Category: Stats

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!

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 3 of the 2026 MLR Season!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

Welcome back to Midweek Milestones from Round 3 of Major League Rugby action in 2026! This weekly series aims to keep fans up to date on some of the individual and team milestones from the latest round of MLR games that may have gone under the radar, but still absolutely deserve some recognition!

I hope that you find this article, and this series, interesting and informative. Who knows, if there is ever a Major League Rugby themed pub quiz, they might come in very handy! As mentioned, this particular article will cover the three matches from Round 3 of the 2026 season, starting off with an appearance milestone for Old Glory DC!

Appearance Achievements

When Collin Grosse came off the bench in the 62nd minute of Old Glory DC’s road victory over the New England Free Jacks at Fort Quincy he became just the 4th MLR draftee ever to reach 50 appearances in the competition behind Emmanuel Albert, Tavite Lopeti, and Conner Mooneyham, earning all 50 with the Flags!

Collin Grosse becomes the first player from the 2022 MLR Draft Class to reach a half-century of games played, ahead of the likes of Sam Golla and DC teammates Cali Martinez and KoiKoi Nelligan, and is the 2nd fastest draftee to reach 50 appearances, reaching the milestone 1,148 days after his MLR debut! Only long time Houston SaberCat Emmanuel Albert, now with the Chicago Hounds, managed it quicker but not by much (1,113 days from MLR debut).

Scoring Milestones

For the most part, the California Legion’s trip to Chicago was as miserable as the weather at SeatGeek Stadium, but despite the relentless rain it wasn’t a complete wash out. Thanks to a late try from Joey Mano, the Legion left the Windy City with a try bonus point, marking Mano’s first score for the Legion and 40th of his MLR career!

On the back of 39 tries during his time with the Utah Warriors including a pair of 14-try seasons in 2023 & 2025, Joey Mano becomes just the 4th player in MLR history to reach 40 tries scored, behind league legends Dylan Fawsitt (65), Riekert Hattingh (48), and Paula Balekana (46)! Mano reached this milestone in just 57 appearances, recording 0.7 tries per game; Highest among MLR’s 40+ try scorers!

Joey Mano may have secured the Try BP for the California Legion, but their scoring was opened by one of his former Warriors teammates: Lance Williams! Like Joey Mano, Williams’ first try for the Legion was also a milestone. It marked his 20th score in Major League Rugby! It may not be the lofty heights of 40 tries, but 20 scores for a hard running, hard tackling back row is no mean feat. There aren’t many players in the league that can boast 20 tries, over 3000m gained, and over 900 tackles like Lance Williams. Congratulations!

In the same game that Julian Roberts recorded the 100th try in Anthem RC team history, fly-half Luke Carty kicked a round-high 14pts to help lift the Rising Stars over the Seawolves. Although this was only Carty’s 3rd game with the Rising Stars after joining in the off-season, these 14pts took the capped USA Eagle over 250 in his MLR career! With 50pts for the LA Giltinis (2021-22), 127pts for the Chicago Hounds (2023-24 – he remains the team’s top scorer!), 49pts for the NOLA Gold last year, and 27pts for Anthem in 2026 so far, Carty has gone 104/152 from the tee in his MLR career for a success rate of 68.42% to go with a lone try scored back in 2024, for a career total of 253pts. He becomes the 13th player in MLR history to pass 250pts scored, congratulations, Luke!

Tackle Milestones

Round 3 saw a trio of players reach significant career tackle milestones, starting with Canadian international and Chicago Hounds back row, Mason Flesch who recorded 7 tackles made in the Hounds’ big home victory over the California Legion to pass 500 tackles made in his 60 game MLR career to average 8.38 tackles per game! Flesch has recorded over 100 tackles in his last 3 seasons including a career high of 165 tackles last season. It’ll be tough to reach triple-figures in the shortened 2026 season, can he do it again?

Moving much closer to the top of Major League Rugby’s all-time tacklers list, Johan Momsen also completed 7 tackles in Round 3 as Anthem RC earned their 2nd win of the season over the Seattle Seawolves in front of a home crowd. As a result, the Anthem Captain became the 3rd player in MLR history to pass 1,000 tackles made in the competition, now sat on 1,004 tackles! Momsen first entered Major League Rugby with Rugby ATL for their inaugural season in 2020, representing the RATLers from 2020-23, finishing as a MLR Runner-Up in 2021 and completing over 600 tackles in his 4 seasons in Marietta before heading to Texas to join the Houston SaberCats where he spent two seasons, completed 345 tackles, and finished as a runner-up for a second time in 2025. Now with Anthem RC, Momsen currently leads the league for tackles made in 2026, completing 43 in just 3 games!

Johan Momsen has recorded 5 seasons in a row with at least 125 tackles completed, including a pair of 200+ tackles seasons in 2021 and 2025, the latter of which was a career high at 220! He looks set to reach triple figures again despite the shortened season and reached 1,000 tackles in just 28 games more than Mason Flesch reached 500, averaging an impressive 11.41 tackles across his 88 game MLR career so far!

The big South African forward passes 1,000 tackles behind Dylan Fawsitt (1,040) and MLR’s All-Time tackle leader, Lucas Rumball! The Canada and Chicago Hounds Captain’s Man of the Match performance in Round 3’s victory over the California Legion saw him score a brace of tries and complete 15 tackles in total to push his MLR-leading tackle total over 1,100 to 1,106 in even fewer games than Momsen, averaging a massive 13.17 tackles across his 84 game MLR career between the Toronto Arrows and Chicago Hounds!

Wrapping Up

Round 3 of the 2026 season brought us the 1st member of the 2022 MLR Collegiate Draft Class to reach 50 appearances, the 3rd MLR player to pass 1,000 tackles completed, and the 4th player in MLR history to reach 40 tries scored, and that’s not even covering everything in this article! I hope you found this informative and entertaining, and please feel free to reach out on social media with any questions. Be sure to come back next week for all the Midweek Milestones from Round 4 of the 2026 MLR season!

If you find any milestones that haven’t been mentioned here, you can let NARDB/James know on social media: @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 the 2025 Championship Game!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

Just like that, the 2025 Major League Rugby season has come to an end with a huge weekend-long party in Rhode Island! Although the vast majority of fans were cheering for the ‘hometown’ New England Free Jacks, rugby fans from all over North America converged at the brand new Centreville Bank Stadium, the home of Rhode Island FC of the USL for the culmination of a season’s worth of hard work from the Free Jacks and the Houston SaberCats!

Welcome back to the final Midweek Milestones of the 2025 MLR season! This week’s article will cover the Championship Game which, while being the biggest game of the season, is still only a single game. There are still plenty of standout stats related to the Final, all of which will be covered below! The purpose of this series of articles is to highlight milestones met by either teams or players that deserve recognition, and provide MLR and rugby fans with some additional context and interesting info about recent games and the history of the league. Enjoy!

Threepeat: Complete!

The Houston SaberCats put in a valiant effort, reeling the New England Free Jacks back in twice as the reigning champions tried to pull away from the Western Conference Champions, but in the end it wasn’t quite enough. The Free Jacks claimed an historic 28-22 victory in Rhode Island to secure their 3rd straight MLR Shield, completing the first Threepeat in US Major Sports since the Los Angeles Lakers lifted the Larry O’Brien Trophy 3 times in a row in the NBA from 2000-2002! Congratulations, New England!

The Free Jacks now hold the most Shields in MLR history, moving ahead of the Seattle Seawolves who claimed their two Shields in the league’s early years, from 2018-2019. New England and Seattle are also the only active teams to have won a Championship, as the 2021 Champion LA Giltinis withdrew after 2022, and the 2022 Champion Rugby New York Ironworkers withdrew after 2023.

The Winners of the MLR Shield each season: 2018-2025

The New England Free Jacks’ Third victory marks the 4th season in a row that the Shield has gone to the Eastern Conference Champion. The East now moves ahead of the West, who claimed the League’s first 3 Shields but now trial the East 4-3 with the Shield not awarded in 2020.

Hollinshead Hits 13!

Converting two of the New England Free Jacks’ tries and adding three penalties for a combined 5/6 from the tee in the Championship Game, Free Jacks fly-half Dan Hollinshead kept the scoreboard ticking over with 13pts in total: Tied for the 2nd most points ever scored by a player in a MLR Championship Game!

Hollinshead was parachuted in to fill the gap left by an injured Jayson Potroz this season and coincidentally, his 13pts in a Final now only trails the 15pts scored by Potroz himself in the 2024 Championship Game, a 11-20 victory over the Seattle Seawolves. Hollinshead draws level with San Diego Legion legend Joe Pietersen, who recorded 13pts including a drop goal in the 2019 MLR Championship, and Matt Giteau, who scored 13pts for the LA Giltinis in their 2021 Championship victory.

Webster named Championship MVP!

Having assisted superbly on both of Paula Balekana’s tries in the Free Jacks‘ Championship victory and very very nearly getting on the scoreboard himself, Brock Webster became the first Canadian and just the 2nd domestic player ever to be named Major League Rugby Championship MVP!

Spectacular under the high ball, Webster is capped for Canada at both Sevens and 15s levels and joins Vili Toluta’u back in 2018 as the only two domestic players named as Man of the Match in the Championship Game! Webster breaks a 3-year streak of New Zealanders winning the award, with ex-All Black Andy Ellis winning for Rugby New York in 2022, before fellow Free Jacks Jayson Potroz (2023) and Jed Melvin (2024) claimed the award in New England’s first two Shield victories. Congratulations, Brock!

MLR Championship MVPs: 2018-2025

Schumacher & Balekana Both Bag Braces!

Prior to 2025, only 3 players had scored multiple tries in a MLR Championship game. Following Saturday’s latest Final, that number has now grown to 5. Zach Fenoglio (2018 – Glendale Raptors), John Ryberg (2021 – LA Giltinis) and Nate Augspurger (2023 – San Diego Legion) have been joined by both Paula Balekana (New England Free Jacks) and Max Schumacher (Houston SaberCats) as the group of players to score a brace of tries in the MLR Championship game! No-one has scored a hat trick in the Final, yet….

Balekana’s two tries took his 2025 total to an extraordinary 15 tries on the season. This ties his career high and MLR record for tries in a season, first achieved by Balekana in 2023. Thanks to a superb season this year Balekana sits as MLR’s 3rd highest try scorer of all time, 7 tries ahead of Joe Mano (who scored 14 of his own this year) and only two tries behind Riekert Hattingh in 2nd place on 48! The gap from 2nd to 3rd place has completely closed this year, while Dylan Fawsitt has extended his lead as MLR’s all-time leading try scorer and is now sat on a ridiculous 65 tries!

Alatimu Passes 500!

AJ Alatimu appeared in his 2nd MLR Championship Game and first with the Houston SaberCats. He is one of very few players to have represented multiple teams in the MLR Shield game, having represented the Seattle Seawolves in the 2022 final. Unfortunately, the test capped Samoan playmaker falls to an 0-2 record in Championship games.

On the plus side, Alatimu’s two conversions and single penalty gave his side 7pts as he went 3/5 from the boot. Alatimu is MLR’s all-time leading playoff scorer with a total of 89pts in the postseason. These 7pts also take the veteran up to 2nd League-wide on the 2025 season with 98pts behind the only player to pass 100pts this year, Chris Hilsenbeck of the Chicago Hounds on 109pts. Alatimu is the 3rd highest scorer in Houston SaberCats history, now on 183pts. This is an impressive total in isolation, but when adding this to his 321pts scored with the Seattle Seawolves (where he is still the all-time top scorer despite having not played with Seattle since 2023), this takes his all-time total to 504pts.

AJ Alatimu becomes MLR’s 2nd ever 500pt scorer!

Following his 7pts in the 2025 Championship Game, AJ Alatimu becomes just the 2nd player ever to pass 500pts scored in Major League Rugby! Alatimu has scored 3 tries, 77 penalties, and a MLR-leading 129 conversions in his 74 game MLR career so far, with a career high of 166pts for Seattle back in 2022 when he finished as the League’s Top Scorer! Alatimu, who is becoming a Houston SaberCats legend in his own right, sits behind only Sam Windsor (speaking of SaberCats’ legends…) on 595pts points scored in MLR. Congratulations, AJ!

Wrapping Up

A handful of interesting Championship-specific standout stats, as well as the 2nd player in MLR history to pass 500pts scored in the competition. That concludes the 2025 Major League Rugby season as well as this season’s Midweek Milestones articles!

While Midweek Milestones is done for the year, NARDB will be publishing weekly Player Moves Summaries from roughly August onwards (depending on the number of moves that week!), as well as draft-centric content and a few videos regarding big league news (yes, NARDB has a Youtube Channel), so there will still be plenty of content for you MLR die-hards out there!

Whether you read part of one week’s article, or every word all season long, thank you. I hope that these articles have been both interesting and entertaining, and who knows, maybe one day they will be full of answers to pub quiz questions! If there’s anything that has been missed, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site. Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB or James on social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, @JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky!

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from the 2025 Conference Finals!

Featured Photo Source: @wadebphotos

NARDatabase

James Deeley

Following a 17 round regular season and two weeks of intense playoff action, the 2025 Major League Rugby Conference Champions have been declared and the MLR Shield awaits. The Eastern Conference Champion will face off against the Western Conference Champion in the 2025 Championship at Centreville Bank Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island to determine who will lift the 2025 Shield. Welcome back to Midweek Milestones!

This is NARDB’s weekly article that highlights and examines the standout stats from each round of MLR action! The purpose of this article is to bring attention to achievements, milestones, and standout stats achieved by players and teams throughout MLR with the aim to give them the recognition and applause they deserve. The penultimate article of the 2025 season will cover the two Conference Finals matchups. Because it only covers a pair of games, it is a shorter than average article, but hopefully one that is just as interesting!

The Championship Clash!

Following the Conference Finals last weekend, we now know the two teams that will fight it out to lift the 2025 MLR Shield! The New England Free Jacks claimed their 3rd straight Eastern Conference Championship with a 21-20 victory following a heartbreaking final minute missed penalty from the Chicago Hounds. The Free Jacks saw off the Miami Sharks in the Conference Semifinal, before defeating the Chicago Hounds in the Eastern Conference Final for the 2nd straight year to earn their 3rd Championship appearance in a row with a chance to lift their 3rd Shield in as many seasons and cement their legacy as a dynasty!

By contrast, before 2025 the Houston SaberCats had never won a Major League Rugby playoff game despite qualifying ever year since 2022, including as the top team in MLR in 2024. This year, the ‘Cats qualified 2nd in the Western Conference with a 10-6 record and 54pts (just 1pt behind the Free Jacks). Houston earned their first playoff victory over a spirited Rugby FC LA side in the Conference Semifinals, before dominating the top regular season team in the Western Conference Final, the Utah Warriors.

The SaberCats racked up 33pts on the road against the Warriors, scoring more points than any other team in the 2025 postseason, surpassing the 32pts scored by the New England Free Jacks in their victory over Miami which remains the biggest margin of victory in this year’s postseason so far. The SaberCats also became the first team to score 5 tries in a 2025 playoff game which, when added to their 4 tries from the Western Conference Semifinal, takes their playoff try total to 9 in 2025 compared to the Free Jacks’ 7. For those wondering, the MLR Playoff record for points in a game is 46, set by the Seattle Seawolves in a Conference Final victory against the Houston SaberCats in 2022. The Seawolves scored 6 tries in that game, and 12 postseason tries total that year, both also MLR records although the Chicago Hounds matched the record of 6 tries in a postseason game with their 21-45 victory over the NOLA Gold in last year’s Eastern Conference Semifinals.

A head-to-head comparison for the Championship can be found below, showing just how tight this clash is on paper. The New England Free Jacks look to have the advantage in the set piece (both scrums and lineouts), but concede far more penalties which the Houston SaberCats may want to consider exploiting with AJ Alatimu’s boot, given how few tries the Free Jacks conceded. Worth noting is the head-to-head record of these two sides. The Houston SaberCats have never defeated the Free Jacks, 0-4. The Championship game would be a great time to get their first!

Head-To-Head: Free Jacks v SaberCats

Hilsenbeck Hits One Hundred!

Although the game definitely did not end the way that he or the Chicago Hounds hoped, former German international turned aspiring USA Eagle Chris Hilsenbeck still racked up half of the Hounds’ 20pts in the Eastern Conference Final. The 33yo fly-half scored 22pts in Chicago’s two playoff games this year, and was sat on 99pts scored this season heading into this game. This means that despite the Hounds’ defeat, Chris Hilsenbeck became the first (and so far, only) player to pass 100pts scored in the 2025 MLR season, and that still deserves some praise. Congratulations, Chris!

Chris Hilsenbeck now sits 13pts ahead of the next highest scorer, Joel Hodgson on 96pts for the Utah Warriors. With only the Championship Final left to play in the 2025 Major League Rugby Season, Hilsenbeck is almost guaranteed to finish as the League’s top scorer in 2025, and he has a good chance of being the only player in the entire league with over 100pts this year. Only AJ Alatimu with the Houston SaberCats has a realistic chance of also scoring 100. He is currently sat 9pts away on 91, so while 100pts is achievable, MLR’s all-time leading playoff scorer would need to score 19pts in what would be a Championship Performance for the ages to pass Hilsenbeck.

As an aside, Alatimu would need 16pts to become the first play in MLR history to reach 100pts scored in the playoffs. Additionally, he is currently MLR’s 2nd highest scorer all-time with 497pts scored in total so is almost guaranteed to become only the 2nd player ever to pass 500pts scored in MLR following Sam Windsor, who remains MLR’s all-time leading scorer on 595pts.

The Top Scorers heading into the 2025 Championship, showing the gap between Hilsenbeck & Alatimu

Wrapping Up

As mentioned in the introduction, with only two games in the Conference Finals, standout stats for this week’s Midweek Milestones are hard to come by, resulting in a shorter than usual article. Despite that, this article still took a deeper look at the match-up for the 2025 Championship Game and highlighted MLR’s first (and only) 100+ point scorer this season: Chris Hilsenbeck! Check in next week for a mini Midweek Milestones from the final game of the 2025 Major League Rugby season, the Championship game at Centreville Bank Stadium in Rhode Island!

Thank you for reading the final regular season edition of NARDB’s Midweek Milestones! This series will continue through the postseason, where we are bound to get plenty of standout stats! If you like this series, please get in touch on social media or share this article to help highlight these achievements! If there’s anything that has been missed that you feel is worth mentioning, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site. Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB or James on social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, @JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky! NARDB can also be found on YouTube, at NARStats!

Finally, If you’re looking to get your hands on some of the new Macron merch for 2025 or to add to your jersey collection, visit shopmlr.com to get your hands on all that new gear, and remember to use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off your order!

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from the 2025 Conference Semifinals!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

From 8 teams qualifying for the 2025 Major League Rugby playoffs, only 4 remain after the Conference Semifinals. There are only two weeks left of arguably the most competitive season of MLR that we have seen to date, and the competition is only getting tougher!

Welcome back to Midweek Milestones, NARDB’s weekly article that highlights and examines the standout stats from each round of MLR action! This article will cover the four Conference Semifinal matches. These articles aim to recognise achievements by players and/or teams that may have gone unnoticed or flown under the radar otherwise, providing fans with some extra insight and context every week to add an extra level to MLR! For a change, there weren’t any appearance achievements to report in the Conference Semifinals, so we’ll start with something speedy!

Balekana bags a speedy score!

The back-to-back defending Champion New England Free Jacks didn’t take long to open their 2025 playoff account, with just 19 seconds passing before the Free Jacks’ Fijian try machine Paula Balekana crossed for his 13th of the season! This sets a new record for the fastest playoff score in Major League Rugby history, surpassing a 45 second Fa’asiu Fuatai try for the Rugby New York Ironworkers back in 2023! Congratulations, Paula!

Paula Balekana scores the fastest try in MLR Playoff history!

Balekana’s speedy score was roughly 12 seconds off of the fastest ever MLR try, scored by Conner Mooneyham for the Seattle Seawolves straight from kick off after only 7 seconds in 2023! Balekana now sits just 1 try behind Utah’s Joe Mano for the league lead in tries scored, and both men are closing in on Balekana’s single season record of 15 tries set in 2023. With both the Free Jacks and Utah Warriors advancing to their respective Conference Finals, will we see more tries from either of them?

Playoff Placements!

The MLR Championship Final is now under 2 weeks away and as mentioned in the introduction, the 8 playoff teams have already been sliced in half and four teams remain in the hunt for the 2025 Shield. In the Western Conference, two teams earned their first playoff wins to set-up a completely new Conference Finals matchup. Having not featured in the postseason since 2021 when they faced the juggernaut LA Giltinis, the Utah Warriors faced the 2024 runners-up Seattle Seawolves playing in their MLR-leading thirteenth playoff match. In typical Warriors style, they raced out to a big lead before the Seawolves mounted an admirable comeback that fell just short, 23-21. The Warriors will host the Houston SaberCats who, after qualifying for the playoffs for the 4th year in a row, finally earned their first postseason victory with a nailbiting 27-21 victory over playoff debutants Rugby FC LA, ending the game with two players in the bin!

The 2025 Playoff Picture following the Conference Semifinals

There’s a very different story over in the Eastern Conference, where a repeat of the 2024 Eastern Conference Final awaits! The defending champion New England Free Jacks recorded the biggest victory of the 2025 Conference Semifinals, defeating the Miami Sharks 32-10 to match the scoreline of the San Diego Legion’s 2023 Western Conference Final victory over the Seattle Seawolves. The Sharks were heavy underdogs in their first ever playoff appearance, but should be proud of their 2025 season and look forward to a strong 2026. In the other Eastern Semifinal, the Chicago Hounds made it entertaining for the home crowd as they trailed 10-16 to Old Glory DC at half time, before shutting the Flags out in the 2nd half to take a 27-16 victory. Both sides were looking for a shot at revenge against the Free Jacks who knocked them both out in 2024, and it’s the Hounds that will get the chance. New England defeated Chicago 23-17 in last year’s Eastern Conference Final, will it be the same outcome a year later?

Free Jacks Statement Win

After getting off to a shaky start to the season, the New England Free Jacks are speeding towards that Threepeat with a big win over the Miami Sharks in the Eastern Conference Semifinals. They were one of only two sides (along with the Houston SaberCats) to score 4 tries in the 2025 Conference Semifinals, and scored 32pts, more than any other team in the postseason so far!

Source: @nefreejacks via Instagram

The Free Jacks’ 22pt winning margin in a 32-10 victory is the 2nd largest winning margin in MLR Playoff history, tied with the San Diego Legion’s 32-10 win of their own over the Seattle Seawolves in 2023. The largest winning margin in a Major League Rugby playoff game is 24pts, achieved twice. First by the Seattle Seawolves in a 43-19 victory over the San Diego Legion in 2022 (those two have been rivals since the League started!), and then equaled by the Chicago Hounds in a 21-45 victory over the NOLA Gold last year which is also both the highest scoring playoff game in league history (66), and the highest points total by a single team in a playoff game (45)! Will we see any new records set in the 2025 post-season?

Houston Hits 100!

The Houston SaberCats scored 4 tries and 27pts in their muddy victory over Rugby FC LA in the Western Conference Semifinals, taking them to 102pts scored in the playoffs in total! AJ Alatimu’s 66th minute penalty took them into triple figures. They are just the 5th team in Major League Rugby history to pass 100pts scored in the postseason!

The SaberCats are the 4th active MLR team to pass 100pts in the playoffs behind the Seattle Seawolves (358), the New England Free Jacks (174), and the San Diego Legion (also 174), as well as the inactive Rugby New York Ironworkers (144). Congratulations, ‘Cats!
The Chicago Hounds are likely next to hit this milestone. Currently on 89pts scored in the postseason, they could also pass the 100pts mark in their Eastern Conference Final clash with the Free Jacks this weekend.

Wrapping Up

For the first time this season, this week’s Midweek Milestones article doesn’t have any appearance achievements! With the playoffs now rolling, a whole new area of standout stats and records are just waiting to be broken! The Conference Semifinals already gave us the fastest playoff try in MLR history, as well as the T-2nd biggest winning margin in playoff history and the 5th team to reach 100pts scored in the postseason. With only 3 games left in the 2025 season, what other standout stats will we see?

Thank you for reading the final regular season edition of NARDB’s Midweek Milestones! This series will continue through the postseason, where we are bound to get plenty of standout stats! If you like this series, please get in touch on social media or share this article to help highlight these achievements! If there’s anything that has been missed that you feel is worth mentioning, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site. Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB or James on social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, @JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky! NARDB can also be found on YouTube, at NARStats!

Finally, If you’re looking to get your hands on some of the new Macron merch for 2025 or to add to your jersey collection, visit shopmlr.com to get your hands on all that new gear, and remember to use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off your order!

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 17 of MLR2025!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

17 weeks of Major League Rugby action have been and gone, and in what seems like the blink of an eye, the 2025 Regular Season is at an end. For three teams, their season is over and the off-season awaits full of planning for the MLR Draft in August, and the 2026 season. For four teams from each Conference, it’s crunch time. The Playoffs await!

Welcome back to Midweek Milestones, NARDB’s weekly article that highlights and examines the standout stats from each round of MLR action! Just because the regular season ends with Round 17 that doesn’t mean there wasn’t still plenty to talk about. These articles aim to recognise achievements by players and/or teams that may have gone unnoticed or flown under the radar otherwise, providing fans with some extra insight and context every week to add an extra level to MLR! As always, Appearance Achievements are up first!

Appearance Achievements

The final round of the season often brings interesting lineups. Teams that are already securely in the playoffs with no chance of securing home advantage and only a narrow chance of moving positions sometimes reward depth players that have worked hard in camp all season. This gives teams a chance to see what their prospects can do at professional match level, and also exposes the players to valuable high-level game time. With the season staying so competitive right up until the final whistle of the final game, there were only a couple of unusual lineups, including a few MLR debuts!

The Miami Sharks secured their first ever Playoff berth last week, qualifying for the postseason in just their 2nd season. They were almost destined to face off against the defending champion New England Free Jacks as the 4th seed and decided to rest the majority of their starters this week. In fact, only Santiago Videla remained in their starting lineup from last week as Chase Schor-Haskin scored his first MLR try on his first MLR start, Isaac Bales came off the bench for his Sharks debut and first MLR appearance since 2023, and two players earned their MLR debuts!

Starting on the wing for the Sharks was 2024 Draftee Jake Negrete. The St. Mary’s College alum was selected in the 2nd Round, 20th overall by the Houston SaberCats in 2024, before moving to the Sharks back in May. Although the details of the move haven’t been disclosed, Negrete finally made his MLR debut in a 42-17 defeat to the Seattle Seawolves in the Fish Bowl. Congratulations, Jake! Unfortunately, his debut lasted only a few minutes before he had to leave the pitch, so wishing him a safe and speedy recovery! Also earning his first MLR appearance was Blake Pereda, a new signing announced by the Sharks during the week. NARDB is unclear if this deal was signed prior to the 2025 signing deadline in May, or if Pereda is injury cover but regardless, the Miami Tridents player came off the bench for the final 35 minutes of action. Congratulations, Blake, and welcome to MLR!

Source: @utwarriorsrugby via Instagram

As two players earned their MLR debuts for the Sharks in the East, in the West a Utah Warrior joined the half-century club. Since joining the Utah Warriors ahead of the 2022 season, US-eligible New Zealand scrumhalf Zion Going has scored 8 tries and started 29 of his now 50 MLR appearances, and is enjoying a stand-out season in 2025! Going appeared in all 16 of the Warriors’ regular season games this year (a career high), starting a career high 13 times and scoring 4 tries, completing 85 tackles, and gaining 266m, all three are new career highs. Congratulations, Zion! It seems apt to wrap up Going’s career year by celebrating his 50th MLR appearance but with the Warriors finishing top of the league, could he also celebrate it with a Shield? We’ll have to wait and see…

Hounds Hit Half-Century!

In the same round that Zion Going earns his 50th MLR appearance for the Utah Warriors, the Chicago Hounds celebrate their 50th game played in Major League Rugby! The Eastern Conference Hounds secured a hard fought 15-12 victory over the Houston SaberCats in the Dogs v Cats match to clinch their first ever home playoff game, in their 50th MLR match!

Since joining in 2023, the Hounds have an all-time regular season record of 22-1-25 as well as an even record of 1-1 in the postseason thanks to their Conference Final run in 2024. With 4pts in their nail-biting win over the SaberCats, the Hounds also draw to within 1pt of the LA Giltinis in the all-time MLR standings. Congratulations, Chicago!

Source: @Chicagohoundsrugby via Instagram

Playoff Placement

As mentioned off the top, Major League Rugby’s 11 teams has been whittled down to 8 that advance to the 2025 postseason. This section will take a look at the playoff histories for each team, and some standout stats around the postseason.

In the Eastern Conference, the defending champion New England Free Jacks claim the top spot for the FOURTH year in a row to qualify for the post season for the 4th time in succession. The back-to-back Champions had a shaky start to the year, but have recovered well and banked a 11-5 record in their bid for the threepeat! They will face a team that has been a bit of a boogeyman for them, the Miami Sharks. The 4th seeded Sharks are enjoying their playoff debut in 2025 after qualifying with a franchise-best 8-8 record with 41pts. The Sharks have defeated the Free Jacks twice in their short history, but never in Quincy. Could we see an upset for the ages?
Over to the other matchup in the Eastern Conference, hosted by the 2nd seed Chicago Hounds at SeatGeek Stadium, as mentioned above. One of the Hounds’ key targets in 2025 was to host a playoff match and they hit that target with a strong 11-5 record. This matches the Free Jacks’ record and the Hounds took it to New England all year, in the end finishing only 2pts behind them due to a pair of extra Try BPs earned by the Free Jacks. Like the Sharks, this is by far the best regular season in Hounds history and the 2nd year in a row that they have qualified. Back in 2024, they routed the NOLA Gold on the road before falling to the Free Jacks in the Eastern Conference Final by the skin of their teeth. The Hounds want to at least match that, and are out for revenge. Standing in their way first however, are Old Glory DC. The Flags qualified with a matching record to the Sharks, 8-8, but finished with 4pts more thanks to their 4 additional bonus points. DC, like Chicago, are looking for revenge over the Free Jacks who have knocked them out in both of the last two seasons. Will 3rd time be the charm?

Now to the Western Conference which has produced the #1 team in the entire league for the 3rd year in a row. In 2025, the Utah Warriors finish as the Top team in MLR with the same 11-5 record as both New England and Chicago, but with 58pts in total. A franchise best season from the mountain men. The Warriors end MLR’s longest playoff drought and qualify for the postseason for the first time since 2021, where they will face the 4th seeded Seattle Seawolves, playing in their MLR-leading sixth postseason at the expense of their rivals, the San Diego Legion. 2024’s runners-up finish with a 8-7-1 record, just 1pt ahead of the Legion. Finally, last seasons top seed finishes 4pts behind Utah in 2nd with a 10-6 record. The Houston SaberCats clinched home advantage with a win in their last game of the season to qualify for the 3rd year on the trot, but are yet to record a playoff victory. The ‘Cats will face a run ‘n gun Rugby FC LA team, who finished 2pts ahead of Seattle with the same 8-7-1 record to earn their playoff debut in their 2nd season.

The 2025 Playoff picture at the end of the Regular Season

Wrapping Up

That does it for a ‘Playoff Prep’ edition of Midweek Milestones. A pair of MLR debuts, a team and a player join the half-century club, and a bumper overview of the 2025 playoff picture! The business end of the Major League Rugby season is here, with all four matchups looking to be thrillers. Midweek Milestones will continue through the postseason, so be sure to check back next week for all sorts of playoff stats!

Thank you for reading the final regular season edition of NARDB’s Midweek Milestones! This series will continue through the postseason, where we are bound to get plenty of standout stats! If you like this series, please get in touch on social media or share this article to help highlight these achievements! If there’s anything that has been missed that you feel is worth mentioning, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site. Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB or James on social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, @JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky! NARDB can also be found on YouTube, at NARStats!

Finally, If you’re looking to get your hands on some of the new Macron merch for 2025 or to add to your jersey collection, visit shopmlr.com to get your hands on all that new gear, and remember to use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off your order!

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 16 of MLR2025!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

Round 16 of the 2025 Major League Rugby season has been and gone, and just like that there is only 1 round of regular season action remaining! Four more teams secured their places in the 2025 post-season over the weekend with just 1 spot still up for grabs, being fought over by MLR’s oldest rivals, the Seattle Seawolves and San Diego Legion.

Welcome back to Midweek Milestones, NARDB’s weekly article that highlights and examines the standout stats from each round of MLR action! This week’s article covers the penultimate round of MLR regular season action: Round 16. These articles aim to recognise achievements by players and/or teams that may have gone unnoticed or flown under the radar otherwise, providing fans with some extra insight and context every week to add an extra level to MLR! As always, Appearance Achievements are up first!

Appearance Achievements

Round 16 saw a pair of test capped players feature in their 50th MLR match. One has represented the USA Eagles on the international stage, the other has represented Canada. Both have had remarkable impacts on MLR history, and we will start with California native Christian Dyer!

A native of Sacramento, CA and UCal – Berkeley alum, Christian Dyer‘s MLR career got off to a shaky start. He was initially signed with the Dallas Jackals for their inaugural season in 2021. After Dallas deferred their entry to 2022, Dyer was selected by Rugby New York in the supplementary draft but didn’t join the Ironworkers for the 2021 season. In January of 2022 the Houston SaberCats announced that they had signed Dyer for the 2022 season, and his pro career finally got started despite already having earned his test debut as USA Eagle #539 against England in July 2021. Dyer earned 45 appearances for the SaberCats between 2022-2024, starting 44 times including in the team’s first ever playoff game in 2022. He gained just over 1,750m as a ‘Cat including a career high of 719m in 2023 when he scored 9 tries, also a career high. Dyer remains the Houston SaberCats’ all-time leading try scorer with 19 in black and gold, and has been capped 14 times by his country. Dyer was the first player announced by Rugby FC LA ahead of the 2025 season, and has scored an additional 2 tries in 5 games (4 starts) in California, helping the team to it’s first ever postseason appearance. Congratulations, Christian!

Source: @Rugbyfcla via Instagram

Joining Christian Dyer in the half-century club after Round 16 is South African born Edmontonian Dewald Kotze! The test-capped Canadian hooker moved from South Africa to Edmonton, AB at the age of 14, joining the Strathcona Druids before moving to the Canadian National Team development program, the Pacific Pride in 2019. Kotze was named in a 40-man extended Canada squad in June 2021, but would have to wait until 2024 before earning his test debut for his adopted country, a 35-22 victory over Romania in Ottawa. At club level, Dewald Kotze was signed by the Dallas Jackals in January 2022, representing the Texas team for 3 seasons between until their untimely demise in 2024. Kotze earned 36 appearances for the Jackals in that time, starting 29 times and scoring 14 tries including a career high of 11 in 2023 when he scored a MLR-record FIVE tries in a single game for the Jackals against Seattle. The Seawolves clearly liked the look of Dewald Kotze, as they signed him for the 2025 season after the Jackals withdrew from MLR, and he has scored another 3 tries in 14 games (6 starts) in Seattle. Kotze now has 17 tries total and has started 35 of his 50 MLR matches to date, and reached 100 tackles on the season during Round 16, his 3rd 100+ tackle season in a row. Congratulations, Dewy!

Playoff Placements!

As mentioned in the intro, another 4 teams clinched their spot in the postseason during Round 16. three Western Conference teams have secured their spots, and the final spot in the East has been locked up. This section will dive a little deeper into the 2025 playoff placements.

Starting with that final spot in the Eastern Conference. The Miami Sharks pulled off what many fans would’ve thought impossible at the start of the season. They took on the reeling San Diego Legion at Torero Stadium, and came out on top. Although they didn’t secure a try BP, a superb performance from Shane O’Leary (more on that later!) ensured they took 4pts in a 32-36 victory to secure their first ever postseason appearance in just their 2nd season in MLR! The Sharks are now destined to finish 3rd or 4th in the East, facing either the New England Free Jacks or Chicago Hounds on the road. This Sharks victory eliminates the NOLA Gold, who are playing for pride now and will be doing some serious head scratching after arguably their worst season to date. Miami have also made life very uncomfortable for the San Diego Legion, who now must win their final game to have any hope of leapfrogging the Seattle Seawolves and making the playoffs.

Source: @usmlr via Instagram

Moving over to that warzone that is the 2025 Western Conference. As mentioned above the Seattle Seawolves and San Diego Legion are still scrapping over that final playoff spot, but 3 of the 5 teams in the West all secured their spots over the weekend, including the Houston SaberCats who didn’t even have to play! The Legion’s home loss at the hands of the Miami Sharks means they can only get to 8 wins compared to Houston’s 9, handing a 4th postseason appearance in a row to the SaberCats. Although they have two games remaining and are still fighting for home field advantage, and don’t yet know who they will be facing, the ‘Cats no doubt have one eye on the playoffs already. In 3 postseason appearances since 2022, Houston are yet to record a playoff victory. Is the 4th time the charm?

Now onto the team currently sat atop the Western Conference, the Utah Warriors. They actually clinched a playoff spot a day before the Houston SaberCats thanks to a comfortable bonus point victory over Anthem RC at home. The Warriors are currently the top team in MLR with 10 wins and 53pts, but can still fall as low as 3rd due to how close the West is. Even a bonus point victory doesn’t secure 1st place just yet. Utah need Houston to drop points in their final two games to lock that top spot up. Utah face Rugby FC LA in their final game, who sit 2nd in the West on 50pts. A win their would guarantee a home semifinal for the Warriors, as either the 1st or 2nd seed.

Moving on to Rugby FC LA who, like the Sharks in the East, have secured their first ever postseason berth following a 32-43 bonus point road victory over Old Glory DC at the Maryland Soccerplex. Now sat 2nd in the Western Conference, RFCLA will need a bonus point win in their last match against the 1st placed Utah Warriors to give them the best chance of securing home advantage. There’s a ferocious 3-way fight between LA, Houston, and Utah for the top two spots, and fans will be in for a treat in Round 17!

Sensational Sharks!

The Miami Sharks’ superb road victory over the San Diego Legion has already been mentioned a number of times in this article, but now it is time to dive deeper into some of the standout stats from this playoff-clinching win! Miami’s talismanic flanker Manu Ardao notched one of 3 Sharks tries in this match to take take his season total to 5. This equals his total from last season and takes his career MLR total to 10, making him the first player in Sharks history to reach 10 tries scored for the team! Can he get a couple more before the end of the season?

The main story coming out of this game however, was the performance of Shane O’Leary. The Canada-capped Irishman was like clockwork off of the tee, scoring 3 conversions and 5 penalties for 21 of Miami’s 36pts in this game to help them secure their first ever playoff spot! With 60% of both the territory and possession in favour of the San Diego Legion, O’Leary‘s boot was the difference. The Legion only conceded 8 penalties all game but O’Leary and the Sharks kicked 6 of them, converting 5!

Shane O’Leary racks up 21pts from the boot!

Finishing the game with 8/9 from the tee, the former Toronto Arrows fly-half set a new Miami Sharks record for points in a single game, as well as a 2025 high in that same category. His 21pts takes his season total to 90, surpassing Santiago Videla’s 74pts last season to set a new Miami Sharks single season record and climb to 1st place in the entire league for points scored this season! O’Leary’s career total now sits at 153pts including 101 for the Sharks, becoming just the 2nd player in Sharks history to pass 100pts scored for the team behind the aforementioned Santiago Videla. Congratulations, Shane!

Scoring Standouts – Hodgson & Hilsenbeck

On the subject of scoring milestones, following a comfortable 31-10 home victory over Anthem RC, Joel Hodgson has now achieved something that only 10 other players have done. With 2pts scored from a conversion kick, Hodgson’s total now sits at exactly 300pts scored becoming just the 11th player in MLR history to reach 300pts scored in the competition! He is the first Utah Warriors to reach 300pts scored, and the 8th player in MLR history to reach 300pts scored with a single MLR franchise. Hodgson now sits just 13pts back of MLR’s Top 10 Scorers ever, with Seattle Seawolves legend Brock Staller sat on 313pts in total. Congratulations, Joel!

Moving from Utah up to Chicago, where the Hounds are sitting just 2pts off the top of the Eastern Conference after a bonus point victory over the NOLA Gold took them into 2nd. 8 of Chicago’s 38pts came off the boot of US-eligible German international Chris Hilsenbeck, who went 4/6 from the tee. With a total of 84pts on the season, Hilsenbeck moves up to T-2nd in scoring, and sets a new Chicago Hounds franchise record for points in a season, surpassing the previous record of 77pts set by Adriaan Carelse in 2024. Congratulations, Chris!

Wrapping Up

That does it for the Midweek Milestones from Round 16 of the 2025 Major League Rugby Season! Four teams clinch playoff spots, a pair of new half-century club members, and some spectacular scoring achievements! The final week of the regular season is here already. What sorts of standout stats will it leave us with? You’ll have to check in next week’s Midweek Milestones article!

Thank you for reading this edition of NARDB’s Midweek Milestones! If you like this series, please get in touch on social media or share this article to help highlight these achievements! If there’s anything that has been missed that you feel is worth mentioning, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site. Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB or James on social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, @JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky! NARDB can also be found on YouTube, at NARStats!

Finally, If you’re looking to get your hands on some of the new Macron merch for 2025 or to add to your jersey collection, visit shopmlr.com to get your hands on all that new gear, and remember to use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off your order!