly as highlighted by the table above.

The cause of this seems difficult to explain, as it always is with any anomalous result. It could be that a shorter season with fewer teams threw up a smaller sample size of games, with 2026 having roughly a third of the number of games as some of the larger seasons in league history. It could be the implementation of the RRS over traditional TMO contributed to higher scoring. It could be a combination of the two as well as additional factors. Certainly, a significant additional factor is something that happened in 2026 that has never happened before in Major League Rugby: A perfect season.

Dominance: The Chicago Hounds Effect

When discussing the 2026 Major league Rugby season, more often than not conversations would have to be prefaced with something along the lines of ‘with the exception of the Chicago Hounds’. Dominance may not be a strong enough word to describe the season that the Hounds had this year. Chicago enjoyed utter supremacy all season long (with a possible exception to one game against Old Glory DC…), recording a perfect 10-0 season with try bonus points in every game, finishing with the maximum possible 50pts and continued that dominance into the postseason, recording the highest scoring playoff game ever followed by the highest scoring MLR Championship Game ever, to deservingly lift the 2026 Shield in front of a soaking wet home crowd in June.

The effect that the dominance of the Chicago Hounds had on the numbers for the 2026 season cannot be underplayed. Isolating the 12 Hounds games from their Shield-winning season alone shows that average winning margin for Chicago in 2026 was 22pts per game, almost 5ppg higher than the league average last season which itself was far higher than any previous season. To put this in perspective, the 2023 New England Free Jacks recorded a margin of victory of 20.4pts in 15% of games (massively skewed by a 80-5 win over Toronto…). The San Diego Legion went 15-1 that same year (but fail to claim the Shield), their average margin of victory was 18.5pts in 16% of games that year. For all the talk of LA Giltinis dominance in 2021, their average winning margin was 19.8pts in 13% of games that year.

Taking into account that the entire 2026 season was only 33 games total, it means that the Hounds’ average winning margin of 22ppg affected over a third of matches this year (36.4%). A higher average winning margin in a significantly higher proportion of games. Obviously that is going to skew the results somewhat and sure enough excluding the Chicago Hounds results, the remaining 21 games of the 2026 season showed an average winning margin of 14.5ppg, almost 3pts lower per game. This roughly 3pt swing moves the 2026 season from having the largest average margin of victory of any MLR season by far, to being the 3rd highest and in line with the 2022 & 2023 seasons. Still high, but not unprecedented.

Naturally, the Chicago Hounds effect isn’t limited to the average margin of victory. As explained earlier in this article, the 2026 season was, on average, the highest scoring MLR season in history with 61pts scored per game. In their 12 games this year, the Hounds scored 50pts or more 5 times and averaged 46.3ppg, meaning that their opponents only needed to add around 15pts to reach the 61ppg average. Sure enough, 9 of Chicago’s 12 games saw over 61pts scored. In fact, Hounds games averaged 70.5pts scored per game, with Chicago themselves scoring 65.6% of all points scored in games they played. Their average comes in at almost 10pts higher than the season average so just as with the margin of victory, the Hounds once again skew this data.
Again excluding the Chicago Hounds results, the average points scored in the remaining 21 games this year drops from 61 to 55.5ppg. As with the winning margins this is still higher than most previous years, but lower than the 57.2ppg of MLR’s inaugural season, and in line with the steady increase in scoring that the league has experienced since 2023.

Mapping Each MLR Season by Average Margin of Victory and Average Points Scored Per Game, including Chicago Hounds games in isolation, and the 2026 season excluding the Chicago Hounds.

To highlight just how much the Chicago Hounds’ perfect season had on scoring in 2026, the above table is almost identical to the one prior except with two extra data points: Chicago Hounds games, and the 2026 season excluding Hounds games. This illustrates just how dominant the Hounds were as well as just how much Chicago’s games skew the numbers for the 2026 season as a whole, dragging the season averages from unusual but not unprecedented, to a true outlier.

Excluding the Hounds games, the 2026 season would still be unusual in that it saw higher scoring and larger winning margins rather than one or the other, but there have been higher scoring seasons, and seasons with larger winning margins. It would be the combination of those two that would be unprecedented however, rather than the levels. Considering though, that a shorter season and implementation of the RRS over TMO likely also had an added effect on top of Chicago’s dominant season, and the mystery of 2026’s anomalous numbers seems solved.

However, not everything can be explained by Chicago’s perfect season. As previously mentioned only 18% of games during the 2026 season ended within 1-score, 6 of the 33 total matches. Only 1 of these 6 was a Chicago Hounds game which leaves 5 of the 21 remaining games ending within 1-score. This still only works out to roughly a quarter (23.8%) of games ending within 1-score. That’s higher, but still by far the lowest proportion of 1-score games in MLR history when broken down per season.

Is Major League Rugby the Outlier?

We’ve established that the 2026 Major League Rugby season was both the highest scoring year in league history, and had the largest average margin of victory of any season to date, but is MLR alone in this or is this reflective of larger trends in pro rugby competitions globally?

While there isn’t enough time to dig into all-time data for more established international competitions, the table below compares the 2026 MLR season to the most recent full seasons of other pro leagues around the world.

LeagueSeasonAverage Pts Per GameAverage Margin of Victory
202661pts17.2pts
2025/2659pts19pts
2025/2656.8pts18.3pts
2025/2647.7pts14.6pts
2025/2658.7pts18.7pts
2025/2651.3pts16.4pts
202658.6pts17.6pts
2025/2661.1pts18.2pts
2026
(Reg Season Only)		61.6pts16.4pts
202655.9pts16.4pts
202658.2pts16.0pts

This table covers a wide range of rugby competitions globally, from the pinnacle of club rugby such as the Top14, Super Rugby, the URC, and the PREM, to 2nd tiers like the Pro D2 and CHAMP Rugby, to feeder systems and leagues comparable to MLR such as the NPC, Currie Cup, and SRA. A massive caveat to this is that the Major league Rugby season is among the shortest seasons of all these leagues. The 33 game 2026 MLR season is only really comparable to the Currie Cup (31 games) in terms of number of games (therefore sample size). It was roughly half as long as the next shortest competitions (Super Rugby Americas at 59 and the 2026 NPC regular season at 70), over 100 games fewer than the likes of the CHAMP, Top14, JRLO, and almost 200 games fewer than the gargantuan Pro D2 at 229 total games.

Putting this rather large asterisk to the side though, the 2026 MLR season fits remarkably neatly with the latest seasons of other rugby competitions around the world, despite being a real outlier among previous MLR campaigns. The North American professional game is still at the higher end of scoring as one of only 3 leagues from the table above that recorded over 60ppg along with the JRLO (61.1) and NPC (61.6), but is still right around the level of 8 other overseas competitions surveyed. In fact, the 2025/26 Pro D2 and URC seasons are the outliers, with the mammoth French 2nd tier at 51.3ppg (roughly the level of most previous MLR seasons) and the URC coming in at only 47.7ppg, significantly lower than any other competition in this study. A quick dip into test rugby for comparison shows that the 2026 Six Nations had 54.8pts scored per game and the Rugby Championship had 56.8pts scored per game.

As one would expect, with fewer points being scored per game the average margin of victory in the URC was also the lowest among the 11 competitions surveyed for the table above. The 2025/26 URC season recorded an average winning margin of 14.6pts, almost a point and a half less than the next lowest competition, the Currie Cup at 16pts. Although the lowest among the competitions measured, it’s worth remembering that the URC’s 14.6pt average winning margin would still be higher than the 14.5pt average margin of victory from the 2026 MLR season excluding the Chicago Hounds, which itself was on the higher end of historic MLR campaigns. Instead, Major League Rugby’s highest ever average winning margin of 17.2pts puts it right in the middle of the 10 other professional rugby leagues around the world, as shown by the table below. Major League Rugby sits between the likes of the Pro D2, SRA and NPC (all 16.4pts) below it, and Super Rugby (17.6), JRLO (18.2) and CHAMP Rugby (18.3) above.

Even though the 2026 MLR season sits higher than the three comparable competitions on length and arguably quality, the Currie Cup, SRA, and NPC, it sits way below the the French and English top flights. The Top 14 and PREM led the way with an average winning margin of 18.7ppg and 19pts respectively. What’s more, the young 2026/27 seasons for the Top 14, PREM and even the CHAMP are already delivering some eye-watering results only a few rounds in, which suggests that this years numbers will be even higher. Just look at the Round 1 match between UBB and Racing 92, the Round 2 match between Pau and Bayonne, and the Round 5 clash between Racing and Perpignan in the Top 14. These may have been helped by the Top 14s variant on the bonus point system however, where rather than just scoring 4 tries to earn a scoring bonus point, a team must instead score at least 3 more tries than their opponent in a match. This system isn’t in use in England though, so can’t have contributed to CHAMP score lines such as the Round 2 games between Worcester and Rotherham or between Coventry and the Cornish Pirates, with Ealing also racking up the points against Hartpury in Round 4. A tier above in the PREM is a similar story, with the 48pt drubbing that Gloucester gave Quins in Round 2, or the truly insane scoreline between Northampton and Bath in Round 3, and that’s not even getting into some of the madness in the PREM Rugby Cup.

Comparing Major League Rugby’s average points per game and average margin of victory with international rugby competitions.

When combining the average margin of victory with the average number of points scored per game, the 2026 Major League Rugby falls quite neatly into the ‘strike zone’ of the most recent completed seasons of many professional leagues around the world. This can clearly be seen in the table above, with only the URC and Pro D2 falling significantly outside this zone. Unfortunately there isn’t room in this article to go into whether the latest seasons mapped on the above table were also dramatic increases on historical seasons in each of these competitions, and therefore evidence of a wider trend within rugby globally, but New Zealand’s NPC did post an infographic at the conclusion of the 2026 regular season that mentioned that the average PPG of 61.6 was the highest scoring regular season ever, just as it was in Major League Rugby. With the NPC celebrating it’s 50th year in 2026, 21 of those as a professional competition, this may be a hint that increased scoring and larger winning margins are not exclusive to MLR.

Conclusion: Is this a Problem?

It’s a fact that the 2026 Major League Rugby season was the highest scoring season in league history by average points per game, and that it recorded the highest average margin of victory with the fewest proportion of ‘1-score’ games in league history. A high proportion of 1-score games was something that MLR prided themselves on entering 2026 as a sign of a competitive league, as proven by how often MLR Co-President Alex Magleby mentioned it prior to the season. Increases in scoring and average winning margins led to a generally less competitive season and more lopsided games that became less entertaining to watch on the basis that they were effectively over long before the final whistle. Rugby is an entertainment product, and if that product becomes less entertaining it will be harder to attract new eyeballs to it. This, obviously, is a problem.

However, the 2026 MLR season was a unique campaign. The league contracted dramatically which resulted in a glut of pro-level players squeezed onto fewer rosters for a season that was significantly shorter than previous years. The introduction of the Referee Review System to replace traditional TMO almost definitely contributed to higher scoring with fewer tries called back in a smaller sample size of games than previous years, although putting a number on this effect is difficult. 2026 also saw the Chicago Hounds record MLR’s first ever perfect season, with their sheer dominance in nearly a third of all games this year skewing the numbers massively in what was probably the most significant contributing factor to this year’s campaign setting these all-time highs.

Major League Rugby will no doubt be aware of these numbers. The sweet spot for maximum entertainment is high scoring but relatively low margins of victory, which is difficult to achieve. The league mentioned throughout 2026 that the RRS was a work in progress, and will likely continue to be tweaked and refined at least into 2027 which could have an affect on the number of points scored. Though not impossible, it’s unlikely that the Chicago Hounds will continue to dominate the league to quite the same extent for two seasons in a row, which may have a significant effect on bringing the numbers more in line with previous seasons of MLR. Until the 2027 season is played however, it’s impossible to know.

In isolation and relative to previous Major League Rugby seasons, 2026 was a true outlier with higher scoring and fewer close games. When looking at the bigger picture and comparing this to other competitions around the world however, this season was almost the opposite of an outlier. While a record high for MLR, the average margin of victory in 2026 was right in the middle of the competitions surveyed and although the average points scored was on the higher end, it wasn’t anything ridiculous by the standards of overseas competitions. MLR will likely want to at least bring the average margin of victory down, but it appears that this isn’t a problem that’s unique to MLR. Both the winning margins and scoring in general are growing all over the world and there doesn’t seem to be a solution for it at present. It’s likely that all domestic competitions are keeping an eye on each other to see what each is trying out (for example the Top14-style scoring bonus point, MLR’s introduction of RRS, etc.) in the hopes of limiting these lopsided games and increasing the competitiveness of these domestic competitions.

To wrap up, MLR came out of a dismal 2025/26 offseason with a very different structure and outlook. They tried new things in 2026 with the introduction of RRS as well as the Team Challenge system, and that innovation is key. MLR need to keep innovating, tweaking, and testing things in the coming years in order to stay competitive both internally and externally. Competitiveness in general seems to be dropping around the world and no-one seems to have figured out how to resolve that just yet. Does the TMO need to be replaced or does the power of the lineout maul need to be checked? It will be fascinating to see where the 2027 MLR season lands, and how that compares with ongoing and upcoming seasons around the world.

Thank you very much for making it through this NARDB Deep Dive into Scoring Trends in Major League Rugby! Please feel free to get in touch if you have any thoughts on anything mentioned here or what subject you would like to see in the next Deep Dive. 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.

Finally, if you’re looking to pick up some new rugby gear be sure to visit rugbynow.com and use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off of your order!

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from the 2026 MLR Playoffs!

James Deeley

The 2026 Major League Rugby season was always going to be a sprint rather than a marathon and after months of waiting for kickoff, we find ourselves at the end of the season in the blink of an eye. Despite contracting to just 6 teams, the 2026 Campaign proved thoroughly entertaining with a competitive regular season and a pair of entertaining semifinals (albeit for very different reasons), culminating in a massive rugby party for the Championship Game in Chicago.

After a week off, welcome back to the final Midweek Milestones article of the 2026 season! This series dives into all the standout stats, player, and team milestones from the latest MLR games, so that ‘statsheads’ like myself don’t miss a thing. Although this series has been weekly for most of the season, rather than having a separate article for the Semifinals and Championship, this article will cover the entire playoffs as a whole. With an emphasis on ‘postseason’ stats, this article will likely end up longer than normal anyway given the sheer number of records that seemed to have been broken! Breaking with tradition slightly, this article will be split into the Semifinals, and the Final. Let’s start with the Semis!

The Semifinals

Appearance Achievements

The 2026 Semifinals saw a pair of players reach a half-century of appearances in major League Rugby, one in each match-up! Starting chronologically as the Semifinals kicked off with the Seattle Seawolves hosting the California Legion at the formidable Starfire Stadium in Tukwila. The Legion’s starting hooker, capped USA Eagle and 2019 World Rugby Men’s Player of the Year Nominee Joe Taufete’e is playing in his 5th MLR season for his 5th different team, finally reaching his half-century of appearances in the competition!

Born in American Samoa, ‘Big Joe’ earned his test debut for the USA Eagles against South Africa at the 2015 Rugby World Cup in England, earning his test debut on the sport’s biggest stage before ever playing a professional game. This changed in early 2016 when he joined the San Diego Breakers in the short lived PRO Rugby competition. Following it’s only season of play, Taufete’e returned across the pond to join the Worcester Warriors in the English Premiership, playing there from 2016-2020. It was while playing for Worcester that Taufete’e became the first (and to date, only) player from a ‘tier 2’ nation to be nominated for World Rugby Men’s Player of the Year. Following his time with the Warriors, and a stint in France with Lyon, Taufete’e returned to California to join the LA Giltinis for the 2022 season. To date, Taufete’e has scored 23 tries in 37 games for the USA, with the most recent coming in July 2022.

Although he played a cup of coffee with the Leicester Tigers during the 2022/23 Premiership season, Taufete’e has played in every season of MLR since 2022, representing the LA Giltinis (2022), Houston SaberCats (2023), Seattle Seawolves (2024), NOLA Gold (2025), and now the California Legion, where he now reached 50 appearances, starting 35 times. He’s appeared in all 11 games for the Legion so far this season, starting 7 times and scoring 3 tries to take his career total to 19, including a high of 8 in 14 games for the Seawolves in 2024. Congratulations, Joe!

The day after Taufete’e earned his 50th MLR appearance, another front rower earned his 50th MLR appearance in the other Semifinal between the Chicago Hounds and Old Glory DC. Brazilian prop/hooker Wilton Rebolo came off the bench in the Hounds’ demolition of DC to earn his half-century of appearances, starting 13 of his now 51 games in MLR, 4 of which came for the Hounds in 2026.

The São Jose dos Campos native is a Brazilian veteran, having earned his test debut for the national team back in 2015 (the same time as Taufete’e was earning his debut with the USA, coincidentally). He signed with the Austin Gilgronis ahead of the 2020 season but a knee injury in the pre-season meant that he played no part that year, which only lasted 5 rounds before it was cancelled due to COVID-19. He returned to MLR in 2021, this time as a member of the Rugby New York Ironworkers. Rebolo, the first Brazilian to play in MLR, represented New York for 2 seasons, starting 7 of his 27 games and scoring 2 tries. He earned 5 starts in 15 games (both still his career highs) in 2022 to help the Ironworkers to lift the Shield that season, ending the campaign as an MLR Champion before heading to Australia where he had earned a contract with the Western Force, becoming the first Brazilian to play in Super Rugby.

Rebolo returned to MLR in 2024, joining the Australian-heavy Rugby FC LA after they relocated from Atlanta. He earned 2 starts in 7 games for RFCLA during their debut season, before joining the Houston SaberCats the following year, where he scored his 3rd career MLR try and earned 10 appearances to help the ‘Cats advance to the 2025 Championship Game where they fell to the New England Free Jacks. Following the surprise withdrawal of the SaberCats from MLR following the 2025 season, Rebolo joined the Chicago Hounds, where he earned 4 starts in 7 appearances as a part of their undefeated campaign, and made it to his 3rd final to claim his 2nd Shield. Congratulations, Wilton!

Matthews passes 5k!

Lost among the disappointment of the Seattle Seawolves’ elimination from the 2026 season following their loss to the California Legion was a remarkable achievement by one of their main metre eaters this year. Although they fell to the Legion, the Seattle Seawolves recorded over 500m gained, with 142 of those gained by one man alone, Duncan Matthews.

This is the highest metres gained total of the entire 2026 Postseason, and pushes him over 800m gained on the season, averaging 80.6m in each of his 10 appearances this year and finishing as the Round Leader for metres gained no fewer than three times in 2026. What’s unbelievable about Matthews, is that this average is actually down on his career average, which sits at 87.9m gained per game across his 57 game career with the Seawolves so far. The more mathematically inclined readers made have already put together that this means that in the Semifinal match, Duncan Matthews’ career metres gained total passed 5,000m!

Matthews is just the 7th player in MLR history to have passed the 5km gained mark, and his average is far higher than any of the 6 players above him which includes the likes of MLR legends Mikey Te’o, Billy Meakes, and Paula Balekana! Matthews’ 806m gained in 2026 is the most of any player this season, and over 100m higher than Brock Webster in 2nd with 667m gained for the Chicago Hounds. He recorded 28 defenders beaten and scored 3 tries to take his career total to 20, knocking on the door of MLR’s Top 20 try scorers. Congratulations, Duncan!

Semifinal Scoring Stats

The first of the two 2026 MLR Semifinals was defined by a kicking duel between Seawolves fly-half Davy Coetzer, and his California Legion counterpart Coby Miln. Both had been dynamite from the tee all year, with Miln entering the postseason as MLR’s top scorer, and Coetzer not far behind. It was a back and forth opening 40 minutes and at the break, the score was even at 16-16 with only 1 try scored. 22 of the 32pts in the first half were scored by either Coetzer or Miln, with both players flawless from the tee and equal on 11pts each.

As the second half progressed, Coetzer and Miln remained neck and neck, and even as the Legion began to pull away on the scoreboard, these two stayed neck and neck. It wasn’t until Coetzer missed a 70th minute conversion, and Miln slotted a penalty 4 minutes later, that there was daylight between the two. The two playmakers had combined for 42pts and gone 16/17 from the tee, with Davy Coetzer scoring 19pts to Coby Miln’s 23. The New Zealander went 9/9 from the tee, equalling a record for most successful place kicks by a player in a single MLR game, set by Toronto Arrows legend Sam Malcolm back in 2019 and equalled by AJ Alatimu in 2022, although neither Malcolm (9/10) nor Alatimu (9/12) went 100%! Unsurprisingly, Miln’s 23pts is a new Legion single game record, passing his own previous record of 18pts. It’s also a new MLR record for the most points scored by a player in a MLR playoff game, surpassing the 21pts scored by Alatimu for the Seawolves against the (San Diego) Legion back in 2022! Congratulations, Coby!

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Prior to the 2026 postseason, the highest scoring playoff game in MLR history was a 73pt Western Conference Final match back in 2022, where the Seattle Seawolves defeated the Houston SaberCats 27-46. 4 years later, the Seattle Seawolves were involved once again as that record was broken. Despite playing in front of a home crowd at Starfire Stadium, their fortress where they had won 21 of their last 24 games heading into the postseason (including against the California Legion just the week before…), the Seawolves came out on the wrong side of this one. They fell 34-43 to a clinical Legion side, with both sides combining for 77pts, the highest scoring playoff game in MLR history! While the previous record had stood for years, this one wouldn’t stand for long at all, though.

Less that 24 hours later the Chicago Hounds hosted Old Glory DC in the second Semifinal of 2026 and as mentioned above, it was a demolition. The Hounds put up a huge 59pts against the Flags who probably gave them the toughest time during the regular season, and the final scoreline of 59-22 only looks somewhat reasonable due to two late scores from DC. The combined score of 81pts surpasses the 77pts of the previous semifinal and sets a new record for the highest scoring playoff game. How long will this one last?

The Hounds have now scored 61pts, 59pts twice, and 57pts during the 2026 season. The 59pts scored against DC is the highest points ever scored by a team in a MLR Playoff game, surpassing the previous record of 46pts scored by the Seattle Seawolves back in 2022, when they defeated the Houston SaberCats 27-46 in the Western Conference Final. The 37pt winning margin also sets a new record for the largest margin of victory in a MLR playoff game, replacing another Seawolves record of 24pts when they defeated the San Diego Legion 43-19 in the 2022 Western Eliminator. This 24pts was tied by the Chicago Hounds themselves when they defeated the NOLA Gold 21-45 in the 2024 Eastern Conference Semifinals. For the cherry on top of their huge victory over perennial playoff contenders Old Glory DC, the Hounds’ 8 tries in this game took them over 250 tries scored in Major League Rugby! Chicago moved up to 254 tries scored after the Semifinal, with Peyton Wall’s 33rd minute score marking the 250th try in franchise history.

The Final

Champagne Sundays

It is a safe bet that the weather for the 2026 Major League Rugby Championship game in Chicago was the worst of any final in league history, with torrential rain cancelling other events across the city. It didn’t dampen the spirits of the 4,400+ fans that turned up to SeatGeek Stadium to watch the hometown Chicago Hounds take on the California Legion for what would’ve been the first Shield for either side. If you are reading this article, you likely already know the result. The Chicago Hounds capped off a perfect season with the perfect ending, defeating the Legion 35-17 to record the first undefeated season in MLR history, going 12-0 through the regular season and playoffs. The nearest any other MLR team has come to a perfect season was the 2023 San Diego Legion team that went 16-2, but one of those losses came in the Final where they fell to the New England Free Jacks, also in Chicago but with far better weather!

The 2026 Chicago Hounds will go down in MLR legend as the first perfect season and the most dominant side in league history. It’s hard to make the case against them being the best side the league has ever seen, they don’t seem to have an obvious weakness, they can play all kinds of different styles, and their depth is incredible. Yes the 2026 campaign was only a maximum of 12 games, down from the 18 or 19 games required to make the final in previous seasons, but you can only play what’s in front of you, and boy did the Hounds do that. They recorded over 550pts and 81 tries scored in just 12 games, scoring at least 4 tries in every single match, regular season or playoff. For context, their 461pts scores in the 10-game 2026 regular season is higher than last year’s champions, the New England Free Jacks, scored across the sixteen game regular season last year!

In a year of high scoring postseason games, the 2026 Championship was no different. Yes, at a combined 52pts it was far lower than the 77pts and 81pts of the Semifinals, but this is the highest scoring Final in Major League Rugby history, surpassing the previous record of 50pts on the final kick of the game from Chris Hilsenbeck. This previous record was set just last year when the New England Free Jacks defeated the Houston SaberCats 28-22 in Rhode Island to claim their 3rd Shield in a row.

Finals Scoring

As mentioned, it was Chris Hilsenbeck’s penalty in the final minute of the game that cemented the 2026 Final as the highest scoring Championship game in league history, but that was only one of his six successful kicks from the tee throughout the game. Capped by the USA USA Eagle went 6/7 in miserable conditions, notching 3 penalties and 3 conversions for 15pts in total to tie the record for the most points ever scored by a single player in a Championship game, set by Jayson Potroz for the Free Jacks in 2024. These 15pts pushed him over 100pts on the season this year, moving into MLR’s Top 20 Points scorers with 224pts scored across his MLR career including 52pts in the playoffs, the highest among active players and 4th all-time. Congratulations, Chris!

Hilsenbeck’s 15pts made a large chunk of the Chicago Hounds’ 35pts on the night. As with many things the Hounds have done this season, this is also a record. It’s the most points ever scored by a team in the Championship game, just overtaking the LA Giltinis in their 31-17 victory over Rugby ATL in 2021 and marks the 3rd time that a side has scored over 30pts in the Final along with the Rugby New York Ironworkers, who defeated the Seattle Seawolves 30-15 back in 2022.

On the subject of scoring, now that the season is complete we know the identity of the top scorer from the 2026 season and it’s someone who has already been mentioned in this article for breaking records but isn’t a Chicago Hound! In his debut season in Major League Rugby, fly-half Coby Miln appeared in the maximum of 12 games to help the California Legion advance to the Championship game in their first season post-merger, scoring a huge 130pts in total to finish as MLR’s Top Scorer in a season where this author doubted if any player would even break 100! Finishing 26pts head of both Davy Coetzer & Chris Hilsenbeck (tied for 2nd with 104pts each) that included 35pts in the playoffs, Miln recorded a success rate of over 85% from the tee which is easily the highest among players that have finished the season as Top Scorer, and his 10.8pts per game is the highest by a top scorer since Jason Robertson’s 13.4ppg back in 2020, when the season was cancelled after 5 games! Congratulations, Coby!

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If scoring over 100pts in MLR’s 2026 ‘sprint season was a big ask, scoring 10+ tries looked almost impossible. However, just as there were 3 players to break a century in points scored, there were a pair of players to reach double-figures in tries scored and this time, they both represent the newly crowned Champs, and both dotted down in the Championship game! Finishing the season in 2nd place with a hugely impressive 10 tries scored in his 11 appearances is Canadian international Mason Flesch, who split his season between lock and back row across his 11 starts in 2026, and reached double figures with a somewhat trademark Flesch score in the Final. The former Toronto Arrow entered his 3rd season with the Hounds on 9 tries scored in his MLR career, and more than doubled that in a breakout campaign that saw him pick up 3 MLR First XV selections this season and put his name up as a Forward of the Year candidate!

In any other season, Flesch’s 10 tries in 11 games would be extraordinary. To achieve that and finish second in tries scored however, is almost unbelievable. But that is exactly what happened this season, with Mason Flesch sat behind Chicago Hounds hooker Theo Fourie who averaged a try a game in 2026, finishing with 11 tries scored in his 11 appearances (10 starts) en route to the Shield! The Super Rugby front row was brought in as a replacement for outgoing MLR legend (and all-time leading try scorer) Dylan Fawsitt, and it’s safe to say that he was up to the huge task of filling that gap in the Hounds pack. Fourie was at the centre of the fearsome Chicago set piece, and completed 79 tackles of his own while beating 13 defenders to earn a pair of MLR First XV selections. The 21 tries scored by Fourie and Flesch alone accounted for over a quarter (25.9%) of all Hounds tries this season, and isn’t far behind the New England Free Jacks’ team total of 29 tries scored in the entire 2026 season. Congratulations, Mason & Theo!

The ‘Curse of First’

Earlier in this article mentioned the 2021 season where the LA Giltinis lifted their first and only MLR Shield. For a long time, they were the first and only side in Major League Rugby to have topped the standings in the regular season, and went on to lift the Shield in the same season. The Seattle Seawolves, who have made it to 4 finals and lifted the Shield twice in the early years of the league, never finished as regular season leaders. None of the New England Free Jacks teams during their threepeat run did either. In fact, the only time the Free Jacks did finish as regular season leaders was in 2022, the season before their first Shield when they were knocked out by eventual Champions Rugby New York in the Eastern Conference Finals. This rather bizarre pattern has been dubbed ‘The Curse of First’, but even that couldn’t defeat the 2026 Chicago Hounds.

Completing the first undefeated season in MLR history, the Hounds overcome ‘The Curse of First’ and become the first team in 5 years (and just the 2nd team ever!) to finish the MLR regular season as league leaders and lift the Shield in the same season. It serves as further proof that absolutely nothing was going to stop the Chicago Hounds from claiming their first MLR Championship, but is the curse gone for good, or just for this year? League leaders are still 2-8 when it comes to lifting the Shield, but we’ll have to wait for 2027 to find out…

Wrapping Up

With the Shield having been awarded, the 2026 Major League Rugby ‘Sprint Season’ has come to an end. Although shorter than previous years and probably less far-reaching, it was no doubt entertaining and one of the more competitive seasons from week to week, if not from game to game. With the obvious exception, any team could beat any other team on any given week, and it took until the very last regular season game to decide the playoff match-ups. In the end, the best team (possibly ever) lifted the Shield, bringing the first MLR Championship to Chicago. Congratulations to the Chicago Hounds from the staff to the players to the fans, your deserving 2026 Major League Rugby Champions!

As the curtain has fallen on the 2026 campaign, so it does on these Midweek Milestones articles also. Whether you read one paragraph 6 weeks ago, only read this article, or came back every single week, thank you. Please let us know if you enjoyed these articles, what you liked about them or what we could improve, or if anything was missed throughout the postseason. Who knows what the long dark off-season may bring, but there are USA & Canada international matches to look forward to soon, followed by the 2026 MLR Draft likely some time in August, and there’s bound to be all sorts of other news sprinkled in over the next weeks and months. Thanks again for reading Midweek Milestones, and welcome to the off-season!

You can find NARDB/James on social media here: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky! Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site.

Finally, if you’re looking to pick up some new gear over the summer, visit rugbynow.com and use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off of your order!

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from the Final Round of the 2026 MLR Regular Season!

James Deeley

The 2026 Major League Rugby ‘Sprint Season’ is complete! After 10 rounds, 4 of the 6 teams in this year’s competition have earn their right to compete for the Shield in the postseason, and it went down to the wire! A thoroughly entertaining weekend of rugby saw the playoff possibilities change countless times as tries were scored and crowds roared. The regular season is now complete but before we turn our attention to the playoffs, lets dig into some of the numbers from the final round of regular season play.

Welcome back to Midweek Milestones, the weekly article series that dives deeper into some of the standout stats from the latest round of MLR action! As mentioned, round 11 saw the playoff picture solidified, but it came down to the wire after some close calls that could’ve meant huge upsets! As regular readers of these articles will know, every MLR gameday throws out a bunch of interesting numbers, standout stats, and Midweek Milestones!

Appearance Achievements

As always, Midweek Milestones kicks off with the appearance achievements section, recognising players that earned a milestone appearance in last week’s games, 50 games played, 100 games played, 50 games for their team, etc. This week however, is a little bit different. This week we recognise a 115th Major League Rugby appearance from a league veteran, Seattle Seawolves stalwart, and capped USA Eagle, JP Smith.

JP Smith’s 115th MLR appearance makes him the most capped player in league history, surpassing the 114 games played for another legend of this league, Dylan Fawsitt who recently ended his career on a high with a US Club Rugby Championship title with Old Blue. The Butcher represented 3 different team throughout his MLR career, but JP Smith has only ever represented one. He has earned all 115 appearances with the Seattle Seawolves since entering the league back in 2019, helping them to their 2nd straight shield in his debut season that year.

A regular in the Seawolves 9 jersey since his debut season, JP Smith has played the maximum number of possible games in a MLR season 3 times, earning 18 appearances (16 regular season + 2 playoff) in their Shield-winning 2019 season, and 19 appearances (16 regular season + 3 playoff) in 2022 (when he started all 19) and in 2024. Other than the inaugural MLR season in 2018 before Smith joined the franchise, in every season that he played the maximum number of games, the Seattle Seawolves made it to the Championship Game. Spending much of this season on the wing, Smith has played in 9 of a possible 10 games however, so Seawolves fans may not want to read too much into that!

Smith, who earned his test debut for the USA as Eagle #572 against Romania in July 2024, has scored 23 tries in his MLR career so far and 133pts in total for the Seawolves, running up just shy of 2,000m gained in possession and completing close to 750 tackles in his career. Impressive for a player in typically lost-tackle positions like scrum-half or wing. Smith’s 115th appearance at the weekend was his 104th start, tied with fellow Seawolves stalwart Riekert Hattingh for the MLR lead, and one of only 3 players with over 100 starts in the competition with Dylan Fawsitt. Congratulations, JP!

Hounds complete Perfect (Regular) Season!

A significant portion of these Midweek Milestones article this season has been spent fawning over the Chicago Hounds who seemed to break a new record on a weekly basis, and not to rock the boat, this week is no different. They faced the New England Free Jacks at the weekend, who were playing for their season and just happened to be the team who dumped the Hounds out of the playoffs in the 2025 Eastern Conference Final. The 3x defending champs kept it close, and were even leading into the final 15 minutes, but with revenge and a 10-0 record on the line, as well as regular starters strategically coming off the bench, the Hounds were able to accelerate away from New England, ending their season with a 19-35 victory in from of their home fans. I have never heard ‘Fort Quincy’ so quiet, and it must’ve been music to the ears of the Chicago Hounds.

It’s quite poetic that the Hounds overcame the defending champions in their own back yard to secure the first undefeated regular season in Major League Rugby history. In fact, not only was in an undefeated season, but it was a perfect season. Chicago recorded a bonus point victory for 10 straight weeks for 50pts in the standings, the maximum available points and only allowing their opponents a single losing bonus point, claimed by Old Glory DC in their thriller last week.

Major League Rugby is no stranger to dominant seasons, but nothing quite like this. The first team that comes to mind for many fans will likely be the 2023 San Diego Legion, who recorded an extraordinary 15-1 regular season with 74 of a possible 80pts in the standings, 92.5% of the maximum possible points. Yes, this was a longer, 16 game season, but the Legion only averaged 4.8 tries per game (tpg) to the 2026 Hounds’ whopping 6.9. Nice. similarly, the Legion averaged 34.6 points per game (ppg) and an average winning margin of 17.9, both of which also fall short of the Hounds’ 46.1ppg and 20.9 average winning margin. The 14-2 Free Jacks of 2023 only close the gap slighty, with 5.0tpg, 34.7ppg, and an average winning margin of 20.2 with 68 of 80 possible points in the standings. Even the mighty 2021 LA Giltinis, who lifted the Shield in their first season and were arguably MLR’s first ‘juggernaut’, comes it at a seemingly mediocre 12-4 record, 4.9tpg, 34.1ppg, and average winning margin of 20 with 63/80 points.

The real magnitude of what the Chicago Hounds have achieved this season boils down to whether you view a 10 game season as drastically ‘easier’ than a 16 game season. The Hounds can only play what’s in front of them however and it’s not so much what they have achieved this season, but how they achieved it. Of course, it will all mean nothing if, like the 2023 San Diego Legion, they fall short of the Shield (also in Chicago, coincidentally). MLR’s ‘curse of first’ is a fascinating thing, with only 1 team in league history finishing as the top team in the regular season and lifting the Shield the same year, that being the 2021 LA Giltinis. The Hounds face Old Glory DC next weekend, who have given them the most trouble in both of their matchups this season, so only time will tell…

Scoring Stats

Last week, Midweek Milestones mentioned that USA Eagle Luke Carty had set a new single season points scoring record for Anthem RC, at 53pts in 2026. In the final game of the regular season for the Rising Stars, he tacked on another 6pts in a really close contest with Old Glory DC which they were leading at the 70 minute mark, but couldn’t hold out the Flags, who themselves were desperate for a playoff spot. Regardless, Carty finishes the 2026 season with 59pts for Anthem, all from the boot with a success rate of 75.68% (28/37). Not only does this set the new single season record in stone, but for the second week in a row Carty surpasses Cliven Loubser, this time passing his 57 career points for Anthem RC to become their all time top scorer!

With murmurs already starting in MLR circles about the future of Anthem RC given that their 3yr deal for World Rugby funding has come to an end, I’m sure I’m not the only fan to hope that Luke Carty’s new records for the Rising Stars can be contested again in 2027.

Back to the playoff bound teams now, but still building on something that was covered in the previous Midweek Milestones article. Last week, Divan Rossouw picked up his 17th career MLR try which took his total for the Seattle Seawolves up to 102pts and becoming the 7th player to pass 100pts scored for the 2x Champs. This week, that club has grown to 8!

Only beaten to 100pts by Rossouw’s limited goal kicking earlier this season while Davy Coetzer was injured, South African standout Duncan Matthews dotted down for his 20th career try for the Seawolves in their home semifinal clinching victory over their west coast rivals, the California Legion. Matthews’ 20th try actually puts him slightly ahead of Rossouw with 104pts thanks to two automatic conversions (for newer MLR fans, in previous seasons if a try was scored directly under the posts, a full 7pts would be awarded and there would be no conversion. This was scrapped for 2026) to become the eighth player in team history to score 100pts for the team! For anyone wondering, Davy Coetzer is the next closest Seawolf to 100, currently sat on 85pts all scored this season.

Wrapping up the scoring stats with the 3rd hat trick of 2026, and the second for the Chicago Hounds! It seem like no matter who the Hounds name in their starting XV or even their matchday 23, they perform. In fact, in weeks that they field a ‘rotated’ roster, there seems to be a pattern of one depth player really stepping up. The likes of Canadian international Matt Oworu in Round 5, Jake Kinneeveauk in Round 8, and now Tiaan Loots in Round 11!

The MLR veteran and long time San Diego Legion player is actually enjoying his seventh season in the competition, after playing with the Houston SaberCats in his debut year (2020), before joining the Legion for 2021-2025. He’s earned over 50 appearances in MLR, made just shy of 3,500m in possession (including a high of 988m in 2022!) and scored 17 tries, but these tries have come in batches. Twice, Loots has recorded 0 tries in a season (2022, 2025), but he’s also scored 4 in 2023 and a high of 6 in 2024. He has served more of a depth role on the Hounds this season, and had 0 tries coming into their clash with the Free Jacks, but that all changed. He just had a knack for being in the right place at the right time this week, and recorded his first career MLR hat trick to help Chicago secure that perfect 10-0 record, and was named as MLR Player of the Week to top it off!

As mentioned, this is only the 3rd hat trick of the season which averages out to 1 every 10 games, yet it’s the second for the Hounds who are just catching lightning in a bottle this year, following Brock Webster in against the Seattle Seawolves in Round 5. It’s the 5th hat trick in Chicago Hounds history, and the 56th in MLR history. It’s highly likely that it’s the last hat trick of the 2026 season as well, unless the playoffs have some surprises in store!

The Newest Member of the 1000 Tackle Club!

Not forgetting the more granular milestones compared to wins or points, California Legion flanker Lance Williams completed a team high 15 tackles (tied with Cyrille Cama) ot take his career total over 1,000 tackles completed in MLR! Now on 1,004 tackles, the long time Utah Warrior is the 6th player in MLR history to pass 1,000 tackles completed, and has made 113 in 2026 where he’s started all 10 of California’s games so far. Williams has averaged just over 11 tackles per game across his 91 game (85 start) MLR career, including four seasons with over 170 tackles made. He’s come close to breaking his career high of 190 tackles for the Warriors in 2019, with two 173 tackle season in 2021 and 2022, and 181 tackles completed in 2023. Combining this with his just over 3,400m gained in possession and 21 career tries, and it’s easy to see why Stephen Hoiles likes him in the Legion starting XV. Congratulations, Lance!

Scorigami Check

Scorigami’ is a method of tracking all final scores for a given league that originated in the NFL but has since grown in popularity and spread to other sports and leagues, with a ‘Scorigami’ being a score that has never occurred before. NARDB has applied the same method to MLR but does not take credit for starting this, as it has been present on the r/MLRugby subreddit for years.

The table below breaks down the three results from Round 10 of the 2026 Major League Rugby season, including how many times each score has occurred in the past and when, or if the final score is a MLR Scorigami that has never occurred before!

Old Glory DC 29 – 21 19 – 35 33 – 19
2nd Occurrence2nd Occurrence5th Occurrence
21 – 29
2024 – Rd 8		 35 – 19
2019 – Rd 14		 19 – 33
2026 – Rd 2
19 – 33
2025 – WCF
19 – 33
2025 – Rd 15
19 – 33 NOLA rugby
2025 – Rd 8
Note: MLR Scorigami only takes into account the final score, and does not (yet) go deeper into whether the home/away score configuration has also occurred before. For example, The Seattle Seawolves defeated the New England Free Jacks 21-29 as the away team, but in Rd 11 of 2026 Old Glory DC defeated Anthem RC as the home side, but these are still counted as the same score.

Wrapping Up

The most capped player in MLR history, the leagues first perfect season, and plenty more Midweek Milestones as the playoff picture is locked in. There was drama from the first kickoff of the 2026 regular season, to the final whistle of the final game. The whirlwind 10-game season and has provided us with heaps of standout stats to talk about in Midweek Milestones, but the business end of the campaign is here. It’s time for the playoffs!

Thank you for reading this week’s edition of Midweek Milestones! Please feel free to let me know what you thought of this article on social media, or let me know if you’ve found any standout stats that weren’t mentioned here!

You can find NARDB/James on social media here: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky! Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site. Finally, if you’re looking to pick up some new gear, visit rugbynow.com and use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off of your order!

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Rd 10 of the 2026 MLR Season!

James Deeley

The penultimate weekend of the 2026 Major League Rugby regular season is behind us, and with just 1 weekend of games left before the postseason begins, three of the four playoff spots have been decided but only one of them is locked in. The California Legion and Seattle Seawolves are still fighting over the final home playoff spot in 2nd, while the three teams at the bottom of the standings are fighting for survival, with the defending champion New England Free Jacks, Old Glory DC, and Anthem RC (mathematically, at least) all battling it out for the last remaining place!

Welcome back to Midweek Milestones, the weekly article series that dives deeper into some of the standout stats from the latest round of MLR action! Round 10 gave us another 3 cracking games including arguably the game of the season so far between Old Glory DC and the Chicago Hounds and as regular readers of these articles will know, every MLR gameday throws out a bunch of interesting numbers, standout stats, and Midweek Milestones!

Appearance Achievements

Round 10 saw a MLR collegiate draftee earn his 50th appearance in the competition, becoming the 6th Collegiate Draftee to reach a half-century of appearances, and just the 2nd from his draft class in 2022. Selected 1st Overall in the 2022 MLR Collegiate Draft by the Dallas Jackals out of UC Berkeley, Sam Golla has been exceptional since starting his pro rugby career. He started all 16 appearances for the Jackals during his rookie season, scoring 3 tries and gaining over 500m while completing a massive 218 tackles, averaging 13.6 tackles per game. Unsurprisingly, this earned him the 2023 MLR Rookie of the Year award, becoming the first 1st Overall Draft Pick to win the award. Following this superb first year of pro rugby, Golla earned his test debut for the USA as Eagle #558 against Romania in August 2023.

Golla represented the Jackals for two seasons between 2023-2024, scoring 6 tries in 26 games (25 starts) and completing well over 300 tackles before the team withdrew from the competition. Following this, the Texas born, Colorado raised Golla headed to North Carolina to join Anthem RC with former Jackals head coach Agustin Cavalieri, where he’s played for the last two seasons. He added another strong defensive season in 2025 (187 tackles made in 15 games) and remains a constant in the Rising Stars lineup this season, appearing in all 9 games so far. In his 50 game MLR career so far, Golla has started 47 times and notched 8 tries on over 1,100m gained (impressive for a forward), and has completed a huge 584 tackles in total with over 100 in each of his last three seasons, but a slight drop this year (67 in 9 games). Golla follows Canadian Cali Martinez as the 2nd member of the 2022 MLR Draft Class to reach 50 appearances in the competition. Congratulations, Sam!

Before the 2026 season, only 4 players had ever reached 100 appearances in Major League Rugby. Despite being a shortened season this year, that number has doubled! Luke White, Riekert Hattingh, and Jake Turnbull have all joined MLR’s exclusive ‘100 club’ and in Round 10, they were joined by California Legion forward, Keni Nasoqeqe!

Born and raised in Fiji, Nasoqeqe grew up playing rugby for Lelean Memorial School in Nausori near the capital of Suva, before moving to the United States in 2015 and settling in California. He promptly joined Belmont Shore RFC in Long Beach, helping them to a Pacific Rugby Premiership title in 2018, before turning professional and joining the San Diego Legion ahead of the 2019 MLR season. Nasoqeqe started 12 of his 13 games for the Legion that season, scoring 2 tries and completing 138 tackles (still his career high) to help the team finish as MLR Runners-Up that season. He would represent the San Diego Legion for 3 seasons between 2019-2021, starting 22 of his 28 appearances and scoring 5 tries in total with over 1,000m gained in possession.

Ahead of the 2022 MLR season, Keni Nasoqeqe moved from the west coast to Texas, joining the Houston SaberCats. After struggling through the first few years in the competition, the SaberCats went through a period of rebuild ahead of the 2022 season, bringing in former Springboks head coach Heyneke Meyer and veteran South African coach Pote Human to take the reigns. This transformation wasn’t limited to the front office, with plenty of new players arriving from around the league and beyond, including Keni Nasoqeqe. It was with the Houston SaberCats that he earned the bulk of his 100 appearances in MLR. Nasoqeqe played with Houston for 4 seasons between 2022-2025, posting positive records and qualifying for the post-season every year. In total, Nasoqeqe earned 63 appearances for the SaberCats, appearing in 17 games in 3 different seasons including 2025, when the SaberCats posted an impressive 14-2 record and advanced to the MLR Championship Game where they fell to the New England Free Jacks.

With the unexpected withdrawal of the SaberCats from MLR following the 2025 season, Keni Nasoqeqe returned to California to rejoin the new look California Legion. He’s started 5 of his 9 games for the Legion so far this season to reach triple figures! In terms of career totals, Nasoqeqe has started 59 of his 100 appearances including a high of 14 for Houston in 2022, scoring 10 tries in total. He sits just shy of 700 tackles made and has over 1,850m gained in possession. Congratulations on your 100th appearances, Keni!

Carty sets single season record!

With 6pts for Anthem RC from 3 successful conversions in the Rising Stars defeat to the California Legion at the weekend, Irish born USA Eagle Luke Carty moves to 53pts on the season, setting a new Anthem single season record for points in a season! Carty is just the second Anthem player ever to score over 50pts in a season, and overtakes Cliven Loubser’s 51pts in 2024 to set the new benchmark. Loubser is currently Anthem RC’s all-time top scorer with 57pts scored for the team, but Carty now sits just 4pts behind him with 1 regular season game left this season. Can he take the top spot?

Scoring points is nothing new for Luke Carty. He passed 250pts scored earlier this season and currently sits as MLR’s 12th highest scorer with 279pts scored in 64 games, putting him 4th among active players. This season, Carty is 25/34 from the tee across his 8 games played for a success rate of 73.53%, far higher than his career average of 68.82% (117/170). He has only scored 1 MLR try so far, which came back in 2024 while playing for the Chicago Hounds.

Scoring Stats

On the subject of scoring points, Luke Carty wasn’t the only player with a standout scoring stat in Round 10. In Seattle, a gutsy win over the Free Jacks was secured by a Divan Rossouw score that took the Seawolves just out of reach for the defending champions, securing a playoff berth for the 4x finalists and keeping their hunt for a home playoff game alive.

This was the 17th MLR try for capped Namibian international Rossouw which, when added to his 3 penalties and 3 conversions he scored while filling in as Seattle Seawolves place kicker during their injury ravaged start to 2026, takes his points total over the 100pt mark, to 102! Rossouw is averaging 0.4 tries per game across his 44 appearances for Seattle, and is the 7th player in Seawolves history to pass 100pts scored for the team. Congratulations, Divan!

Moving down the west coast from Seattle to California and the Legion, who were in fact playing Anthem all the way across the country in North Carolina. The Legion secured their spot in the 2026 playoffs in style, with an eight-try, 26-55 victory over the Rising Stars. Three of these scores came from USA eligible Welshman Steff Crimp, recording the first hat trick of his MLR career and doubling his career try total from 3 to 6!

Now on a career high 4 tries in 7 games (4 starts) so far this season, Crimp’s hatty is the first in California Legion history, and only the second hat trick of the 2026 season after Brock Webster for the Chicago Hounds in Round 5. This is the 55th hat trick in Major League Rugby history! Congratulations, Steff!

Player Milestones

The Seattle Seawolves completed the season sweep of the defending champion New England Free Jacks over the weekend, retaining the Coffee Cup with a surprisingly dominant victory (although the scoreline suggests otherwise thanks to a late surge from the Free Jacks). In this game, winger Ina Futi recorded the 2nd highest metres gained total for the Seawolves, with 55m gained which isn’t particularly remarkable in and of itself, however this pushes his career total over the 4,000m mark, becoming just the 16th player in MLR history to pass 4km made in possession!

A gridiron football player in his native American Samoa, Ina Futi moved to California in 2014 before moving to Idaho the following year and picking up rugby, before heading to Seattle in 2018 and joining Seattle RFC. The rugby club has served as a regular feeder team (and pre-season opponent) for the Seattle Seawolves over the years, and after excelling with the club, Futi was signed to a MLR deal ahead of the 2021 season and has represented the Seawolves ever since. His breakout season came in 2023 when he finished 2nd league-wide for metres gained with an extraordinary 1,495, scoring 9 tries and even completing 89 tackles out on the wing. These all remain career highs for Futi.

Averaging 57.8m gained per match across his 70 game MLR career so far, Futi is entering rarified air at the top of the Metre Eater leaderboard. He is currently sat 15th all-time for metres gained, while passing 4,500m would put him in the Top 8, alongside teammates Duncan Matthews and Riekert, who are both approaching metre milestones of their own, so watch this space. Congratulations, Ina!

Moving from metres gained to tackles made, and from the Seawolves to their Round 10 opponents, the New England Free Jacks. After signing with the Free Jacks from Old Glory DC in a high-profile move during the off-season, capped USA Eagle Jama Fa’anana-Schultz headed to France to join RC Narbonnais in the 3rd tier, Nationale. Narbonne qualified for the playoffs and eventually claimed the Nationale title and with it, promotion to the Pro D2. Excellent for Fa’anana-Schultz, although Narbonne’s success actually kept ‘JFS’ away from the Free Jacks for much of the season, finally linking up with the reigning champs and earning his Free Jacks debut in Round 9, and earning his first start this weekend in Round 10.

The long time Old Glory DC player and former Captain completed a team-high 17 tackles in round 10 to take his total to an even 700 tackles completed in his 72 game MLR career so far, averaging just under 10 tackles per game! Fa’anana-Schulz began his career with the Houston SaberCats in 2019 before joining DC for their inaugural season and playing with the Flags from 2020-2025, when he joined New England. Along with his 700 tackles that includes a high of 187 back in 2023, JFS has scored 16 tries on over 3,300m gained, setting his carer high of 4 tries in his final season in DC. Congratulations, Jama!

Not to take any of the shine off of Fa’anana-Schultz’s achievement, but he was not the only Free Jack to pass a big tackle milestone in this game. Captain Joe Johnston recorded slightly fewer tackles than JFS in this game at 14 (Johnston and Fa’anana-Schultz combined for just over 20% of all tackles made by the Free Jacks in this game!), but this took ‘The Mechanic’ career total over NINE HUNDRED, putting him in the Top 13 MLR tackles ever!

Johnston now sits at 901 tackles made in his 73 MLR games (60 starts) in total, all for the Free Jacks. The 3x Shield Winner is averaging 12.3 tackles across his career, but that season his average is an insane 16.8 tackles per game, passing 100 tackles in just his 6th game of the season. Congratulations, Joe!

Scorigami Check

Sticking with a newer segment that applies the concept of ‘Scorigami’ to Major League Rugby. ‘Scorigami’ is a method of tracking all final scores for a given league that originated in the NFL but has since grown in popularity and spread to other sports and leagues, with a ‘Scorigami’ being a score that has never occurred before. NARDB has applied the same method to MLR but does not take credit for starting this, as it has been present on the r/MLRugby subreddit for years.

The table below breaks down the three results from Round 10 of the 2026 Major League Rugby season, including how many times each score has occurred in the past and when, or if the final score is a MLR Scorigami that has never occurred before!

36 – 28 26 – 55 Old Glory DC 32 – 33
4th Occurrence2nd Occurrence2nd Occurrence
36 – 28 RFCLA
2025 – Rd 4		 55 – 26 NOLA rugby
2018 – Rd 5		 32 – 33
2024 – Rd 8
Old Glory DC 36 – 28
2023 – Rd 18
36 – 28 NOLA rugby
2022 – Rd 13
Note: MLR Scorigami only takes into account the final score, and does not (yet) go deeper into whether the home/away score configuration has also happened before. For example, the Seattle Seawolves defeated NOLA Gold 55-26 as the home side, but this is counted as the same score as when the California Legion defeated Anthem RC 26-55 as the away side.

Wrapping Up

For once, the Chicago Hounds didn’t break a crazy record! Instead, this week’s Midweek Milestones article covered appearance achievements for an MLR Draftee and a new Centurion, a new single season scoring record for the Rising Stars among other scoring achievements, and a bunch of player milestones for both tackles and metres gained! Three big games every week this year is throwing up a huge number of standout stats for us to break down, and I hope you enjoy them. Come back next week for all the juicy numbers from the final week of the 2026 Regular Season!

Thank you for reading this week’s edition of Midweek Milestones! Please feel free to let me know what you thought of this article (and the new addition of the Scorigami Summary) on social media, or let me know if you’ve found any standout stats that weren’t mentioned here!

You can find NARDB/James on social media here: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky! Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site. Finally, if you’re looking to pick up some new gear, visit rugbynow.com and use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off of your order!

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 9 of the 2026 MLR Season!

James Deeley

Two games of the 2026 Major League Rugby season remain, and we are now less than a month away from the Shield being lifted at SeatGeek Stadium in Chicago on June 21st! As if every game of this shortened MLR season wasn’t important enough already, these final games are doubly so. Almost everything can change from week to week and has been doing so, with big scores not necessarily telling the whole story in what has been arguably one of the most competitive seasons of Major League Rugby to date so far. Like every week, these big scores in Round 8 threw out some fascinating numbers and milestones so let’s explore them!

Welcome back to Midweek Milestones, the weekly article for statsheads that dives deeper into some of the standout stats from the latest round of MLR action, picking out achievements, records, or just unusual milestones! Round 8 mixed the table up, and Week 9 has done exactly the same thing. Let’s jump in with the traditional Midweek Milestones start, the appearance achievements!

Appearance Achievements

Starting in the Chicago Hounds reserves for the first time this season, Australian tighthead prop Charlie Abel was called up early due to an injury to starting TH Wilton Rebolo. Abel came on just before the first hydration break for his 81st career Major League Rugby appearance but more importantly this marked his 50th appearance with the Chicago Hounds, becoming just the 3rd player in team history (and 3rd this season!) to reach a half-century of games with the team!

Melbourne native Charlie Abel first entered Major League Rugby with the LA Giltinis in 2021, helping the team to their first and only Shield title in their first season, recording highs in starts (14) and tackles (164) that remain his MLR career highs through 2026. Abel earned 31 appearances (22 starts) across 2 seasons for the Giltinis before their disqualification and subsequent withdrawal from MLR in 2022. From LA, Abel joined the Chicago Hounds for their inaugural season in 2023 and hasn’t looked back.

Of his 50 appearances as a Chicago Hounds, Abel has started 34 of them, scoring 7 of his 11 career tries including 3 so far this season, tying his career high set in 2022. Abel has recorded over 100 tackles in every season he’s featured in prior to 2026 (where the shortened season makes 100+ tackles much harder to achieve) and has just passed 1,500m gained in possession, averaging just shy of 20m per game over an 81 game MLR career which is particularly high for a front row. Abel earned his 50th appearance with the Hounds with his brother Robbie in attendance, who serves as an assistant coach with Chicago’s Round 9 opponents, the Seattle Seawolves. Congratulations, Charlie!

Coincidentally, Charlie Abel wasn’t the only Australian front row player for the Chicago Hounds with an Appearance Achievement in Round 9, this time on the loosehead side. Veteran Jake Turnbull was named to the Hounds’ starting XV this week to earn his 100th MLR appearance, becoming the 7th Centurion on league history, and the 3rd player to earn his 100th appearance as a Chicago Hound after Dylan Fawsitt (MLR’s first Centurion) and Luke White earlier this season.

Sydney native Jake Turnbull moved to the United States in 2015, and is one of very few remaining active MLR players to have featured in the short lived PRO Rugby competition in 2016, representing the Denver Stampede. When Major League Rugby was founded, Turnbull joined the Houston SaberCats and has played in every season of competition to date. Turnbull has already had an historic season in 2026. When he earned his Hounds debut in their 2026 opener against Anthem RC back in Round 2, Turnbull became just the 2nd player in MLR history to have represented six different teams in the competition, having played with Houston (2018-2019), Old Glory DC (2020), Austin Gilgronis (2021-2022), Seattle Seawolves (2023), Anthem RC (2024-2025), and now Chicago in 2026! Turnbull follows Sean McNulty in representing six different teams in the competition.

Turnbull was the 18th player in MLR history to reach 50 appearances in the competition and in his 100th appearance, Turnbull passed 700 career tackles made in his career, the highest among props in MLR history (with the exception of Luke White who has played all over the forward pack). Capped for the USA as Eagle #562, he has scored 14 tries including a high of 5 for the Austin Gilgronis in 2022, and has started 52 of his 100 games racking up just over 1,907m gained in possession, averaging around the same metres gained per game as Charlie Abel, just in 19 more appearances. Congratulations, Jake!

Finishing up the Appearance Achievements section of this week’s Midweek Milestones article we head to Old Glory DC, who have a new most capped player! Just a few weeks ago in Round 6, Fijian lock and USA Eagle #591 Tevita Naqali suffered a brutal arm injury that looked like it would end his season. However, just 3 weeks later he was on the bench for the Flags’ Round 9 clash with the California Legion in Sacramento. A member of Old Glory DC since their inaugural season in 2020, Naqali came off the bench in the 60th minute to earn his 77th MLR appearance for the Flags, passing Jack Iscaro’s 76 games to become the most capped player in team history!

Naqali has started 65 of his 77 appearances for Old Glory DC across his 7 seasons of competition in MLR so far, racking up just shy of 750 tackles in total and over 2600m gained in possession for averages of 33.8m gained and around 9.7 tackles per game over 7 years. Congratualtions, Tevita! With Jack Iscaro currently playing overseas in the Top 14 in France, the next most capped Old Glory DC player is tackle machine Cory Daniel, on 65 appearances for the team.

The Chicago Hounds

MLR’s league leaders remain undefeated, improving to an 8-0 record after completely demolishing the 2nd placed Seattle Seawolves at the weekend. With more and more of these articles becoming dominated by their achievements, there’s an argument to be made to rename Midweek Milestones to ‘What Record did Chicago Break this Week?’ but for now, we’ll just devote a section to them!

Their huge 57-17 home victory over the Seattle Seawolves marks the largest winning margin of the 2026 season so far, and sets a new franchise record as the largest Chicago Hounds winning margin ever at 40pts. This surpasses the previous record of 37pts set earlier this season against…The Seattle Seawolves. From having never beaten the Seawolves prior to this season, the Chicago Hounds have now swept Seattle with a combined score of 116-39, setting franchise record after franchise record in the process. I’m sure the Seawolves will be playing hard for that 2nd spot to at least guarantee they won’t be playing the Hounds in the Semi-finals!

With 57pts scored, the Chicago Hounds fell just short of their franchise record 61pts scored, set against Anthem RC a few weeks ago. They tallied the same amount of tries as in that game however, 9. The Hounds have now scored 9 tries 4 times in their history, and 3 times in 2026 alone!

One for the Purists

From a high-scoring run & gun game in the Chicago sun, to a low scoring ‘one for the purists’ in the East Coast rain. A floundering Anthem RC side hosted a struggling New England Free Jacks side with both teams hoping to keep their playoff hopes alive. The weather, handling errors, and numerous tries called back after review resulted in a game where points were hard to come by. The score was 7-12 entering the final 10 minutes before the Free Jacks sealed a much needed victory with a Joel Hodgson penalty and final minute score from Cam Gerlach on his Free Jacks debut took the score to 7-20.

This combined score of 27pts is by far the lowest scoring game of the 2026 season so far, with the previous ‘record’ being the 11-27 Seattle Seawolves over the New England Free Jacks back in Round 6. In fact, this is the lowest scoring game in Anthem RC history, surpassing (or failing to surpass?) the 32pts set in a 6-26 home loss to…The New England Free Jacks in Round 10 of the 2025 season. History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme!

The Free Jacks now find themselves in a playoff spot, with the bottom 3 teams (including Anthem RC) separated by less than a bonus point victory entering the final two weeks of the regular season. Unfortunately for the reigning champs, they have one of the tougher remaining schedules, facing Seattle away and then Chicago. The Rising Stars are now on a 5 game skid (in a 10 game season…) and face the California Legion next week before what could be a playoff-deciding clash with Old Glory DC in the final round. The bottom of the table is where the action is this season, but here’s hoping we get a bit more scoring!

Tackle Milestones

As mentioned in the Appearance Achievements section, Jake Turnbull passed 700 career tackles on his 100th MLR appearance, But he wasn’t the only Chicago Hounds player to pass 700 career tackles in their big win over the Seawolves. Nathan ‘Moose’ den Hoedt completed 10 tackles to take his career total to 707! The Brisbane native is in his 7th season in the competition and 1st with the Chicago Hounds, and has averaged 8.7 tackles per game across his 81 game (77 start) MLR career, primarily as a lock. Den Hoedt has recorded 3 100+ tackle seasons, including a career high of 173 in his debut season with the LA Giltinis in 2021. Congratulations, Nathan!

Moving up the tackles leaderboard, Round 9 also gave us a new member of the 1,000 tackle club, the 3rd new addition this season! Prior to 2026, All-Time MLR Tackle Leader Lucas Rumball and MLR Legend Dylan Fawsitt were the only players with over 1,000 completed tackles but since the start of the season, they have been joined by Johan Momsen, Riekert Hattingh, and now USA Eagle #551 and Old Glory DC stalwart, Cory Daniel!

The wrestler-turned-back row is the 5th player in MLR history to pass 1,000 tackles made, and has been an absolute tackle machine since entering MLR in 2021. He’s finished as MLR’s top tackler twice, with 255 tackles in 2022 and a career high 276 tackles in 2024, also finishing 2nd in 2025 with 237 to wrap up his three 230+ tackle seasons. With 15 tackles made for the Flags in Round 9, Daniel has taken the 2026 lead with 125 tackles completed in just 8 games played, and passes 1,000 tackles in 65 MLR matches (60 starts), by far the fewest games to reach 1,000 tackles in MLR history. Not only is Cory Daniel a particularly prolific tackler, but he is remarkably consistent. His 125 tackles in 8 games this season averages out to 15.63 tackles per game which sits almost exactly in line (actually slightly above) his career average of 15.58 per game. Congratulations Cory, the fifth member of MLR’s 1,000 tackle club!

Scorigami Check

A relatively new segment that applied the concept of ‘Scorigami’ to Major League Rugby. Scorigami was coined by Jon Bois in 2014 as a method of tracking all final scores in the NFL and has since grown in popularity and spread to other sports leagues, with a ‘Scorigami’ being a score that has never occurred before. NARDB has applied the same method to MLR but does not take credit for starting this, as it has been present on the r/MLRugby subreddit for years.

The table below breaks down the three results from Round 8 of the 2026 Major League Rugby season, including how many times each score has occurred in the past and when, or if the final score is a MLR Scorigami that has never occurred before!

7 – 20 57 – 17 42 – 10 Old Glory DC
2nd Occurrence🚨 SCORIGAMI! 🚨🚨 SCORIGAMI! 🚨
7 – 20
2018 – RD 7
Note: MLR Scorigami only takes into account the final score, and does not (yet) go deeper into whether the home/away score configuration has also happened before.

Wrapping Up

Another new Major league Rugby Centurion, another member of the 1,000 tackle club, and another handful of records for the Chicago Hounds! Round 9 of the 2026 MLR Season has set up Round 10 to be make or break for many sides with playoff aspirations, while still giving us statsheads plenty to talk about for Midweek Milestones. Be sure to come back next week to root through all the obscure records and standout stats that Round 10 has to offer!

Thank you for reading this week’s edition of Midweek Milestones! Please feel free to let me know what you thought of this article (and the new addition of the Scorigami Summary) on social media, or let me know if you’ve found any standout stats that weren’t mentioned here!

You can find NARDB/James on social media here: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky! Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site.

Finally, if you’re looking to pick up some new gear, visit rugbynow.com and use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off of your order!

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 8 of the 2026 MLR Season!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

There’s just under a third of the regular season still to play but we’re rapidly approaching the business end of the 2026 Major League Rugby season, and the first team has already locked in their place in the postseason! Other teams are still a week or two away from their clinching scenarios, but Round 8 definitely shook up the standings, and produced some standout stats in the process!

Welcome back to Midweek Milestones, the weekly article that dives into the numbers from the latest round of MLR action and pulls out the extreme, the unusual, and the standout stats! As already mentioned, Round 8 of the 2026 season really mixed the table up, and threw out some interesting numbers in the process, as usual! Let’s jump into the traditional Midweek Milestones start, with an appearance achievement!

Appearance Achievements

There’s one appearance achievement this week, and for the 2nd week in a row it belongs to an Old Glory DC player! Talismanic fly-half Jason Robertson earned his 48th start in his 50th appearance for the Flags in their nail-biting victory over their rivals the New England Free Jacks to record their 4th straight win in the Red, White and Blue bowl. That matchup is almost guaranteed to produce a close, entertaining game, but the Flags just know how to come out on the right side of it. On this occassion, it was thanks to a Man of the Match performance from Robertson in his 50th MLR game!

The New Zealander joined Old Glory DC ahead of their inaugural season in 2020, starting all 5 games before the season was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the point the season was paused, Robertson had scored 2 tries and a huge 67pts in his 5 games, leading the entire league. He returned for the 2021 season with the Flags and continued to score at an impressive rate, recording 108pts in 14 games that season to finish 3rd league-wide, and gaining over 900m in possession. He had recorded 175pts scored in just 19 games for DC between 2020-21, averaging 9pts per game!

Following the 2021 MLR campaign, Robertson headed to France to join RC Narbonnais in the Pro D2 before joining Aviron Bayonnaise in the Top 14, once of the best professional rugby leagues in the world. After 3 years in France, Robertson returned to MLR and Old Glory DC ahead of the 2024 campaign and he picked up right where he left off, with a career high 138pts in 17 games (15 starts) including his first postseason appearance. Not only was this a career high in points, but it remains the Old Glory DC single-season record for points scored! Robertson was named to the All-MLR Honorable Mention XV for his efforts in his return.

‘Robocop’ has spent his entire MLR career with Old Glory DC, and has been a standout in each of the 5 seasons in which he has competed. He earned 2 team of the week selections in 7 games in 2025 before suffering a Lisfranc injury that sidelined him for a year, but now he’s back on the pitch and doesn’t seem to have lost a step at all! In his now 50 game MLR career, Jason Robertson has racked up 9 tries and 429pts scored for Old Glory DC, still hovering around that 9ppg average and making him MLR’s 3rd highest scorer of all time with a 70.62% success rate from the tee (125/177). Congratulations on earning your 50th MLR cap, Jason!

Hounds make it 7 in a row!

It seems like every week so far this season, the Chicago Hounds set or break a new record. Whether it be a franchise record for points scored, a huge performance from one of their players, or being the first team to secure their spot in the 2026 MLR Playoffs. The Hounds have been dominant so far this season, and have to record to back it up, sitting 7-0 and fourteen points ahead of the 2nd placed Seattle Seawolves!

The California Legion gave them their biggest test of the year so far last weekend, leading 19-12 at the half to mark the first time this year that the Hounds have trailed after 40 minutes, and the first time that they have not claimed the try bonus point in the first half. Chicago came out firing in the second half however, and after 20 minutes of great defence from the Legion, the dam burst and the Hounds ran away with a 26-36 road victory to sweep the regular season series against the California Legion.

This 7th consecutive victory sets a new franchise best win streak for the Chicago Hounds, surpassing the previous record of 6 achieved from Rounds 3-9 of the 2025 season. It also matches their longest possession of The Old Mate at 6 games (from their previous victory over the California Legion in Round 3, to this win in Round 8), also achieved during the same run last year. Congratulations yet again, Chicago!

Player Milestones

Like most weeks, Round 8 saw a handful of players reach some highly impressive individual milestones that absolutely deserve recognition, which is exactly the purpose of this article, so let’s get started with some tackle machines!

As mentioned above, the California Legion gave the Chicago Hounds their toughest test of the season in Round 8 and although they came up short, there still something for Legion fans to cheer about. MLR veteran and 2021 Champion Billy Meakes was one of only 2 Legion players to record double digit tackles made in that game, recording 12 completed tackles just behind Ed Timpson’s 14 completions. These 12 tackles took Meakes’ career total past 750 tackles made in total, becoming the 21st player in league history to pass that milestone, and just the 3rd back!

Already a member of the 5,000m gained club (sat 4th all-time on 5,622), Billy Meakes is now sat on 752 tackles made across his 79 game MLR career. This works out as 9.5 tackles per game as a centre! Meakes has recorded over 130 tackles completed for in 4 of his 5 seasons prior to 2026 (falling just short with 92 in his debut 2021 season), including back to back seasons with over 150 tackles in 2022-23. Meakes is currently above his average with 62 tackles in 6 games so far and while it may be a push, another 100+ tackle season isn’t quite off the table yet. Congratulations, Billy!

Moving a little further up the table from Billy Meakes at 750 tackles and across the country from Sacramento to DC, where Old Glory Captain and USA Eagle Ben Bonasso led from the front in his teams fourth straight victory over the defending champs, as mentioned earlier. Bonasso was one of the highest tackles on the Flags, recording 15 completed tackles to take his career total over 900 tackles completed! The Connecticut born, Buenos Aires raised back row moves up to 908 total tackles completed across his 75 game MLR career, starting 67 times and averaging 12.1 tackles per game.

Bonasso is currently tied for 5th player league-wide on 96 tackles for the 2026 season so far, and will likely pass 100 to record the 5th 100+ tackle season of his career which includes 4 seasons with 160+ tackles made, and a career high of 199 (so close!) for the New York Ironworkers back in their Shield winning season in 2022. Congratulations, Benja!

MLR ‘Scorigami’ for Round 8!

For those of you that follow this site on socials, you may have noticed that NARDB has been posting ‘Scorigami’ updates after each round this season. Scorigami was coined by Jon Bois in 2014 as a method of tracking all final scores in the NFL and has since grown in popularity and spread to other sports leagues, with a ‘Scorigami’ being a score that has never occurred before. NARDB has applied the same method to Major League Rugby but does not take credit for starting this, as I believe it began on the r/MLRugby subreddit.

The table below breaks down the three results from Round 8 of the 2026 Major League Rugby season, including how many times each score has occurred in the past and when, or if the final score is a MLR Scorigami!

26 – 36 57 – 21 Old Glory DC 24-23
2nd Occurrence🚨 SCORIGAMI! 🚨3rd Occurrence
26 – 36
2023 – RD 13		 23 – 24
2024 – RD 12
NOLA rugby 23 – 24
2022 – RD 3
Note: MLR Scorigami only takes into account the final score, and does not (yet) go deeper into whether the home/away score configuration has also happened before. For example, Old Glory DC defeated New England 24-23 as the home side, but this is counted as the same score as when New England defeated the San Diego Legion 23-24 as the away side.

Wrapping Up

The first playoff spot has been claimed thanks to a franchise-best win streak, one of MLR’s all-time top scorers reaches a half-century of appearances as his team sweep their rivals for the 2nd year running, and some big tackle milestones!

Thank you for reading this week’s edition of Midweek Milestones! Hopefully I will see you next week, when we find out what sort of Midweek Milestones a high-stakes Round 9 will give us!. Please feel free to let me know what you thought of this article (and the new addition of the Scorigami Summary) on social media, or if you’ve found a milestone that I may have missed!

You can find NARDB/James on social media here: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky! Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site.

Finally, if you’re looking to pick up some new gear, visit rugbynow.com and use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off of your order!



Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 7 of the 2026 MLR Season!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

The second half of the 2026 Major League Rugby season is underway and every try, every bonus point, and every win is absolutely vital! Every team now has 4 games remaining, but 6 teams into 4 playoff spots doesn’t go and nobody wants to miss out. It’s going to be carnage!

Welcome back to Midweek Milestones, the weekly article that gets into the numbers from the latest round of MLR action and pulls out the extreme, the unusual, and the standout stats! Round 7 is back to a full compliment of 3 games over the weekend, throwing up plenty of numbers for us to get into and as is tradition, we start with the appearance achievements!

Appearance Achievements

On Sunday, a 3rd member of MLR’s 2022 Collegiate Draft Class reached a half-century of appearances in the competition. Canadian prop Cali Martinez has developed into a regular front row starter for Old Glory DC and made his 50th appearance for the Flags in Round 7, joining teammate Collin Grosse and 1st overall pick Sam Golla in the half-century club!

Drafted out of the University of British Columbia after playing with the Thunderbirds, Martinez was the highest drafted Canadian in MLR history when he was selected 3rd overall by Old Glory DC in 2022 (Since surpassed by Neil Trainor in 2024). Along with Grosse & Golla, test capped Canadian Cali Martinez joins Conner Mooneyham (2020) and Emmanuel Albert (2021) as the 5th draftee in MLR history to reach a half-century of appearances in the competition! Martinez has gone from starting 1 game in 12 in his debut season, to 4 starts in 16 games in 2024, then 8 in 17 last season and 4 in 5 so far this year. He is earning more meaningful minutes each year and at just 29, Martinez is only just entering his prime as a front row. Congratulations, Cali!

Lining up opposite Martinez and Old Glory DC on Sunday were the Seattle Seawolves, who had a second player reaching their 100th Major League Rugby appearance, both of their career and for the Seawolves: Long time Captain Riekert Hattingh became the 6th player in league history to reach 100 caps, dating back to MLR’s inaugural season back in 2018! Hattingh has started every single one of his 100 games for Seattle, becoming the 3rd player to reach 100 starts in the competition, and joins Angus MacLellan (Utah), Moni Tonga’uiha (NOLA), and Seawolves teammate JP Smith as the only players to have earned 100 appearances with a single MLR team!

As if earning 100 starts in 100 games wasn’t an impressive enough achievement for 2x MLR Champion Hattingh, he’s currently MLR’s 2nd highest try scorer with 48 scores and 250pts scored, and is also 2nd all-time for metres gained with over 5,750m gained in possession behind only JP du Plessis on 6,234m. On his 100th Seawolves cap, Hattingh also became the 4th player in MLR history to pass 1,000 tackles made in the competition following Lucas Rumball, Dylan Fawsitt, and Johan Momsen! It doesn’t take too much math to figure out that Riekert Hattingh has averaged just over 10 tackles per game for 100 games across 9 seasons. Hattingh is a true MLR great and is very deserving of his double-milestone game, and it’s a bonus that the Seawolves were able to secure the win on the road. Congratulations, Riekert!

Team Milestones

The second half of the 2026 MLR season means that teams are coming up against opponents that they have already faced this year with the chance to sweep the regular season series on the line, and the Seattle Seawolves – complete with new Centurion Hattingh – recorded the first sweep of the season over Old Glory DC. These sides have met 7 times in total, but the Seawolves have only been the home team in this match up twice. The Seawolves and Flags previously met in Rd 2 where Seattle took a 33-16 victory in front of a home crowd and despite a 3-game skid after this, the Seawolves just seem to have DC’s number this year with a 25-30 victory at George Mason University. The conbines score for this Seattle Seawolves v Old Glory DC series is 63-41 in favour of Seattle, who pick up the maximum 10pts compared to DC’s 1.

The Chicago Hounds would (somewhat unsurprisingly) record their first sweep of 2026 shortly after Seattle on Sunday Night Rugby. Anthem RC remain the only team so far this season that have managed to keep the Hounds under 40pts scored after their 19-33 clash in Rd 2, and despite scoring 6 tries and 36pts in their trip to Seatgeek Stadium, it wasn’t enough to overcome the monster that is the 2026 Chicago Hounds. The home side raced out to a 9-try, 61-36 victory to bag the full 10pts from their series against the Rising Stars, 94-55 the combined score.

This huge win for the Chicago Hounds set a whole handful of records. After tying their franchise best 59pts scored earlier this season, the Hounds set a new franchise record for points scored, passing 60 for the first time. The combined score of 97pts was the highest scoring game ever for both the Hounds and Anthem RC, and is tied for the 4th highest scoring game in MLR history! The Hounds extend their run with The Old Mate to 5 games, and equal their longest ever win streak at 6 games. Will they set yet another franchise record next week?

Over in New England, the new-look Free Jacks have been struggling to get their season going so far but, after a franchise worst defeat at the hands of the California Legion back in Rd 2, the defending champions rallied in front of a home crowd to squeak a 26-21 victory in their second meeting with the Legion, thanks in part to the four yellow cards handed out to California. This game marked the 100th MLR game in franchise history for the Free Jacks, and their 91st regular season game all time!

The Free Jacks are the 6th franchise in MLR history to reach 100 games played (regular season + playoffs) and the first non-founding member to reach this milestone! Of the 6 teams to have reached 100 games played in Major League Rugby (Seattle, San Diego, Houston, Utah, NOLA, and now New England), the Free Jacks are only the 2nd team to play their 100th game in front of a home crowd and only the 3rd team of those 6 to record a victory in their 100th game, marking their 70th win as a franchise. Congratulations, Free Jacks!

Player Milestones

There is no doubt that rugby is a team game, but that doesn’t mean that individuals shouldn’t be congratulated for their achievements! The appearance achievements were already covered at the start of this Midweek Milestones article, so let’s get into some of the other individual achievements from Round 7, sticking with the New England Free Jacks to start us off!

As mentioned above, the defending champions earned their 70th win as a franchise in their 100th game on Sunday against the California Legion, but earning that win required an enormous defensive effort. In total, the Free Jacks completed a mammoth 226 tackles last weekend, easily the highest team total of Round 7. The starting back row led that effort with a combined SIXTY tackles, including 26 from returning Captain Joe Johnston (the Round Leader for this week), and 23 from former Maori All Black Jacob Norris. These 23 tackles took Norris’ 2026 tackle count to 105, becoming the first player this season to pass 100 tackles made, averaging a ridiculous 17.5 tackles per game and actually equalling his metres gained so far this season. Congratulations, Jacob!

On the topic of some bonkers numbers, the Chicago Hounds didn’t just set team records in their big win against Anthem. For the 2nd time this season, Brock Webster was named Player of the Week in Round 7 (technically the 2nd week in a row because there was no PotW in Round 6…) for another explosive performance! Webster set a new 2026 high with a whopping thirteen defenders beaten. To put that in perspective, the entire Free Jacks 23 recorded 12 defenders beaten. The previous 2026 season high of 11 was set by Ed Timpson back in Rd 1, which is still impressive considering he started on the bench!

If it wasn’t for the Player of the Week selection however, Webster’s performance may have been overshadowed by another of the Chicago Hounds back three, 2025 MLR Rookie of the Year Peyton Wall! The Indiana native and MLR Draftee dotted down for a try of his own and recorded an impressive 8 defenders beaten, but that’s not the highlight. That comes when you look at the metres made. Peyton Wall recorded an incredible 191m made which, when you add in the 20 post-contact metres, is a new 2026 high of 211m made. This smashes the previous season high of 165m set by Ryan James for the California Legion back in Round 2, and is the first time that a player has recorded over 200m in a game since Jade Stighling logged 229m gained for the Seattle Seawolves in Round 17 of last season. Congratulations, Peyton!

Wrapping Up

Round 7 of the 2026 Major League Rugby season gave us a pair of appearance achievements, a bundle of team milestones, and a handful of individual milestones! With the competition only getting more intense, here’s hoping that Round 8 will throw up just as many standout stats for us to cover in next week’s edition of Midweek Milestones!

Thank you for reading this week’s edition of Midweek Milestones! Please feel free to let me know what you thought of this article on social media, or let me know about a milestone that I may have missed!

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 6 of the 2026 MLR Season!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

In what feels like the blink of an eye, the midway point of the 2026 Major League Rugby season has been and gone! With only 10 games per team, there hasn’t been much room for errors so far this year and as we enter the final 5 game stretch, it’s crunch time!

Welcome back to Midweek Milestones, the weekly article that gets into the numbers from the latest round of MLR action and pulls out the extreme, the unusual, and the standout stats! Even though Round 6 only had a pair of matches, the numbers from these 2 games threw up quite a lot of interesting stuff, so let’s get into it!

Appearance Achievements

As usual we kick things off with the Appearance Achievements, and there’s just the one this week but for the second time in 2026, it concerns Major League Rugby veteran and Chicago Hounds forward Luke White!

A few weeks ago, Luke White became the 6th player in MLR history to reach 100 appearances in the competition and coming off the bench again in Week 6 during their hard fought victory over Old Glory DC, White becomes just the 2nd player to reach 50 appearances for the Chicago Hounds! White follows Maclean Jones into Chicago’s half-century club. Congratulations!

Seawolves earn 73rd win!

The Seattle Seawolves got their season off to a flying start with a home victory over Old Glory DC back in Week 2, which marked the 72nd victory in team history to tie with long time rivals the San Diego Legion with the most wins in Major League Rugby History!

As impressive an achievement as this is, you may be forgiven for beginning to think it was more of a curse. The Seawolves have been struggling with injuries for the entire season so far, and went on a 3-game losing streak after earning this 72nd win. That changed last weekend however, as they put in a clinical performance to claim a bonus point victory over the New England Free Jacks at the formidable Fort Quincy! The 11-27 victory is the 73rd in Seawolves history to take them ahead of the San Diego Legion as the team with the most wins in MLR history!

As the only remaining founding member of Major League Rugby, the Seattle Seawolves have played more games than any other team, recording their 73 victories in 127 games for a win rate of 57.48% and combining 64 wins in 114 regular season games (56.14%) with a remarkable 9 wins from 13 post-season matches (69.23%) that includes four visits to the MLR Championship Game, lifting the Shield twice! Congratulations, Seawolves!

Their opponents on Sunday, the New England Free Jacks, are really not far behind however with 69 wins in their 99 MLR games since joining in 2020 (2 seasons after Seattle!), with an incredible win rate of 69.7% across all games. They are 4 wins behind Seattle with at least 5 games left in 2026. It’s a tough ask, but I would never count them out.

Scoring Milestones

As mentioned, there were quite a few standout stats in Week 6 considering there were only a pair of matches, and most of them relate to scoring milestones so let’s get stuck in and while we’re talking about the Seattle Seawolves, let’s start there!

There was a bit of a twist ending to the Seawolves’ road victory over the Free Jacks. Seattle managed to secure the try bonus point with their 4th try of the game right at the death through Tiai Vavao’s first pro try and with the clock in the red and the game already won, who should step up to take the conversion but long time Seawolves captain, Riekert Hattingh. I know Seattle have had some injury trouble but I didn’t expect the big back row to be lining up a shot at goal, and he absolutely smashed it!

Having channelled his inner John Eales, Hattingh becomes the first forward in MLR history to score a conversion kick, and those 2pts actually took his career total to an even 250pts scored in the competition, joining his 46 – yes, FORTY-SIX – tries and 3 automatic conversions for tries under the posts (which is no longer a rule in 2026). This puts Hattingh 15th on MLR’s all-time scoring list, and I expect we’ll be talking about him again in next week’s Midweek Milestones, because he’s sat on 999 tackles made. Congratulations, Riekert!

Moving over to the other game of Week 6, where we saw another pair of scoring milestones in a very hard fought Chicago Hounds victory, with Old Glory DC giving them probably their toughest test of the season to date. The 49-31 scoreline isn’t particularly reflective of just how much of a war this game was, and both fly-halves stood out!

Starting with the home side, I mentioned in last week’s Midweek Milestones article that I expected Chris Hilsenbeck’s success rate from the tee to bounce back, and it certainly did in this one! The USA Eagle slotted 4 conversions and 3 penalties, going 7/8 (87.5%) from the tee and racking up 17pts scored to absolutely breeze past both 150pts in his MLR career (thanks to 11pts scored for Rugby ATL in 2023) and 150pts for the Chicago Hounds, reaching 165pts in his 24 game MLR career so far, and we aren’t done there! Hilsenbeck’s 17pts scored ties a single game Chicago Hounds record, matching Nate Augspurger’s total from a hat trick (and 1 auto-conversion) back in 2024. Congratulations, Chris!

Not to be outdone however Hilsenbeck’s opposite number over on the Old Glory DC side, Jason Robertson, also put in a brilliant performance and didn’t just let his place kicking do the talking! Robertson dotted down in both the first 10 minutes and the last 10 minutes to bag a brace for Old Glory, adding another 4pts off the tee from a pair of conversions for 14pts in total! This takes Robertson’s total up to 412pts scored in his MLR career, becoming the 5th player in League history to pass 400pts scored, and leapfrogging Seattle’s Davy Coetzer (410) for 4th place all-time! In the first Midweek Milestones article of the season I highlighted Coetzer and Robertson as they moved into the Top 5 and mentioned that their scoring battle could be one to watch throughout the 2026 campaign, and it’s just as close now as it was then!

Standout Stats

Flying around the league to give a shoutout to another player that hit a big milestone this week that isn’t quite as flashy as scoring points, test capped Canadian hooker Dewald Kotze recorded more tackles than any other Seawolves player in their road win in New England, completing 15 in total to take his career total over 500! The South African born Canadian now sits on 510 tackles in 56 MLR games (41 starts), averaging 9.1 tackles per game. Not shabby at all for a front row. Congratulations, Dewy!

Wrapping Up

A club half-century, a Major League Rugby first, and a bunch of big scoring milestones from just the two games in Week 6 of MLR’s 2026 campaign. With teams bringing in reinforcements for their playoff pushes, and no room for any slip-ups in the remaining 5 games of the regular season, the action is only going to heat up! Make sure you come back next week to check out all the Midweek Milestones from Round 7 of the 2026 MLR Season!

Thank you for reading this week’s edition of Midweek Milestones! I hope you enjoy reading these articles as much as I enjoy writing them, and find them interesting and engaging. Please feel free to let me know what you thought of this article on social media, or if you’ve found a milestone that I may have missed! You can find me, or NARDB, on social media here: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky. Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB directly via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site.

Finally, if you’re looking to pick up some new gear, visit rugbynow.com and use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off of your order!

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 5 of the 2026 MLR Season!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

It may be hard to believe, but we are already five rounds into the 2026 Major League Rugby campaign, which means we’re approaching the half way point of the regular season! Week 5 delivered another 3 highly entertaining matches across the US which of course generated a whole bunch of new stats for us to dig into, so let’s do just that!

Welcome back to Midweek Milestones, the weekly article that gets into the numbers from the latest round of MLR action and pulls out the extreme, the unusual, and the standout stats to highlight both player and team milestones that may have otherwise flown under the radar. A word of warning, it’s quite a Chicago Hounds focused edition this week but as is now tradition, we start with MLR appearance achievements and there’s just the one this week, up in Seattle!

Appearance Achievements – Duncan Matthews

On Friday night in front of a home crowd, Duncan Matthews took the pitch for his 50th Major League Rugby appearance! He has represented the Seattle Seawolves for his entire MLR career, and has started every single one of his half-century of appearances for the team. A transplant to the PNW from the Western Cape of South Africa, Matthews refined his game as he progressed through the Blue Bulls academy system in his homeland. He represented the Blue Bulls at both Currie Cup levels and in Super Rugby between 2017-18 before moving to the Lions, where he also played in both the Currie Cup and Super Rugby from 2019-2021.

Matthews joined the Seawolves ahead of their 2022 campaign and proved absolutely lethal. He earned 16 appearances in his debut season and scored 7 tries on just shy of 1,500m gained, both of which remain career highs for the fullback, and were enough to earn him an All-MLR First XV selection in his debut season, helping the Seawolves to their 3rd Championship Final, where they fell to the New York Ironworkers.

Now in his 5th MLR season with the Seawolves, the 32yo has shown little sign of slowing down. He and Seattle finished as MLR Runners-Up again in 2024, and last season he contributed 6 tries and 10 assists in 13 games, finishing top of the league with 1,152m gained and picking up an All-MLR Second XV selection, the second All-MLR nod of his career. In fact there’s an argument to be made that Matthews is actually speeding up! Entering the 2026 campaign Duncan Matthews was averaging an impressive 89.4m gained per game, but through his first 3 games of this season he’s been averaging 98.0m gained per game and could even pass the 5,000m mark this year! Congratulations on your half-century, Duncan!

O’Keeffe passes 5k!

Speaking of that elusive 5,000m gained milestone, only 5 players in MLR history had passed that mark prior to Week 5, but now that number has grown to 6. On the opposite side of the field from Duncan Matthews, Chicago Hounds winger Mark O’Keeffe recorded 63m gained in their huge road victory to take his career total to 5,013m gained and become just the 6th player in MLR history to pass 5,000m gained in their career!

A MLR Runner-Up with Rugby ATL in 2021 and two-time All-MLR selection in 2021 (Second XV) and 2022 (First XV), the Irishman and capped USA Eagle has averaged 59.0m gained per game across his 85 game (72 start) MLR career, splitting his time between centre and wing. Primarily playing on the wing so far this season, in just 4 games O’Keeffe has recorded 243m gained, already passing his 2025 total of 231m gained in more than three times the number of games! A ferocious runner, O’Keeffe also sits within the League’s top 10 try scorers, adding his 29th career try in Week 5 (and 3rd in 4 games so far this season) to pass 150pts scored in total, and is closing in on 500 tackles completed on defence! Congratulations Mark, although you still have a little way to go if you want to overtake MLR’s all-time leader, JP du Plessis, who sits on 6,234m gained, the only player over the 6k milestone!

Hounds’ Hat Trick Hero!

Despite Mark O’Keeffe’s rare achievement in the Chicago Hounds’ Friday night clash with the Seattle Seawolves, most of the attention instead went to his back three teammate, Brock Webster. Test capped at both 7s and 15s, the Canadian Speedster and 2025 Championship MVP recorded 3 of the Hounds’ nine tries against the Seawolves, 7 of which were scored by Canadians! Starting his MLR journey with the Toronto Arrows in 2022 before joining the Canadian Sevens program, returning with the Free Jacks to lift the Shield in 2025 and now a part of the Chicago Hounds’ strong Canadian contingent, this is the first hat trick of Brock Webster’s MLR career, the 5th hat trick in Hounds history, and the 54th hat trick in MLR history. Congratulations, Brock!

The Chicago Hounds’ New Top Scorer!

Heading into Week 5, dual test capped fly-half Chris Hilsenbeck sat level with fellow USA Eagle Luke Carty (now with Anthem RC) as the Hounds’ all-time points scorers, both on 127pts. With 10pts from the boot off of 5 successful conversions, Hilsenbeck now moves into sole possession of 1st place and becomes the Chicago Hounds’ all-time leading scorer!

Chris Hilsenbeck has scored 148pts in Major League Rugby following 11pts in 4 games with Rugby ATL back in 2023, but has been the Hounds go-to place kicker since joining the team for the 2025 season, recording his lone try and a Hounds single-season record of 109pts to finish as MLR Top Scorer in his debut season in the Windy City. Hilsenbeck has racked up his 137pts in only 19 games for Chicago, averaging 7.2ppg and has a 75.64% success rate from the tee in green & white. Even though his kicking has taken a dip so far this season (14/24 – 58.33%), once this bounces back – and I believe it will – who knows how many points Hilsenbeck will end up on by the end of the season!

Team Stats

O’Keeffe’s score, Hilsenbeck’s place kicking, and Webster’s triple helped the Chicago Hounds to their first ever victory over the Seattle Seawolves on their 5th attempt since entering MLR in 2023, and what a way to do it! The 59pts scored by the Hounds ties a team record for both the most points and the most tries (9) scored in a single game, and breaks the team record for their biggest winning margin at 37pts, surpassing the 33pt winning margin the last time they scored 59pts in a 59-26 win over Anthem back in 2024.

On the other hand, the was the most points ever conceded by the Seattle Seawolves, surpassing the 57pts scored by the LA Giltinis way back in 2021. This was the Seawolves’ first home loss since Round 6 of the 2025 season against the Utah Warriors and, amazingly, the first time that the Seawolves haven’t picked up at least 1 table point at home since Round 8 of 2022! The injury bug has hit Seattle worse than any other team so far this season, which is a perfect storm when you remember that 2026 is far shorter than previous seasons, but they have a few players on the road to recovery. The Seawolves currently tied with the San Diego Legion with the most wins in MLR at 73 each, and have 6 games remaining this season. 6 opportunities to become the winningest team in MLR history!

Tackle Milestones

Of note for the Seattle Seawolves this week however, was Paddy Ryan’s performance. the Irish USA Eagle recorded an almost mythical 29 tackles completed in Week 5 which, to put it in perspective, is only the 7th time in Major League Rugby history that a player has recorded 29+ tackles in a game, and Ryan is the 6th man to do it! Amazingly, Canadian international and former Rugby ATL and RFCLA man Matt Heaton actually managed it twice, with a 29-tackle game in 2020 and a frankly ridiculous 32-tackle game in 2022 which remains the MLR record!

Flying around the rest of the league to finish up, there were a pair of tackle milestones, starting with (you guessed it) a Chicago Hound! Selected 2nd overall in the 2021 MLR Collegiate Draft, Lindenwood University alum Emmanuel Albert spent his first 4 seasons with the Houston SaberCats where he became the first MLR draftee to reach 50 appearances in the competition! Now with the Chicago Hounds, last weekend he became just the 2nd draftee to pass 500 tackles made after 2022 1st Overall Pick, Sam Golla!

Slightly further up the MLR tackle leaderboard, long time Utah Warriors back row Bailey Wilson completed an impressive 782 in 80 games in the Beehive State, recording 5 seasons with 100+ tackles, and a 200+ tackle season in 2022! Now playing for the New England Free Jacks alongside his brother Mitch, Wilson completed 12 tackles in the defending Champs’ first victory of the season to pass 800 made in his career! Perhaps one of MLR’s most underrated heavy hitters, Bailey Wilson now joins the likes of Free Jacks Captain Joe Johnston (833), Shield-Winner Nate Brakeley (842), and DC bruiser Ben Bonasso (879)!

Wrapping Up

As mentioned in the intro, this week’s Midweek Milestones article is very Chicago Hounds heavy, but that’s almost to be expected for a team that has scored 25 tries and a whopping 157pts in their last 3 games! Next week, the only two teams with a mid-season bye, Anthem RC and the California Legion, take their week off so there’s only a pair of games to choose from on Sunday, what kind of stats will they reveal?

Thank you for reading this week’s edition of Midweek Milestones! I hope you enjoy reading these articles as much as I enjoy writing them, and find them interesting and engaging. Please feel free to let me know what you thought of this article on social media, or if you’ve found a milestone that I may have missed!

You can find NARDB/James on social media here: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky! Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site.

Finally, if you’re looking to pick up some new gear, visit rugbynow.com and use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off of your order!

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 4 of the 2026 MLR Season!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

The 4th round of Major League Rugby’s 2026 season saw some big scores, big tries, and big hats as the league headed to Nashville for the first time ever as the Chicago Hounds took on the New England Free Jacks in the first ever Music City Rugby Showdown! That doesn’t even mention the West Coast Classic on Sunday Night Rugby, or The Old Mate. As always, there was a bunch of standout stats from Round 4, so let’s get into them!

Welcome back to Midweek Milestones, a weekly article that dives into the numbers from the latest round of MLR action and pulls out the extreme, the unusual, and the standout stats to highlight player or team achievements and milestones that may have otherwise flown under the radar. As always we start with a few appearance achievements, the first of which wasn’t so subtle!

Appearance Achievements

Coming off the bench for the Chicago Hounds in the 45th minute of their huge 50-26 victory over the defending champions in Nashville, veteran forward Luke White became just the 5th player in league history to earn his 100th MLR appearance!

The Sydney, Australia native moved to Colorado in 2015 and joined the Glendale Raptors, then a club side. He is one of very few active MLR players to have played in the short-lived PRO Rugby competition, representing the Denver Stampede in their lone season in 2016. White remained with the Raptors when Major League Rugby was founded, and earned 25 starts in 31 games between 2018-2020, finishing as a Runner-Up in 2019 when he enjoyed a superb season, scoring 3 tries and gaining 1,227m while completing over 150 tackles that year.

Following the withdrawal of the Raptors following the COVID-shortened 2020 season, Luke White headed to the west coast to join the heavily Australian influenced LA Giltinis. It was with the Giltinis that he earned his first (and to date, only) MLR title in 2021, defeating Rugby ATL at the LA Coliseum. White played with the Giltinis for their entire tenure in MLR from 2021-22, earning 16 starts in 21 games in total and becoming the 13th player in MLR history to reach 50 appearances in May of 2022 (taking him almost 4 years to double it!). With the Giltinis also withdrawing from MLR, Luke White was selected by the Chicago Hounds in the dispersal draft, joining the team ahead of their inaugural season in 2023 and playing there ever since.

Following his debut season with the Hounds, White was included in the USA Eagles squad for their 2023 Autumn Internationals, and earned his test debut against Romania as Eagle #561. He’s earned 5 test caps for the Eagles to date and continues to contribute for the Chicago Hounds as he nears his 50th appearance for the team (currently on 48). He is likely to pass 4,000m gained this season as well as 800 tackles made, which puts him in the Top 20 all-time in both categories. There’s no word on whether Luke White will keep playing beyond 2026, but if he ends it with a Shield for the Chicago Hounds in Chicago, what a send off that would be. Congratulations, Luke!

MLR’s 5th Centurion would obviously steal the headlines for standout stats this week, but that wasn’t the only appearance milestone around the league in week 4. Over in California, New York born, Australia raised scrum-half Tas Smith came off the bench for the California Legion in their hard fought win over the Seattle Seawolves to earn his 50th MLR appearance! Smith has represented 3 different sides in MLR, all based in California. He entered the league with the LA Giltinis under Stephen Hoiles in 2022 and actually played alongside Luke White that year before returning to Australia to complete his studies at the University of Sydney in 2023. His 2nd stint in MLR started in 2024 when he joined Rugby FC LA, also under Hoiles. Tas Smith was RFCLA’s most capped player during their time in MLR, appearing in 32 of their 33 games between 2024-2025 and was even on the bench for the 33rd, but was an unused reserve! Staying in California, Smith once again followed Hoiles and much of the RFCLA setup to the California Legion, where he has featured in every game so far this season to reach his half-century! To date, Tas Smith has 16 starts, 3 tries scored on just shy of 600m gained, and an even 150 tackles made. Not too shabby for a scrum-half!

Chicago Defend The Old Mate!

After 2 successful challenges for The Old Mate in a row, the Chicago Hounds became the first team to successfully defend MLR’s Supporters’ Challenge so far this season, scoring 50pts for the 3rd time in team history to see off the New England Free Jacks (incidentally, this is the most points ever conceded by the Free Jacks…) in Nashville. With a successful defence, the Chicago Hounds retain The Old Mate which gives the Seattle Seawolves a chance to take possession of MLR’s newest oldest trophy next week!

First Overall Pick Party in Charlotte!

Heading over to American Legion Memorial Stadium in Charlotte, where Old Glory DC picked up a convincing victory over Anthem RC on Saturday, but there was something else worth talking about from this game than just the final score. The broadcast understandably highlighted the clash of Rick Rose and Will Sherman, both 1st overall picks (from 2023 & 2025 respectively) and both playing lock opposite each other, but they weren’t the only 1st overall picks on display.

In fact, there were a total of FIVE 1st Overall MLR draft picks in this game! Four of them playing for Anthem RC: Conner Mooneyham (2020 – Life), Sam Golla (2022 – UC Berkeley), Erich Storti (2024 – St. Mary’s), and Will Sherman (2025 – UCLA), with the aforementioned Rick Rose (2023 – St. Bonaventure) representing Old Glory DC!

This is the most No. 1 Draft Picks to ever feature in a single MLR game, surpassing the previous record of 4 in a match between Anthem RC and the Miami Sharks last season, featuring four of the same five players (Mooneyham, Golla, Storti for Anthem RC, and Rick Rose for Miami) minus Will Sherman, who had not been drafted yet. With only 6 first overall draft picks in MLR history, to have 5 of them feature in a single game is highly unusual!

Metres Milestones

Diving deep into some numbers now and sticking to a First Overall draft pick. MLR’s first ever draft pick in fact: Conner Mooneyham! The Life U alum has been on fire to start his second season with Anthem, scoring 3 tries in 4 games so far including a brace (on his birthday!) in the team’s first ever victory back in Round 1. Mooneyham has already racked up over 250m made this season to take his career total over the 2,500m mark! This is an average of 44.2m made per game over his career but so far in 2026, that average is up at 63m per game. Congratulations on 2.5km, Conner!

Turning our attention to the big men in the forwards, who often find metres made far harder to come by. 2019 World Rugby Player of the Year Nominee Joe Taufete’e made 12 hard-fought metres for the California Legion in their tough victory over the Seattle Seawolves to move past 1,000m in his career! Averaging 23.4m made per game across his 43 match MLR career, Taufete’e’s numbers may seem low when compared to the likes of Mooneyham but ‘Big Joe’ is earning all of those metres the hard way, slogging it out in close range against opposing heavies. Congratulations, Joe!

Coetzer Passes 400!

The Seattle Seawolves made one of the bigger splashes of the off-season in the signing of former Houston SaberCats talisman, Davy Coetzer. Through his first 4 games in the PNW, the South African has proved that he absolutely lives up to the hype! Despite the Seawolves’ loss to the California Legion down in LA, Coetzer picked up 2 tries and another 9pts from the tee to record a new season-high of 19pts scored in a single game, passing the 18pts he scored back in Rd 2, tied with California’s Coby Miln!

This brace takes Coetzer up to 20 career MLR tries, and his 19pts takes him up to a whopping 45pts on the season, which is even more impressive when you consider that the New England Free Jacks have only scored 50pts as a team! What’s more, with this haul of points, Davy Coetzer became just the 4th player in MLR history to pass 400pts scored in the Competition! He joins Joe Pietersen (420pts), AJ Alatimu (504pts), and Sam Windsor (595pts)! The 27yo is in excellent form which should excite any fan of US rugby as he closes in on Eagles eligiblity. Congratulations, Davy!

Wrapping Up

With a 5th Centurion, a ‘Who’s Who’ of first round draft picks, and a handful of individual scoring and metre milestones, that just about does it for this edition of Midweek Milestones! I hope you enjoy reading these articles as much as I enjoy writing them, and found something interesting. Please feel free to let me know what you thought of this article on social media, or if you’ve found a milestone that I may have missed!

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