It’s hard to believe, but we’re already rough a quarter of the way through Major League Rugby’s 2025 season! Thankfully, there’s plenty of rugby left to be played in what has been a thrilling season so far. This article will highlight some of the standout stats and achievements from both players and teams from Round 4 of the 2025 season.
Welcome back to Midweek Milestones, the weekly series that aims to highlight milestones achieved by players and/or teams that may go under the radar otherwise, but are no less worthy of recognition and praise. This series of articles will be released midweek (clue is in the name!) and will cover some the high profile, and less publicized milestones achieved during the latest round of Major League Rugby action!
Houston Hit 100!
On Saturday, the Houston SaberCats became the 3rd team in Major League Rugby History to play their 100th game in the competition, following other MLR Founding Members the Seattle Seawolves (108 games played) and San Diego Legion (103 games played). The ‘Cats played their 97th regular season game against the Utah Warriors, adding to the 3 post-season games that have featured the Houston team, and hold an overall record of 46-54!
As you can read in the above graphic (posted to the NARDB Socials, see at the bottom of this article for details and be sure to follow!), with a convincing 17-37 road victory over a Utah Warriors side that was flying high after their impressive first two games, the Houston SaberCats became the first team in league history to actually WIN their 100th MLR game, passing 2,500pts scored as they did it. The Seattle Seawolves were the first MLR team to play in their 100th game, but their party was spoiled by the SaberCats (appropriately) by a score of 28-25. The San Diego Legion were the 2nd team to play their 100th game, but were defeated by the Seattle Seawolves by a score of 30-28 in the 2024 Western Conference Semifinal!
Interestingly, the three teams that have reached 100 MLR games played have all played their 100th game on the road and have all played another founding member for their 100th game. The next team to reach triple-figures games played in MLR will be the SaberCats’ most recent opponents, the Utah Warriors, who are currently on 98 games played. They will follow the peculiar pattern, playing their 100th game on the road against a MLR Founding Member, the Seattle Seawolves in Round 6 of the 2025 season!
A Pair of Half-Centuries!
For the 2nd week in a row a New England Free Jacks player has reached their 50th Major league Rugby Appearance! Last week, Captain Joe Johnston became the 5th player to reach 50 games played for New England and incidentally, Johnston scored his 10th try for New England over the weekend to become the 13th player to reach 10 tries scored for the Free Jacks. This week, prop Kaleb Geiger earned his 50th MLR cap over the weekend but unlike Johnston, these were not all for the Free Jacks.
A native of Colorado, Geiger is arguably the most successful product of the Colorado/American Raptors crossover program, having played football before turning to rugby. He began his MLR journey as a hooker with Rugby New York in 2021, earning his debut in 2022 when he scored 5 tries and started 7 of his 17 appearances as New York claimed their first and only MLR Shield. He continued to represent New York until the Ironworkers withdrew from the competition in late 2023, at which point he joined the New England Free Jacks, appearing in 14 games as they claimed their 2nd of back-to-back Shields, making Geiger one of the few MLR players to have won Shields with multiple teams! Geiger has started 21 of his 50 MLR appearances to date, scoring 7 tries , completing 405 tackles and making over 1,250m!
Also earning their 50th Major league Rugby appearance over the weekend was test capped Canadian centre, Spencer Jones! Born in Canada but raised in New Zealand, Jones began his MLR career with the Toronto Arrows, signing with the Canadian team ahead of their inaugural MLR season in 2019 and playing there for 4 seasons. He earned 32 appearances for the Arrows, starting 27 times and scoring 3 tries and 26pts before moving to the New England Free Jacks for the 2023 season, where he started 6 of his 13 games to help the Free Jacks to their first MLR Shield title. Following a season in Quincy, Jones was traded to the Utah Warriors, where he earned 2 starts in the 2024 season before suffering a season-ending injury. He returned for the Warriors in 2025, starting all 3 of their games so far this season. In his career, Spencer Jones as started 38 of his 50 MLR appearances, scoring 6 tries and 41pts in total! He passed 2,000m made in his MLR career over the weekend, now sitting at 2,015m made and 387 tackles completed!
Wrapping up
The Houston SaberCats reach a Century of games played, and two MLR Champions play in their 50th games! A shorter than usual article for this 4th edition of Midweek Milestones, but when you’re dealing with numbers, sometimes that’s bound to happen! Thanks very much for taking the time to read this article, and be sure to check back next week for Midweek Milestones from Round 5 of the 2025 Major League Rugby season!
If you like this series, please get in touch on social media and share this article to help highlight these achievements! If there’s anything that has been missed that you feel is worth mentioning, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site. Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB or James on social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, @JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay and @NARDB on Bluesky!
Finally, If you’re looking to get your hands on some of the new Macron merch for 2025 or add to your jersey collection, visit shopmlr.com to get your hands on that new gear, and remember to use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off your order!