South African hooker/flanker Tiaan Erasmus played in Major League Rugby between 2019-2024. He represented the Austin Gilgronis (2019-2020), the Houston SaberCats (2021, 2024), and Rugby ATL (2022-2023).

An age-grade player in the Cheetahs system in South Africa, Erasmus moved from Bloemfontein to Texas in 2019 to play with Austin. He spent his first 2 MLR seasons with the AGs, earning a combined 20 MLR caps and appearing in all but 1 of the Gilgronis’ games in that period before the 2020 season was cancelled as a result of COVID. He moved across the state in July 2020 when he signed with the Houston SaberCats ahead of MLR’s return to play in 2021, and earned a further 9 caps (6 starts) for the Cats before moving to Rugby ATL between 2022-2023.

Over his first 5 seasons in North America, Erasmus earned a total of 44 MLR Caps (25 starts) across 3 teams, scoring 10 tries total including a high of 4 on two occasions including in the shortened 2020 season, where he was T-2nd in the league with 4 tries in 5 games. Following news of a change in ownership of Rugby ATL, and their subsequent decision to relocate the team to Los Angeles, Tiaan Erasmus returned to Houston, who announced the signing of the then-27yo on 13th November 2023, ahead of the 2024 season.

Achievements:

• MLR Team of the Week: 2022 – Round 18
• T-2nd in League Try Scoring: 2020 (4)
• MLR Team of the Week: 2020 – Round 4