Tag: Houston SaberCats

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 11 of MLR2025!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

Round 11 of the 2025 season saw a bumper seven games during Major League Rugby’s first ever ‘Storm Week, including games on both Tuesday and Wednesday nights, and a number of teams playing two games in 1 round! With so many games, it’s hardly surprising that we saw some standout stats across the league for both teams and players, as well as some incredible appearance achievements!

Welcome back to Midweek Milestones, the weekly article that keeps fans informed of all the standout stats from the latest round of MLR action! The purpose of this article series is to highlight some of the milestones or achievements from around the league that might not otherwise get the coverage they deserve by the league itself. If you’re a fan of these articles, please go back and read the past editions (if you haven’t already!) and share them with your friends. As with last week, we begin with the appearance achievements

Appearance Achievements – Utah’s First Centurion!

On Saturday, Utah Warriors prop Angus MacLellan was in the starting XV for his 100th MLR game, becoming just the 3rd player in league history to feature in 100 matches! The Michigan native is the 2nd player to reach 100 games played with a single team after JP Smith for the Seattle Seawolves just last week. Although all 3 MLR Centurions (Dylan Fawsitt, JP Smith, and now Angus MacLellan) having represented the United States at test level as USA Eagles, MacLellan is the first US-born player to enter MLR’s ‘100 club’!

Angus MacLellan becomes the first US-Born player to reach 100 MLR Appearances

Major League Rugby

SeasonTeamGPGSTCPACDGMGTacklesKS/KAPts
MLR 2018Warriors99100003156105
MLR 2019Warriors16162000024396010
MLR 2020Warriors55000001083200
MLR 2021Warriors1713000003329200
MLR 2022Warriors155000002057600
MLR 2023Warriors164000002117200
MLR 2024Warriors146000001347500
MLR 2025Warriors9100000235300
Total-10159300001571557015

The Traverse City, MI man has spent his entire MLR career with the Utah Warriors, earning his debut in the league’s inaugural season in 2018 where he started all 9 games for the Warriors, including their lone playoff appearance that year. MacLellan started all of his 30 games for Utah between 2018-2020 and has racked up 59 starts in 100 games in his MLR career to date. Congratulations, Angus! His full career stats in MLR can be seen above.

MacLellan’s impressive accomplishment was not the only appearance milestone during a bumper Rd 11 of MLR action. Another member of the front row earned his 50th MLR appearance in a convincing victory over Anthem RC on Sunday, Miami Sharks prop Alec McDonnell! The Missouri native and Lindenwood alum made his MLR debut with New York back in 2020, but really broke into the league with the SaberCats in 2022, starting 8 of his 9 games for Houston that year. He followed this with 16 appearances and a career high 56 tackles in 2023 before moving from Houston to Miami and signing with the Sharks. McDonnell has earned 24 appearances with the Sharks since, and set a career high 101m gained in their inaugural season in 2024. To date, McDonnell has started 18 of his 50 appearances in the league, and passed 200 career tackles on his 50th cap, congratulations, Alec!

Source: @Miasharksrugby via Instagram

From a 100th appearance to a 50th, and now from a 50th appearance to a bunch of debutants. MLR’s first ever ‘Storm Week’ saw some teams play 2 games within 4 days of each other and as such, squad rotation came into play. Some fringe players that might not have had the chance came in to bolster lineups and as a result, FIVE players earned their MLR debuts in Round 11, with three of them for Anthem RC! Starting in their first game of Round 11, when a trio of front rowers earned their first MLR appearances. Recently acquired on loan from the Chicago Hounds, Indiana native Alexander Hernandez appeared in both of Anthem’s Round 11 matches, coming off the bench in both games! Hernandez was drafted 34th overall in 2024 by the Chicago Hounds out of Marian University, and impressed with the Hounds academy during their fall season, earning an MLR contract. He was loaned to Anthem where he had a better opportunity at earning game time, and that was proved correct. Congratulations, Alexander!

Born in the US but raised in Canada, Neil Trainor was selected 2nd overall in the 2024 MLR Draft by Anthem RC out of Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. The Pacific Pride hooker earned just under 30 minutes of game time for Anthem in a tough 19-60 midweek affair last Wednesday, completing 4 tackles. In that same game, Californian prop Quinton Tindel also earned his MLR debut, coming on for the final 8 minutes and completing 2 tackles. Tindel, an alum of Cal Poly – San Luis Obispo and two-time Collegiate All-American, signed with Anthem RC as a free agent on a Homegrown Player Contract, and has now earned his Pro debut. Congratulations, both Neil and Quinton!

Moving away from Anthem RC and to one of their opponents from Round 11, the Miami Sharks. We have already discussed Alec McDonnell’s 50th MLR appearance, but packing down just behind him in the Sharks second row for the final few minutes of the match was Calvin Ihrig. The Chicago-born Lindenwood University alum discovered rugby which at school in Thailand, and was selected 3rd overall by the Sharks in the 2024 draft, now earning his debut off the bench in a comfortable 31-5 home victory. Congratulations, Calvin! Finally for the MLR debutants from Round 11, we head to the nation’s capital where Irish utility back Declan O’Loughlin made his Pro Debut for Old Glory DC in the final 10 minutes after earning his first pro contract during the DC academy season in the fall. A native of County Galway in Ireland, O’Loughlin made 7m and won a turnover as the Flags fell to the SaberCats in the Houston heat. Congratulations, Declan!

Victory Milestones

As mentioned just above, on Saturday the Houston SaberCats were able to hold of Old Glory DC for a comfortable victory at home, securing their second win in a row and staying atop the ferocious Western Conference. The SaberCats’ 48-27 victory over the Flags marks their 50th victory in MLR dating back to the league’s inaugural season in 2018, and claimed their 50th Try Bonus Point to boot! They hold an all-time regular season record of 50-0-53, and are 0-3 in the postseason. This makes them only the 4th team in MLR history to reach a half-century of victories in the competition. Congrats, ‘Cats!

The Houston SaberCats were not the only team to reach this marker during Round 11, however. The following day, the NOLA Gold recorded a big win over the Seattle Seawolves to claim their 50th MLR win, becoming the 5th team to reach the half-century of victories! The Gold have an all-time regular season record of 50-1-52 and are 0-1 in the postseason. In MLR’s All-Time Regular Season Standings, the Gold (274pts) sit just 9pts ahead of the SaberCats (265pts), both with 103 regular season games played.

Individual Scoring Milestones

Moving from team milestones to player achievements, starting with Tomas Aoake in San Diego. The Legion managed to snap their 4 game losing streak and retain the Cali Cup thanks in part to an Aoake score against Rugby FC LA over the weekend. This the 23rd try of Aoake’s MLR career, with all 23 having been scored for the Legion. The New Zealander’s 23rd tally and 5th of the 2025 season takes him ahead of team legend Nate Augspurger to become the San Diego Legion’s All-Time Top Try Scorer!

Although he had 4 tries in his debut MLR season in 2022, Aoake exploded in the Legion’s record-setting 2023 season, dotting down 11 times and running for 1,160m gained as San Diego finished as runners-up. These are still both career highs for Aoake. With 5 tries this year already to take him to T-12th all-time, how high can he get in 2025? Congratulations, Tomas!

Tomas Aoake becomes San Diego’s All-Time leading Try Scorer!

Moving from California over to the East Coast, the Miami Sharks’ dominant 31-5 victory over Anthem RC secured their 3rd victory in a row, setting a longest-ever win streak for the franchise! This victory was helped by the return of their talismanic Chilean international, Santiago Videla. As well as racking up just under 100m in meters made, Videla slotted 3 conversions and a penalty from the tee for 9pts in the game, taking his MLR total to 106. Scoring 100pts in Major League Rugby is an achievements in and of itself but with 106pts scored for the Sharks, Videla is the first player to pass 100pts scored for Miami! Congratulations, Santiago!

Heading to Texas, where the SaberCats recorded a runaway 48-27 victory over Old Glory DC, thanks in large part to a stellar performance from AJ Alatimu. The Samoan MLR veteran slotted 5 kicks from the tee (2pens, 3 cons) and added a try for 17pts in total from the man who sits 2nd All-Time in league scoring. This is the first time this season that a player has recorded over 15pts scored in a single game, setting a new 2025 record and surpassing the SEVEN players who have all scored 15pts in a game! With 6 weeks of action left in this regular season, will Alatimu’s season-high be beaten?

Alatimu sets new 2025 record with 17pt game for Houston

Miscellaneous Milestones!

Ending with a couple of tidbits from around the league that are worth mentioning and applauding, beginning with the Seattle Seawolves, who came close to a MLR record in their huge 19-60 road victory over Anthem RC in their first game of Round 11. The Seawolves ran riot in the Queen City, scoring 9 tries from 9 different players to equal the Toronto Arrows’ 9 different try scorers from a 31-64 victory over the Utah Warriors way back in 2019. This is T-2nd to only the Dallas Jackals, who scored 10 tries from 10 different scorers with a huge 28-68 road victory last season.

Now to a bit of history from the Chicago Hounds, who fielded their first pair of brothers in their clash with the Utah Warriors on Saturday. Mason Flesch started at lock while his younger brother Noah Flesch was at center for the match at Zion’s Bank Stadium and although they aren’t the first pair of brothers to start a MLR game together (The Suniula brothers come to mind for Seattle in the early years of the league, as well as the Kruse brothers for the Utah Warriors), they are the first pair of Canadian siblings to suit up together in a MLR starting 15. Congratulations to the Flesch brothers from Cobourg, Ontario!

Source: @chicagohoundsrugby via instagram

Wrapping Up

A bumper, 7-game Round 11 brought a bumper edition of Midweek Milestones this week, with all manner of appearance achievements, a new Legion try leader, 50th victories, and much more! With another midweek game to kick off Round 12, as well as a weekend full of MLR action, can we expect the same? You’ll have to check back in next week to find out!

Thank you for reading! 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 & @NARDB on Bluesky! NARDB also has a Youtube channel: NARStats!

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!

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 9 of MLR2025!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

After Round 9, every team in Major League Rugby has played 8 games with the exception of the Seattle Seawolves and Utah Warriors, who have played 7. This means that the majority of teams have played half of their games in the 2025 regular season! Some, like the Chicago Hounds are flying high with a 7-1 record, while Anthem RC are still after that first victory at 0-8 and teams that started strong like the San Diego Legion are struggling. The mid-season comes quick! Lets dive into some of the standout stats from Round 9 of the 2025 MLR season.

Welcome back to Midweek Milestones, the weekly article that highlights the biggest milestones from around Major League Rugby, whether achieved by teams, players, or both. The purpose of these weekly articles is to highlight achievements (both big, and small) that may have gone under the radar in order to give them the attention they deserve, as well as to keep fans informed of some of the big milestones and the less publicized (but no less deserving) achievements around the League for each week! If you want to read previous Midweek Milestones articles, feel free to search ‘Midweek Milestones’, or click on the category just below the title of this article.

RFCLA’s new All-Time Top Scorer

After the demise of the LA Giltinis in 2022, Rugby FC LA is Major League Rugby’s second attempt at putting a team in the City of Angels. Relocated from Atlanta after a new ownership group purchased the Rugby ATL franchise, RFCLA played their first season in 2024, one of MLR’s most recent additions. The team is already developing quite a history, however. Building a fierce rivalry with California neighbors the San Diego Legion, and going toe to toe with the best in the Western Conference, RFCLA are definitely not to be taken lightly.

Christian Leali’ifano becomes RFCLA’s all-time top scorer

For their sophomore season in 2025, LA brought in big MLR names like Billy Meakes and Reece MacDonald, as well as superstars on the word stage like Argentina’s Gonzalo Bertranou, or dual-capped international Christian Leali’ifano, who has been like clockwork from the tee in the first half of this season. Leali’ifano has successfully kicked 25 of his 27 attempts from the tee and is one of only 3 players to have passed 50pts scored so far this season. His 56pts scored in just 7 games also makes him Rugby FC LA‘s all-time leading scorer, ahead of Semi Kunatani who has 54pts off of his 10 tries from last season (including two 7-pointers). Although it’s a young team, becoming the top scorer of a franchise is an impressive achievement, congratulations, Christian!

In the same game that Leali’ifano became RFCLA’s top scorer, Canadian speedster Andrew Coe moved into T-3rd on list, becoming just the 2nd player in team history to reach 10 tries scored with RFCLA behind the aforementioned Semi Kunatani! Coe’s 10th try for LA draws him level with Dan Hollinshead on 50pts and with Hollinshead having recently signed with the New England Free Jacks, Coe looks likely to move ahead of him this season. Congratulations, Andrew!

Team Milestones

Coming off of a few disappointing results in previous weeks, not many people gave the Miami Sharks much of a chance heading into the stronghold that is SaberCats Stadium to face Houston, and yet in this battle of land v sea, the Sharks upset the hosts to claim their first victory since Round 3! Their 31-22 victory lifts the Sharks over 500pts scored as a team, to 512 points scored as a franchise in MLR. Josiah Morra’s try on the stroke of half-time of his Miami Sharks debut (after being loaned there from the Free Jacks) was the score that lifted the Sharks over 500pts. Congratulations, Miami!

Staying in the Eastern Conference, the Sharks weren’t the only team to hit a milestone during Round 9. Heading up to Chicago, where the Hounds held off a spirited Anthem RC side for a 28-20 victory, their 7th win of the season and 19th as a team! With a bonus point victory, this takes the Hounds over 100pts in NARDB’s All-Time MLR Standings, but there’s a big caveat: playoff games are knockout and do not award any points. For the purposes of NARDB’s All-Time Standings, playoff games are included and award points as though they were regular season games.

Using this format, the Chicago Hounds have earned 6pts from playoff games, and 97 from regular season games. It’s a bit convoluted, but there is some value in having an all-time standings table that includes every MLR game ever played. The All-Time Standings page contains a table for every MLR game ever played, as well as all regular season games and all playoff games as separate tables.

Gold Rack Up a Half-Century in New Orleans!

The 2025 season has not began as well as the NOLA Gold would have hoped, managing just 1 win through their first 6 games. However, they have since rattled off two victories in quick succession including a statement 51-29 win over Eastern Conference rivals Old Glory DC in front of a home crowd while wearing their very sharp black city edition jerseys. With 7 tries and 51 points scored this ties a NOLA Gold Franchise record set in Round 2 of the 2021 season for points scored in a match, after a 51-28 victory over Rugby United New York on March 27th, 2021, almost an identical score! This is the first time that the Gold have scored over 50pts in a game since Round 15 of the 2022 season when they secured a 50-21 victory on May 14th, 2022, also against Old Glory DC.

NOLA Gold tie Franchise record for points scored, pass 2,500pts all-time

There’s plenty more to celebrate if you’re a NOLA Gold fan, though. By scoring 4+ tries in Round 9, the Gold secured a much needed try bonus point, which is the 50th Try BP that they have earned in their history! NOLA become the 3rd team to reach 50 Try BPs in MLR (4th if you include the playoffs, but they don’t award table points) behind the San Diego Legion (56) and the Utah Warriors (52). The Gold’s 51pts also takes the team over the 2,500pts scored milestone, becoming just the 5th team to pass 2.5k points scored as a franchise! They now sit on 2,547, with Jonah Mau’s early try in the 2nd minute carrying the Gold over the 2,500 mark.

And there’s even more to celebrate for the Gold! In the same game, Xavier Mignot picked up his 4th, 5th, AND 6th tries of the 2025 season to record his first MLR hat trick, and the 6th hat trick by a NOLA Gold player! He is the 46th MLR player to record a hat trick in the competition, claiming MLR’s 51st hat trick. Congratulations, Xavier!

Appearance Achievements

As usual, there were a number of landmark appearances in Round 9 comprised of a pair of MLR debuts, and another five players all earning their 50th appearance! The two debutants both earned their first MLR appearance in the same game, one for either side of a Western Conference clash between Rugby FC LA and the Utah Warriors. Making his debut first was US-Eligible New Zealander Cole Semu, who came on for the Utah Warriors in the 71st minute and made 3 tackles to help secure the win for the Warriors. Semu was drafted 28th overall by the Warriors out of BYU in the 2024 draft, and he has already played with the USA U18, U20, and U23 sides. Coming on in the final minute of the match for Rugby FC LA was US-born Australian dual-codes player Robert Mapa. The former Brothers Rugby man was included in the LA matchday 23 once already in 2025, but didn’t see action until Round 9 when he made 3m and completed a tackle in his roughly 1 minute of game time. Both young players are now blooded in Major League Rugby, will we see them again soon?

Moving over to the cross-conference clash between the Miami Sharks and the Houston SaberCats in Florida where one player from either side celebrated reaching a half-century of Major League Rugby appearances! For the hosting Miami Sharks, Irish born back rower Ronan Foley played his 50th game, earning his 5th start in as many games for the Sharks after joining the Florida team this season following the demise of the Dallas Jackals. Along with Miami this year and Dallas in 2024, Foley has represented the Seattle Seawolves (2023 – 3 tries in 11 games, 8 starts) and the Toronto Arrows (2021-2022 – 3 tries in 19 games, 16 starts), where he had a standout 2022 season. He racked up over 1,000m gained as a forward and completed 184 tackles, both remain career highs. Foley earned a Team of the Week selection on his 50th MLR cap for his performance in Miami’s surprise victory over Houston. Speaking of the SaberCats, despite the defeat they were able to celebrate the 50th MLR appearance of South African lock Justin Basson, who has started 41 of his 50 MLR games between Rugby ATL (2022-2023) Houston (2024-), scoring 7 tries and averaging 144 tackles per season. Congratulations to both Ronan and Justin!

Source: @HoustonSaberCats via Instagram

Staying in the South but travelling to New Orleans and the Gold Mine, which saw another three players celebrate their 50th Major League Rugby appearance, beginning with the hosting NOLA Gold and 2021 MLR Champion, Luke Carty. the USA Capped Irishman began his MLR career with the LA Giltinis in 2021, earning 18 appearances including 15 during their Shield-winning season in 2021. Following the withdrawal of the Giltinis, Carty headed to Chicago where he scored a career high 69pts for the Hounds in 2023, totaling 127pts in 27 games in the Windy City, where he remains the Hounds all-time leading scorer. He surprised fans by signing with the NOLA Gold ahead of the 2025 season, where he’s scored 31pts in 5 games so far. In his MLR career, Luke Carty has 1 try and 208pts scored with a 67.74% success rate from the tee (84/124). Congratulations, Luke!

Moving to NOLA’s opposition from Round 9, Old Glory DC, who were able to celebrate a pair of 50th appearances, although they did celebrate one a bit prematurely! Cory Daniel has finished as MLR’s Top Tackler twice already in his career, and is the reigning ‘tackle king’ heading into 2025. Old Glory DC celebrated Daniel’s 50th game with DC after last week’s clash with the Seattle Seawolves, but unfortunately this was only his 49th game… Thankfully, this little faux pas can be forgotten as Daniel has now reached 50 games played with the Flags! A Maryland native, USA Eagle Cory Daniel has spent his entire MLR career with Old Glory DC, starting 45 of his 50 games since 2021 and racking up an incredible 770 tackles. This includes two seasons where he recorded over 250 tackles in a season, in 2022 (255) and in 2024, when he set a MLR record 276. Congratulations, Cory!

Source: @Oldglorydc via Instagram

Although Cory Daniel is the only player in this weeks’ Appearance Achievements section to have played all 50 of his MLR games with Old Glory DC, he’s not the only Flags player to reach the half-century mark. New Zealand utility back Jason Emery also played his 50th MLR game for Old Glory DC in Round 9! Emery started his MLR career with Rugby New York in 2022, scoring 48pts in 17 games as the Ironworkers lifted the Shield that year. Across his two years in New York, Emery scored 8 tries and 123pts in 33 games, starting 29 times. Following the withdrawal of the Ironworkers in 2023, Emery signed in LA for Rugby FC LA‘s inaugural season in 2024 before moving back to the east coast this year with Old Glory DC. In his career to date, Emery has scored 147pts with a 73.02% success rate from the tee (46/63) and started 43 of his 50 MLR games. Congratulations, Jason!

Wrapping Up

A new Top Scorer in Los Angeles, a bumper week for the Gold, another handful of players join the half-century club and that’s not even all of the standout stats from Round 9 of Major League Rugby’s 2025 season! What goodies will Round 10 hold for us as we move into the second half of this season, still no closer to knowing who will come out on top? You’ll have to come back next week to find out!

Thank you for reading! 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 & @NARDB on Bluesky! NARDB also has a Youtube channel: NARStats!

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!

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 7 of MLR2025!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

Round 7 of the 2025 Major League Rugby season saw all 5 games on Saturday for the 3rd week in a row, with every game kicking off within 3 hours of each other, so tries, kick-offs, and (most importantly) stats were coming thick and fast! Welcome back to Midweek Milestones, a weekly article that highlights the big achievements and standout stats from each round of the MLR season.

In case you haven’t read any of the previous Midweek Milestones, these weekly articles highlight milestones or standout stats achieved by players and teams that might have gone under the radar in order to bring more attention to them, as well as inform fans of some of the big milestones and the less publicized (but no less deserving) achievements around the League for each match week. If you want to read previous Midweek Milestones articles, feel free to search ‘Midweek Milestones’, or click on the category just below the title of this article!

NOLA Gold reach a century!

Following Utah last week, the NOLA Gold played in their 100th MLR game to become the 3rd team to play their century game this season, and the 5th team in MLR history to reach triple-figures! The Gold broke a strange pattern in their 100th game, becoming both the first team to play their 100th game in front of a home crowd, and the first team to face an expansion team in their 100th game, falling 18-20 to the Chicago Hounds in a nail-biter!

With the NOLA Gold reaching their 100th game, all five of the still active MLR founding member teams have now reached a century of games played! It’ll be a little while before the next team reaches this milestone. The New England Free Jacks are closest, on only 81 games, so we’ll have to wait until at least the 2nd half of the 2026 season!

LA & DC play a Slobberknocker!

The Flags travelled to Los Angeles to face RFCLA in a chaotic cross-conference clash! There were 13 tries in total with a final score of 54-44 to the hosts in what was the 3rd highest scoring game in Major League Rugby history! The total of 98pts falls just behind the 108pts scored in a 49-59 victory for Rugby New York in 2022, and the 101pts scored in a 42-59 victory for Houston the week before!

Unfortunately for Old Glory DC, they have now featured in all of the 3 highest scoring games in MLR history, and have been on the losing side of all three. For 2025, DC seem to be following a pattern of alternating wins & losses. So far this season they have always followed up a loss with a win, and always lost the game after a win. Are they destined for another .500 season?

Old Glory DC have featured in the 3 highest scoring games in MLR history

Moving over to the home side, Rugby FC LA were able to hold on for a victory despite a handful of cards including two yellows and a red to scrum-half Gonzalo Bertranou. This victory puts LA on their longest win streak as a franchise, winning 3 on the trot to even up their record at 3-3 so far in 2025! Helping them to that victory was Christian Dyer, a California native and USA Eagle who joined RFCLA from the Houston SaberCats ahead of the 2025 season. Dyer scored his first try with his new team in this game, also marking the 20th try of his MLR career and entering the Top 20 players all time, tied for 20th with the likes of Sam Windsor and JP Smith. Congratulations, Christian!

Appearance Achievements

Checking in on some appearance milestones for last weekend, there was a 50th appearance for the Seattle Seawolves as well as a pair of MLR debuts which is where we’ll start, with Old Glory DC. The section above covers much of the Flags’ game from Round 7, but it didn’t highlight a MLR debut for Welshman Joe Rees. A native of Swansea and former Wales U20 prop, Rees was signed early in the off-season from the English Championship, where he captained London Scottish. Congratulations, Joe, and welcome to MLR!

Round 7’s other debutant was also in the Eastern Conference, for the other team in red, white, & blue, the New England Free Jacks! Canadian Sevens star Josiah Morra came off the bench in the Free Jacks’ sensational comeback victory over the Utah Warriors. Morra is capped for Canada at both Sevens and 15s levels, and actually featured for the Ontario Arrows (the precursor of MLR’s Toronto Arrows) in a 40-14 victory against the Free Jacks in New England’s first ever game as a team. Morra was on the bench earlier this season but didn’t feature, so congratulations on your debut Josiah, and welcome to MLR!

Heading to the Western Conference to recognise a half-century of appearances, Seattle Seawolves center Dan Kriel earned his 50th Major League Rugby appearance in a hard-fought 25-17 victory over Anthem RC in front of a home crowd! The Cape Town native and brother of Springbok Jesse Kriel, Dan joined the Seawolves for the 2022 season and has been a mainstay of the Seattle lineup ever since, becoming the 7th player to earn 50 appearances for the Seawolves. He has recorded well over 3,000m made in his MLR career to date as well as just shy of 450 tackles, scoring 11 tries and 55pts in total. Kriel and the Seawolves have finished as MLR Runners up twice, in 2022 and in 2024, and he was the recipient of the S. Marcus Calloway Award in 2023, honoring the player who shows remarkable passion, excellence, and integrity on and off the field. Congratulations on your 50th MLR appearance, Dan!

Source: @SeawolvesRugby via Instagram

Scoring Standouts

Moving from appearance milestones to standout stats around scoring. There are now 14 teams in Major League Rugby that have scored over 1,000pts, after the Chicago Hounds reached 4-figures during their hard fought victory over the NOLA Gold on Saturday. The Hounds were sat on 996pts scored coming into Round 7, and Dylan Fawsitt’s try (who else?) just before half-time took Chicago over the 1000pts mark! With a 18-20 victory they now sit on 1,016pts scored as a team, and begin the long march to 2k.

Moving from team scoring milestones to player milestones, and moving from Chicago in the Eastern Conference to the Houston SaberCats in the West. The ‘Cats dominated the San Diego Legion (who seem to hate playing at SaberCats Stadium!) to put an end to the Legion’s 5 game win streak, and extend their own win streak to 5 games. South African scrumhalf André Warner dotted down for the SaberCats’ first try in a 34-14 victory, marking his 10th try in MLR! Warner is only the 8th Houston player to record 10+ tries with the team after recording 8 in 2024 and bagging his 2nd in 2025. Congratulations, André!

Staying on the Houston SaberCats, in the same game that André Warner recorded his 10th MLR try, AJ Alatimu came off the bench and slotted a penalty kick to pass 100pts scored as a member of the Houston SaberCats! Alatimu, who started his MLR career with the Seattle Seawolves in 2021, is only the 3rd SaberCat to pass 100pts with the team, behind Davy Coetzer (340) and Sam Windsor (432)! This proved to be a very important 3pts for Alatimu because not only did he pass 100pts with Houston, but it took his career total to 422, passing San Diego Legion legend Joe Pietersen (420) for the 2nd highest poinst scorer in MLR history! He now only sits behind Sam Windsor (595). Congratulations, AJ!

AJ Alatimu becomes MLR’s 2nd Highest Scorer

AJ Alatimu moving into 2nd wasn’t the only bit of movement at the top of the All-Time Scorers List! The eagle-eyed among you will have noticed that the above graphic lists Old Glory DC‘s Jason Robertson in 5th place All-Time which, after this weekend, he is! The Kiwi playmaker recorded 13pts in the Flags’ high scoring defeat to Rugby FC LA, setting the MLR Round-High in points for a second week in a row, moving ahead of Mack Mason and into the Top 5! He’s almost guaranteed to pass Toronto Arrows legend Sam Malcolm for 4th this season, too. Congratulations, Jason!

Wrapping Up

The last active founding member team reaches a century of games played, Old Glory DC‘s unfavourable record in high-scoring games, and plenty of scoring & appearances achievements in this week’s edition of Midweek Milestones! Be sure to check back next week to see what standout stats Round 8 of the 2025 Major League Rugby season holds!

Thank you for reading! 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!

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 6 of MLR2025!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

Round 6 roughly marks the final round of the first third of the 2025 Major League Rugby season, and so far it’s been a thriller. There are historically good teams faltering, there are written off teams on win streaks, and Anthem RC creep closer to that first victory. Welcome to the Midweek Milestones article for Round 6!

Just in case you haven’t read any of the previous Midweek Milestones articles, these weekly posts highlight milestones or standout stats achieved by players and teams that might have gone under the radar in order to bring more attention to them, as well as inform fans of some of the big milestones and the less publicized (but no less deserving) achievements around the League for each match week.

Utah join the 100 Club!

The Utah Warriors join the likes of the Seattle Seawolves, San Diego Legion, and Houston SaberCats to become the 4th team in MLR history to reach 100 games played in the competition! They are the 2nd team to win their 100th MLR fixture, claiming a 27-30 road victory over the Seattle Seawolves to secure their 41st victory as a team. The Warriors have an all-time record of 41-3-56, which includes both 98 regular season games (41-3-54) and 2 playoff appearances (0-2).

The Utah Warriors’ 100th game falls in line with a very strange pattern. All 4 teams that have reached 100 games played in MLR have played their 100th match on the road against a fellow founding member. No team has played their 100th game in front of a home crowd yet!

Heartbreak for Anthem RC

The USA’s rising rugby stars are still looking for their first win as a franchise and came agonizingly close in Round 6 as Anthem RC had their hearts broken by a last minute Davy Coetzer penalty. The aspiring Eagles fell 45-46 in Charlotte, having set new single game franchise records for points scored (45) and tries scored (7). The 45pts scored by Anthem RC in this game accounted for over 10% of the points ever scored by the team!

As further proof that Anthem are closing the gap, their average losing margin in 2024 was an eyebrow raising 23pts. So far in 2025 that has fallen to 15pts and in their last 3 games the gap is, on average, just 2pts. Anthem picked up 1 losing BP all season last year, but have picked up 3 in a row in 2025 (including this game) and have secured try BPs in two of those as well. Although it might not seem like much, Anthem RC are moving in the right direction and it’s just a matter of time before they claim that elusive first win. Will it come before their next bye week in Round 13?

Kicking Credits

A handful of kickers made noteworthy news over the weekend, whether that be for reaching new scoring milestones or other standout stats.

We begin with Jason Robertson, who had arguably a First XV-worthy performance for Old Glory DC as they routed their Eastern Conference rivals the New England Free Jacks in the first of two ‘Red, White, & Blue Bowl’ matchups in 2025. Not only did Robertson pass the 2,000m made mark to become the 5th player to reach 2,000m made with the Flags, but he scored 13pts including a rare drop goal. Amazingly, this is the FIFTH drop goal of Jason Robertson’s MLR career and he now take sole possession of the record for the most drop goals scored in MLR history! What’s more, Robertson missed another drop goal attempt in the same game! He passes San Diego Legion legend Joe Pietersen, who had 4.

On the subject of the San Diego Legion, they recorded a convincing victory over the Miami Sharks in Florida, with Lincoln McClutchie assuming the role of place kicker. The New Zealander converted 3 tries for 6pts, pushing his MLR and Legion total past the 100pt mark to 104! McClutchie is just the 5th player to pass 100pts scored for the Legion, and is currently sat on 23pts this season to add to his 81pts from 2024. Congratulations, Lincoln!

A little way up the road from McClutchie is USA Eagle Luke Carty, who’s enjoying his first season in New Orleans with the Gold. Carty banked another 2pts in the Gold‘s 24-31 loss to Rugby FC LA over the weekend to just nudge his career total over 200pts after coming off of the bench. Although his time with NOLA has only just begun, Carty has already racked up 24pts with the Gold this season and is only the 16th player in MLR history (9th active player) to pass 200pts in the competition! Congratulations, Luke!

NOLA Gold’s Luke Carty

Staying on the subject of kickers but moving to the Gold’s opposition this weekend, Rugby FC LA. The 2nd incarnation of a MLR team in Los Angeles appear to be finding their groove, securing back-to-back victories the last few weeks. In fact, with another 31pts scored over the weekend, RFCLA have become the first 2024 Expansion Team to pass 500pts scored as a franchise! They sit on 506pts scored in total, with Andrew Coe‘s 58th minute try taking the lads from Los Angeles over the milestone.

A key part of Rugby FC LA‘s scoring has been international rugby veteran Christian Leali’ifano. Test capped for both Australia and Samoa, Leali’ifano is currently tied as MLR’s leading points scorer with 40 on the season so far. Coming into Round 6, he had a flawless record from the tee with 15/15, the best record in MLR! It turns out that the 37yo is human after all however, as Leali’ifano missed his first two place kicks of the season in Round 6. Let’s blame them on the wind, shall we?

Appearance Achievements

In what is quickly becoming it’s own segment within these Midweek Milestones articles, there were a number of players celebrating milestone appearances over the weekend, starting with a pair of MLR debuts!

After being named on the bench in Round 5 but not used, Hawaiian former football player Isikeli Kava earned his Major League Rugby debut on the 2nd attempt when he came off the bench for Old Glory DC in the 77th minute of their convincing 28-14 victory over the New England Free Jacks. Kava played with the American Raptors crossover program before joining the Flags for the 2025 season, and made 3 tackles in his MLR debut. Congratulations, Isikeli!

MLR Debutant Isikeli Kava (center)


Round 6’s other debutant was another #18. Nova Scotia native and test-capped Canadian Prop Tyler Matchem came off the bench for the NOLA Gold in the 67th minute to earn his first MLR appearance and help the Gold to salvage 2pts from their 24-31 defeat to Rugby FC LA. Congratulations, Tyler!

From debuts to half-centuries, three US-eligible players reached 50 appearances in MLR over the course of Round 6, including a very impressive MLR first for one of them! Starting on the West Coast with the San Diego Legion, Australian back rower and 2021 MLR Champion Christian Poidevin earned his 50th MLR appearance and his 44th start in the competition! The son of 1991 RWC Winner Simon Poidevin, Christian earned 28 appearances with the LA Giltinis between 2021-2022 before joining the Legion in 2023 where he has earned 22 further appearances. Poidevin is eligible for the USA through his Chicago-born mother, and has scored 13 tries in MLR including 3 in 5 games to start 2025! To date, he has made 1,429m in possession and completed 591 tackles with a high of 200 in 2022. Congratulations, Christian!

Staying in the Western Conference but moving to the Lone Star State, Houston SaberCats’ forward Emmanuel Albert also reaches his 50th appearance in MLR! The Minnesota native has developed into a certified MLR starter over his 4 years in Texas, with 11 of his 14 career starts coming in the last 2 seasons, including 5 starts in 5 games so far in 2025. Albert has scored 3 MLR tries and is approaching both 1,000m made in possession & 350 tackles completed and, after setting career highs in both categories last season, is well on track to do the same again this year! Albert was drafted 2nd overall by the Houston SaberCats in the 2021 MLR Collegiate Draft out of Lindenwood University, meaning that his half-century of games comes with an MLR first: Emmanuel Albert is the first MLR Draftee to reach 50 games played in the competition! This is a testament to the viability of the draft and the player pathway system, as well as to Albert’s hard work and determination. Congratulations, Emmanuel!

Source: @usmlr via Instagram

The final player to enter the 50-cap club in Round 6 is Ex-Rugby New York Ironworker and 2022 MLR Champion, Connor Buckley! The Iona College alum earned his 19th appearance (11th start) for Old Glory DC in their victory over New England, to add to his 31 games for New York between 2021-2023! Buckley has 30 starts in his MLR career and 9 tries including the first (and to date, only) playoff hat trick in MLR history in the 2024 Eastern Conference Semifinal, also against New England. Congratulations, Connor!

Wrapping Up

Another team joins the 100 club, a trio of kickers reach new scoring milestones, and a handful of players earn appearance achievements! That does it for all the standout stats from another week of Major league Rugby action, and the Midweek Milestones article for Round 6 of the 2025 season. Be sure to check back next week for Midweek Milestones from the 7th match week of the 2025 Major League Rugby season, we we see more MLR firsts?

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!

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 4 of MLR2025!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

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!

Source: @utahwarriorsrugby via Instagram. While it is definitely Jones’ 50th MLR appearance, the numbers listed in the above post are largely incorrect.

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!

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 2 of MLR2025!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

Round 2 of Major League Rugby’s 2025 season is already in the books, and early bye weeks are already playing their part on this young season with only 4 games last weekend. Luckily, there was no shortage of stats to give us plenty to talk about in this 2nd edition of Midweek Milestones!

Midweek Milestones is a weekly series of articles 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…) each week, and will take milestones from the latest round of MLR matches during the 2025 season.

Dylan Fawsitt: MLR’s First Centurion!

It was close to impossible to miss the congratulations from around the league (and indeed, the world!) for ‘The Butcher’ this weekend, but just in case: Dylan Fawsitt became the first player in Major League Rugby history to reach 100 games played in the competition! The Chicago Hounds couldn’t secure the victory, but that shouldn’t take anything away from this outstanding achievement. This article will focus on a few of the numbers from Fawsitt’s exceptional MLR career, but an excellent article on Fawsitt’s story can be found below, written by Joe Harvey:

https://www.majorleague.rugby/news/the-man-they-call-butcher-introducing-dylan-fawsitt-as-the-first-mlr-centurion/

A stalwart of MLR since it’s inaugural season in 2018, many fans will be familiar with the USA-capped Irishman from his time playing with New York between 2019-2023, where he lifted the Shield in 2022 and scored over 40 tries. However, many may forget that his first MLR try came with the Glendale Raptors during the 2018 season, where he earned his first 8 MLR appearances, starting 6 times and finishing as an MLR Runner-Up.

As mentioned, Fawsitt became a prolific try scorer with New York and that has continued with the Chicago Hounds. The Butcher has 16 tries in 20 games for the Hounds since joining them for the 2024 season following the demise of the Ironworkers, and even added his league-leading 58th MLR try in his 100th MLR game alongside former Raptors team mate, Bryce Campbell. Fawsitt’s 58th try takes his points total to 290, good enough for 10th on MLR’s all time list, without a single place kick (although there have been a couple of famous 50:22s!).

Perhaps the most incredible stat around Dylan Fawsitt’s monumental achievement is that he has appeared in more MLR games than 9 of the 11 teams competing in Major League Rugby’s 2025 season. This includes 3 founder clubs (the Houston SaberCats, Utah Warriors, and NOLA Gold) that have been competing since the inaugural season in 2018!

San Diego Run Riot in The Queen City!

From MLR’s first Centurion, to the Legion. San Diego continued their impressive start to the season with an 8-try rout of Anthem RC on the road. Surprisingly for MLR’s winningest franchise, their 5-52 road victory was only the 3rd time in franchise history that the Legion have scored 50+ points in a game, and they were just 1pt behind their single game record (14-53 against Dallas in 2022). They did however, set a new franchise record for their biggest ever winning margin of 47pts, surpassing the 39pts set in that 2022 game against Dallas.

Named as MLR’s Team of the Week for Round 2, the San Diego Legion scored 8 tries including Tomas Aoake‘s 2nd in as many games, becoming just the 2nd player to reach 20 tries scored for the Legion behind Nate Augspurger who recorded 22 tries while in San Diego. Congratulations, Tomas! On the Legion bench while Aoake scored his 20th try was new signing for 2025, Alesana Pohla. He was acquired from the Utah Warriors, where he played in 2024 and came off the bench for the second half to earn his San Diego Legion debut. What Pohla probably didn’t realise is that in doing so, he became the 150th different player to represent San Diego in an MLR game. Congratulations, Alesana!

Coetzer Enters Elite Company!

The Houston SaberCats get out of the starting blocks with their first win of 2025 over a tenacious Rugby FC LA team in California, following their surprise defeat against the Chicago Hounds in Round 1. Sticking with the sprinting analogy, the ‘Cats fell at the final hurdle a number of times as they were held up over the line, but eventually got things clicking and ended up scoring 7 tries, 3 of which were converted by South African fly-half, Davy Coetzer. Over his 4 seasons with the SaberCats, Coetzer has been a regular behind the kicking tee, finishing 2nd in MLR Scoring in 2023 with a personal best of 135pts. His 6pts on Sunday took his MLR total over the 300pt mark, to 302!

With his 16 tries (one 7-pointer), 20 successful penalties, 80 conversions and success rate off the tee of basically an even 70%, Coetzer is just the 9th player in Major League Rugby history to pass the 300pts scored mark! US fans should keep an eye on Coetzer if they aren’t already, as he’s expressed an interest in pursuing Eagles eligibility and with plenty of runway left this season, it’s possible that he could reach 400pts scored in MLR and enter a truly legendary group.

Damm Reaches Half-Century!

Perhaps slightly eclipsed by Fawsitt’s century of appearances was another appearance milestone from a USA Eagle over in Los Angeles. Rugby FC LA Captain Jason Damm earned his 50th MLR appearance in his 17th game for the team, the very same game where Davy Coetzer surpassed the 300pt mark!

Like Fawsitt, Damm began his MLR career with the Glendale Raptors, where he earned 3 appearances and his first MLR start in 2019. Most fans familiar with Damm will know that his career really took off with Rugby ATL, however. The Marietta, Georgia native played for his hometown MLR team between 2020-2023, scoring 8 tries and earning 30 of his 50 appearances with the RATLers as well as finishing as a MLR Runner-Up in 2021. His performances in Atlanta earned him his test debut for the USA against Chile in July of 2022.

Source: @Rugbyfcla via Twitter/X

Jason Damm followed the team to Los Angeles following the sale of Rugby ATL and it’s relocation to the West Coast in 2023, joining Rugby FC LA for their inaugural season in 2024 where he had a career year. He earned 15 appearances with a career high 14 starts, also earning career highs in tries scored (7) and tackles made, finishing in the top 10 league wide with 172. Damm was named as the RFCLA Captain for the 2025 season is continuing his impressive tackle rate, currently sat 2nd in MLR on 36 tackles in his two games. Congratulations on reaching 50 MLR appearances, Jason!

To Conclude

A handful of milestones for the San Diego Legion, an All-Time Top 10 points scorer continues to rack them up, and a pair of appearance milestones including an MLR first! That does it for your round-up of standout stats from Round 2 of the 2025 Major League Rugby season in this 2nd edition of Midweek Milestones.

If you like this series, please let me know on social media and share this article to bring attention to these achievements! If there’s anything that may have 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 via social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, @JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay and @NARDB on Bluesky!

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

MLR Player Movement Summary: January 20-26, 2025

NARDatabase

James Deeley

Welcome back to NARDB’s weekly Major League Rugby Off-Season Player Movement Summary Series. On a weekly basis, this series dives deeper into every single roster move announced by teams during the MLR Off-Season. This particular article covers the moves from January 20th to 26th, 2025.

Pre-Season camps are in full swing for all 11 MLR teams, with under 3 weeks to go until the 2025 season kicks off on February 15th. This didn’t stop one team from dominating last week’s summary. It seems hard to believe that the team hadn’t finalised these deals months ago, but maybe they forgot the announcements, and only remembered when these players reported. As always, this article will start with the summary graphic, before diving into the re-signings:

Summary of Player Movement Around MLR: January 20-26, 2025 (1 of 1)

Re-Signings

Last week’s busiest team was easily the Utah Warriors. Warriors fans seem to have largely recovered from the early off-season announcement of 17 departing players, and are looking forward to see the team take a step forward in 2025. The return of the team’s all-time top scorer and former captain, Joel Hodgson, will make taking that step forward significantly easier. The English ex-Newcastle Falcons Fly-half has appeared in all 32 games the Warriors have played since 2023, starting all but 1 of them. He finished 3rd in MLR scoring last season with 111pts in 16 games (15 starts) and a 65% success rate from the tee. After only 2 seasons in MLR, Hodgson already sits 12th all-time in terms of scoring with 233pts, and will no doubt be looking to break into the Top 10 in 2025.

Trade Targets

Along with announcing the return of their franchise points scorer, the Utah Warriors started the week with a Western Conference Trade with the San Diego Legion. The Legion acquired wing/center Alesana Pohla from the Utah Warriors in exchange for 2025 Cap Space. Unfortunately, as with all MLR trades the exact amount of Cap Space that the Utah Warriors received in this deal isn’t publically known, nor is the Salary Cap itself. Maybe one day. Alesana Pohla made his MLR debut for the Warriors in 2024, and started two of his 6 MLR games that season, amassing just shy of 200m gained in possession. He does not qualify as a domestic player just yet, so this may limit his game time with the Legion, but he certainly proved an effective runner with the Warriors last season.

Source: MLR Trade Wire

New Faces

The Utah Warriors were going for the full set last week. In addition to a re-signing and a trade, they also announced the addition of a pair of new players, one of which is a familiar name to MLR fans, and one will be enjoying his debut MLR season in 2025. The familiar name, especially for Dallas Jackals fans, is Ronnie McElligott. The Californian back row was drafted 32nd overall out of St. Mary’s College in 2023 by the Dallas Jackals, and earned 7 MLR appearances off the bench during his debut MLR season. McElligott was not selected in the Dallas Jackals Dispersal Draft shortly after their withdrawal from MLR, but the Warriors sign the former SMC Gael for his sophomore season in the league. The new face who will enjoy his debut MLR season in 2025 is Amulone ‘Lone’ Ika. Born in Utah so will count as a domestic player, Ika was raised in Tonga where he represented the Tonga U20s in 2014. He has had two stints in the Australian Shute Shield with the Western Sydney Two Blues, and in between, was coaching and playing in Utah. Ika is currently serving as assistant coach for the Utah Valley University rugby side.

There was another new face confirmed to be joining MLR for 2025, but this one is not without it’s share of controversy. The Houston SaberCats announced the signing of capped Scotland winger Rufus McLean for their 2025 campaign. The 24yo winger has earned 3 caps for Scotland, and scored a pair of tries on his test debut against Tonga in October 2021 after coming up through the Glasgow Warriors system. McLean’s contract with the Glasgow Warriors was terminated in 2023 however, and here is where the controversy comes in. That same year, McLean admitted, and was convicted of, domestic abuse against his girlfriend, for which he was issued a 10-year non-harassment order and sentenced to 120 hours of community service. Since then, Scotland, the Glasgow Warriors, and all other European clubs have steered clear of the once-promising winger. Usually this would (and should) kill a career, but McLean has the benefit of having been born in Boston, keeping the door open to play in the United States. The American Raptors announced the signing of McLean for their 2024 Super Rugby Americas season, in a move that was met with a poor reception. Since the Raptors are not playing professional rugby in 2025, McLean turned his attention to MLR, where the Houston SaberCats have picked him up. Concerningly for ‘Cats fans, they have a history of signing controversial figures. Former LSU football player Drake Davis represented them in 2024, and Jeremy Misailegalu has played for them for the past two seasons (although Missile’s controversy is a different situation that merits a second chance). It is the view of NARDB that a player with a recent history like Rufus McLean should not be given the opportunity to play professional sports considering what we know, but everyone deserves a second chance. The question that MLR fans should be asking the SaberCats (and for that matter, the Raptors before them), is: What has McLean done to prove that he is worthy of a second chance, other than being born in the USA?

Departures

Among the Utah Warriors’ busy week was a departure that likely went under the radar for many MLR fans, perhaps even among a large chunk of Old Glory DC fans, who may not even know the player in question, despite playing with the team in 2024. Kevin Brou is a US-eligble front row from the Ivory Coast who was signed by the Flags for their 2024 Campaign, but suffered a broken leg in the pre-season and was sidelined for the entire year. FCY, in the French 6th tier the Fédérale 2, announced the signing of Brou for their 2024/25 season way back in September, but thanks to Bryan Ray on Twitter, MLR audiences are learning about this move now. Marking an end to Brou’s unfortunate stint in MLR, at least for now.

Anthem RC Finally Break the Silence

After what feels like months of MLR’s newest team, Anthem RC, being the only team not announcing players for their 2025 season, the MLR, USA Rugby and World Rugby partnership team finally unveiled their full 37 man roster on January 21st. This is two whole weeks into pre-season camp. The team has been publishing numerous images from training sessions, but as they had made no effort to market any of their players, fans had little to no clue who was in said pictures. As mentioned, Anthem RC is a partnership between MLR, USA Rugby, and World Rugby to usher in the next era of USA Eagles ahead of their home (mens) Rugby World Cup in 2031, and as such their primary goal may not be to make a profit as it might be for other teams around the league (NARDB is aware that as of the date this article was published, no team is making a profit), but if these players are on the shortlist to represent the National Team, then market them. A few days before the team announced the roster, they announced that Patrick Stack has been appointed the first team president, with the mission of ‘focusing on revenue generation’ among other things, so hopefully this changes. To not announce a single player before the third week of pre-season camp is ridiculous. Rosters should be finalised and made public prior to January 1st.

To finally get to the Anthem RC roster itself, it was largely as expected. Despite the paragraph above, it’s still the MLR and as we know, MLR has more leaks than a sieve. There are a few notable departures from their 2024 roster, such as top try scorer and MLR veteran Te Rangatira Waitokia, 2023 San Diego Legion draftee Tyren Al-Jiboori, and USA Sevens star David Still, but the team added lots of young talent as well as a number of USA Eagles with significant MLR experience in the likes of Mitch Wilson, Conner Mooneyham, and Sam Golla, as well as five of their six 2024 draftees. They picked up a number of players from the Dallas Jackals when they withdrew from MLR, as well as the Jackals Head Coach Agustin Cavalieri, who is serving as Anthem RC Assistant Coach in 2025. While it’s unlikely that Anthem will challenge for the Shield in 2024, they’re primed to take a big step in the right direction, and the key question is: How long before their first MLR victory?

In Conclusion

Judging from the previous few weeks, it is likely that we can expect a few more announcements out of the Utah Warriors, but as we move into February the moves will get fewer and further between, apart from perhaps the odd last minute trade. These weekly articles will continue as long as there are moves to discuss, but NARDB will be shifting it’s focus to pre-season preparation which will include fact files on each MLR team in the coming days.

As always, you can follow NARDB and James across social media to stay up to date on signings as they happen. @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, @JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay and @NARDB on Bluesky! Also, we’re happy to have Rugby Now back for the 2025 season! Visit shopmlr.com to get your hands on that new Macron gear for 2025, and remember to use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off your order!

MLR Player Movement Summary: December 23-29, 2024

NARDatabase

James Deeley

The last full week of 2024 is behind us and the holidays created quite the lull around Major League Rugby. Every Monday, this series of articles from NARDB will summarise all the moves around MLR from the previous week and add a bit of detail to each move. This particular article covers the moves over the week of Christmas 2024, from December 23rd to December 29th. During that period, six teams made roster announcements and 21 players were involved in total.

Following the 3-pager just before Christmas, all of last week’s moves can be summarised on just one page. Although much quieter than the weeks before it, the trend stayed the same with 18 re-signings across four teams, with 13 of those shared between just two teams, the NOLA Gold and Old Glory DC. As always, the first (and in this case, only) page of the summary graphic is just below, and we’ll start with the re-signings. These made up the vast majority of last week’s moves:

MLR Player Moves Summary: December 23-29, 2024 (1 of 1)

Re-Signings

As with the week before, we begin with the NOLA Gold. The Gold continue to announce their returnees in batches based on position, and last week announced seven returnees. This includes their returning centres, hookers, and locks. Beginning in the back line, MLR veterans Ross Depperschmidt and JP du Plessis return for their 7th & 8th seasons in MLR, respectively. Depperschmidt has played all 7 seasons with the Gold, scoring 5 tries in his 46 games (26 starts) to date. He earned 9 starts in 15 games in 2024, completing 68 tackles. The Texan has set career highs in appearances, starts, and tackles made in every season since 2020. 2019 MLR runner-up JP du Plessis returns for his 5th season with NOLA after playing with the San Diego Legion from 2018-20. His 84 MLR appearances put him tied for 6th all-time with Holden Yungert and he currently leads the entire league in all-time meters gained, on 5,849m. Du Plessis signed a 3yr contract with the Gold in October 2023, and returns for the 2nd season of that deal in 2025.

Moving to the heavies, Ale Lopeti returns at hooker along with another veteran, Pat O’Toole. Lopeti earned 14 of his 24 appearances in 2024, completing 88 tackles and scoring 2 tries as the Gold’s go-to back-up. Entering his 7th MLR season in 2025, O’Toole has played for the Gold since 2021, making 49 of his 69 career appearances and scoring 15 of his 18 MLR tries including a high of 7 in 2021. O’Toole has over 500 tackles completed in his career and is closing in on 2000m gained. More veterans return to the Gold in the second row, in Will Waguespack and Cam Dolan. Waguespack is back for an 8th season with the Gold, earning 20 starts in his 46 appearances for NOLA, 11 of which were in 2024 where he scored his first career MLR try and completed a career high 68 tackles. Cam Dolan should be a name familiar to fans outside of the NOLA Gold. The capped USA Eagle has over 600 tackles in his 75 games (71 starts) since 2018, and has scored 15 tries and ran for almost 2,500m gained in possession. He returns for a 7th season with the Gold having represented the San Diego Legion in 2018 alongside JP du Plessis. Like du Plessis, Dolan signed a 3yr deal with NOLA in October 2023 and returns for the 2nd year of that contract in 2025.

Moving away from the Big Easy but staying in the Eastern Conference in the nation’s capital, Old Glory DC wrapped up their ’24 days of re-signings’ with the return of a bunch of household names for DC fans. Back rows and tackle machines Lautaro Bavaro and Cory Daniel return for their 3rd and 4th seasons with the Flags respectively. Argentinian Bavaro has over 350 tackles completed in just 33 games (all starts) since 2023, averaging 178 a season and 11 a game. Bavaro’s tackle total is very impressive, but is dwarfed when put next to Cory Daniel’s. The former wrestler is a 2x MLR Top Tackler with 255 in 2022 and an MLR record 276 in 2024. His total sits on 651 tackles in 42 games (37 starts). More than just a tackle juggernaut, Daniel has 12 career tries and over 1,150m gained in his career. A worry for DC fans, however, is that Daniel has historically alternated between an excellent season and an injury plagued season throughout his career (59 tackles in 8 games, then 255 in 15, then 61 in 4, then 276 in 15). Both he and the Flags will be hoping for consistency in 2025. Also returning in the Old Glory back row is Captain Jamason Fa’anana-Schultz, for a 6th season with the team and 7th in MLR. ‘JFS’ passed 3,000m gained in his career in 2024, adding 91 tackles and two tries to take his totals to 588 tackles and 12 tries. With the exception of the shortened 2020 season, JFS is a lock for around 500m gained and 2-3 tries, and his career high of 187 tackles in 2023 proves he can perform on the defensive side as well. Moving from the back row to the front, Old Glory DC’s most capped player is back for a 6th season in the district. Jack Iscaro has 60 MLR appearances since 2020 (43 starts), all with the Flags. He’s averaging 153 tackles a season over the past 3 years, relatively high for a prop.

The DC backline saw some reinforcements confirmed last week, as well. Former San Diego Legion and American Raptors scrumhalf Ethan McVeigh is back for a second season with DC after earning 9 starts and 15 appearances in 2024, part of a solid tandem with Connor Buckley, who’s return has already been confirmed. Finally for the Flags, dual test capped centre Tommaso Boni returns for his 2nd season in DC after the dual Italy and (most recently) USA capped man gained 780m in 13 games in 2024, completing 99 tackles.

Heading over to the Western Conference, the Utah Warriors continue announcing their familiar faces with 4 returnees of their own including a trio for their pack. Canadian hooker Tyler Wong is back after adding 3 appearances from the bench in 2024 to his 5 games (3 starts) for the Toronto Arrows in 2023. Wong will be competing for game time with Australian Phil Bradford. The Warriors’ go-to back up hooker is also back for a second season at Zion’s Bank after scoring 3 tries in 12 games (3 starts) in 2024. Back row Miah Noaese returns for a 3rd season in Utah following a 2024 where he spent much of the time on the sidelines. The Washington-state native has 9 appearances to date and will be hoping to stay healthy in 2025. Speaking of injury, Canadian international Spencer Jones returns for his 6th MLR season and second with the Warriors after spending much of 2024 injured. Jones still scored a try in his 2 games, starting both, and the 2023 MLR Champion will be hoping for a return to form in 2025.

Wrapping up the re-signings portion of this summary, Rugby FC LA announced the return of another Canadian 2023 MLR Champion, Reegan O’Gorman. The 6’6 lock has 22 starts in 38 MLR games since 2021, earning half of those starts for RFCLA in 2024 when he set a career high 108 tackles completed, hitting triple figures for the first time.

Intra-League Signings

Hidden among last weeks’ flurry of re-signings were a pair of intra-league moves that saw players stay within Major League Rugby, but head to a different team. The New England Free Jacks will be without Zach Bastres in 2025, as their 34th overall pick from 2021 signed with the Miami Sharks for 2025. The University of Northern Colorado alum earned 5 starts in 13 appearances across 3 seasons with the Free Jacks, helping them to back-to-back Shields. Chances of more consistent game time was likely a contributing factor in Bastres‘ decision to leave New England.

Last week’s other intra-league move saw former Old Glory DC and Houston SaberCats front row Will Vakalahi sign with the Chicago Hounds, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. The Indiana native began playing in MLR with Old Glory DC in 2020, before missing the entire 2021 season due to an injury sustained in pre-season. He fought his way back and earned 6 appearances for Old Glory DC in 2022 before heading to play with the Houston SaberCats academy in the 2022 American Rugby Premiership season. His performances with Rugby HTX earning him a shot with the SaberCats, where he earned 3 further MLR appearances in 2023 before moving closer to home and joining the Chicago Hounds academy, where he played in 2024. Although classed as an intra-league move, this is a promotion for Vakalahi from the Hounds academy side to their MLR squad.

Retirements

Wrapping up a relatively quiet week with a single retirement, as 4-season MLR-er Danny Christensen hangs up his boots. Christensen finishes with 34 appearances between the Utah Warriors (2021-22), Dallas Jackals (2023), and San Diego Legion (2024), scoring 6 tries including a hat trick for the Warriors in 2022. A fan favourite throughout his time in the league, Christensen’s stat line can be found below, and NARDB congratulates him on a fantastic career. Best of luck in your next chapter, Danny!

Major League Rugby

SeasonTeamGPGSTCPACDGMGTacklesKS/KAPts
MLR 2021Warriors41200007811010
MLR 2022Warriors1253002021447019
MLR 2023Jackals122100102533807
MLR 2024Legion62000001161300
Total-341060030661109036

Stay in Touch

That does it for a calmer holiday week around Major League Rugby. With training camps opening in just a few short weeks, we are yet to hear anything from Anthem RC in terms of players or a roster. Expect the World Rugby/USA Rugby/Major League Rugby partnership team to announce their roster all at once in the coming days. This takes the shine out of it and makes it harder for fans to get to know individual players. There is no downside to advertising your 2025 team through the off-season, but this is the way that Anthem have decided to do it. Their social media has barely been active this off-season, so here’s hoping it jumps into life soon.

To stay up to date on all the news and announcements as they happen, be sure to follow NARDB and James on social media. @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, @NARugbyDB or @JamDelay on Twitter/X, and @NARDB or @JamDelay on Bluesky. Check back next Monday for the summary of this week’s roster announcements!

MLR Player Movement Summary: December 16-22, 2024

NARDatabase

James Deeley

The last week before Christmas 2024 saw a huge number of roster moves from MLR teams as they all scramble to get their last-minute shopping done in time for the holidays. Each week, NARDB summarises every single roster move around the league so fans can easily stay up to date with all the goings on during the off-season. This week, we’ll add a little detail to all the roster moves from the week between December 9th & December 16th!

20 re-signings in total across five teams, including nine for the NOLA Gold alone should give some idea of how busy the week was. This doesn’t even include the nine new faces joining MLR from other leagues around the world, or the four 2024 Collegiate draftees that were officially signed, or the three intra-league moves that saw a pair of loanees return to their clubs for 2025! It’s a busy week, and as usual we’ll start with the Page 1 summary graphic, and dive right in to the re-signings:

MLR Player Moves Summary: December 9-16, 2024 (1 of 3) – Please note that Tomy Malanos signed with the Miami Sharks, not Rugby FC LA as noted above.

Re-Signings

As mentioned, last week saw 20 re-signings in total including nine for the NOLA Gold alone, who announced their returning props and halfbacks for the 2025 season. Starting in the front row, Gold academy product Bart Vermeulen returns for a 2nd season after earning 5 appearances from the bench, and ex-Arrow Isaac Salmon (36a, 25s) also returns for a 2nd season in New Orleans alongside fellow New Zealander Jarred Adams, who returns for a 3rd season with the Gold and has over 800m gained in his 29 games (21 starts) to date. Having been with NOLA for slightly longer, Matt Harmon (73a, 45s) and James ‘Doc’ Irey (24a, 3s) each return for their 7th seasons with the team.

As well as announcing the return of five props, the NOLA Gold announced a pair each of returning scrumhalves and flyhalves, with Namibian international scrumhalf Damien Stevens the most experienced of the four, with 6 tries and 98pts in his 47 games (26 starts) for the Gold to date across 4 seasons. Alongside Stevens will be Luke Campbell returning for his 3rd season with the Gold. Campbell has 5 tries and 29pts in hs 27 games (24 starts) since 2023, and well over 125 tackles completed (high for a 9). Moving to the 10 jersey, academy product Reece Botha returns for his 3rd season with the team after a stand-out 2024 in which he scored 2 tries and 53pts, appearing in all 17 Gold games and starting 6. Fighting with Botha for starts will be welshman Dorian Jones who’s back for a 2nd MLR season in NOLA. Jones had limited game time in 2024 but still scored 1 try and 38pts in his 5 games (all starts).

Moving to the other team with mass re-signings but staying in the Eastern Conference, Old Glory DC continue their ’24 days of re-signings’ with another six returning faces. US-eligible English prop Joe Wrafter is back for a second season in the nation’s capital after earning 2 appearances off the bench in 2024, and joining him in the front row is test capped Uruguayan hooker Facundo Gattas, who has 5 tries in 25 games (9 starts) since 2022 and is back for his 4th MLR season in 2025. Moving to the DC second row, Gattas’ Los Teros teammate Ignacio Dotti is back for a 6th MLR season and 2nd with the Flags. Dotti has over 1,000m gained and 331 tackles in his 46 MLR games (35 starts) since 2019. Joining him in the engine room is capped Scotland international Rob Harley, who can also play flanker and earned 15 appearances (14 starts) for DC in 2024 and finished 5th MLR-wide in tackles completed, with a huge 189. Finally for Old Glory, a pair of speedsters are back for 2025. Sticking with the South American theme, Argentine winger Axel Müller returns after scoring 5 tries in 11 games in 2024, while also completing over 70 tackles. Also returning on the wing is another test capped Scot, Damian Hoyland, following 12 appearances and over 1000m gained in his debut season in North America.

Things were a little quieter in the Western Conference in terms of re-signings. The Houston SaberCats announced the return of stalwart Emmanuel Albert and academy graduate Aiden Kerr. A 2nd overall pick in 2021 out of Lindenwood, Albert scored 2 tries in 2024 earned 6 of his 9 career starts, and completed a career high 121 tackles. At the early stages of his development, Washington native Aiden Kerr will look to earn his MLR debut in 2025. Heading to the coast, Rugby FC LA announced a single returnee last week, but it was a good one. Test capped Canadian back row Matt Heaton returns for a second season in LA and 6th in MLR. Heaton passed his 50th league cap in 2024, scoring his 7th try and recording a hefty 166 tackles. This takes his career tackle total over 800, just the 6th player in league history to pass that milestone. Moving back inland to the Beehive State, the Utah Warriors have begun announcing their returnees, with another tackle machine, Dylan Nel. Nel recorded 128 tackles of his own in only 11 games (all starts), also racking up over 750m gained for the Warriors. Ex-Arrow Tyler Wong is also returning for Utah after earning 3 appearances off the bench for his new club, having been selected by them in the Toronto & NY Dispersal Draft in 2023.

MLR Player Moves Summary: December 9-16, 2024 (2 of 3)

New to MLR

As mentioned just above, Rugby FC LA had just the one re-signing announced last week, but boy were they busy. The fresh-look RFCLA announced five of last week’s nine new faces, including a trio from the Randwick Galloping Green to add to the two they had already announced. Maybe the ‘R’ in ‘RFCLA‘ actually stands for Randwick? 2023 Shute Shield winning Captain Ben Houston joins Nick Chan and Matias Jensen, as do fellow 2023 Champions Declan Leaney and Cronan Gleeson. Irish prop Gleeson is no stranger to MLR, having played with Rugby ATL in 2020 and the San Diego Legion the following year, earning 17 appearances total (6 starts) and 99 tackles. Another ex-pat heads to California via Australia, Ed Timpson. English back row Timpson played alongside new RFCLA teammate Ben Sugars at the University of Nottingham in the UK, and was playing with the Northern Suburbs in the Shute Shield, a favoured hunting ground for RFCLA Head Coach and Director of Rugby, Stephen Hoiles. Lastly for LA, but most definitely not least, dual-test capped fly-half Christian Leali’ifano joins for 2025 from the Moana Pasifika in Super Rugby. The Brumbies Centurion and 7th player in Super Rugby history to pass 1,000pts has test caps with both the Wallabies and Samoa, and is test debut was against the British & Irish Lions. Leali’ifano represented Australia at the RWC in Japan in 2019, and Samoa at the RWC in France in 2023.

Sticking in the Western Conference, the Houston SaberCats were also picking around Australia. The Texas team signing Scottish prop Michael Scott from the Northern Suburbs in the Shute Shield. Another addition for the ‘Cats is Jacob Merklinger, a So-Cal native prop who came up through the San Diego Legion system, and represented the San Clemente Rhinos in the World Rugby Tens before making the final jump from the SaberCats academy to the MLR side. Jumping back across the Pacific, Kiwi utility back Vilimone Koroi is headed over to the Eastern Conference and the Big Easy, signing with the NOLA Gold from the Highlanders in Super Rugby. Koroi is a capped All Blacks Sevens man, winning a Commonwealth Gold in 2018. To wrap up the new faces we’re staying in the East but in Chicago, who signed fellow Australasian Liam Fletcher from back-to-back Hospital Cup winners Brothers Rugby Club.

New Draftees Confirmed

While not completely new names in Major League Rugby, a flurry of 2024 Draftee signings hit us last week, as the Houston SaberCats confirmed their 2nd Rd Pick, signing utility back Jake Negrete, one of six draftees out of St. Mary’s College in the 2024 Draft Class. Negrete was selected 20th overall in 2024 and will be hoping to make a similar impact to 2023 rookie Max Schumacher. The remaining three draftee signings happened over in the Eastern Conference, starting with the Miami Sharks signing their 27th overall pick Lautaro Soto Ansay. Born in the US but raised in Argentina, Soto attended the rugby powerhouse Lindenwood University, from where he was drafted. Heading up to the home of the Champions in Massachusetts, the New England Free Jacks signed both of their 2024 draftees last week, penning deals with Kaipono Kayoshi and Matt Carrion. Kayoshi, a USA U18 & U20 back rower already, was selected 4th overall and is another of those six St. Mary’s College Gaels that were drafted in 2024. Matt Carrion is another US age-grade representative, having payed with the U18s before attending Life University, where the Running Eagle back row was selected 14th overall. Adding a pair of rookies to an already very crowded Free Jacks back row doesn’t bode well for their playing time in 2025, but fingers crossed both Kayoshi and Carrion can string together some minutes.

MLR Player Moves Summary: December 9-16, 2024 (3 of 3)

Intra-League Moves and Retirements

Although we still haven’t heard anything from Anthem RC in terms of who is playing for them when the season starts in under 50 days, other team announcements are giving us an idea of who isn’t returning for their sophomore season. The New England Free Jacks announced the return of Central Washington Alum Ivan Pula, another draftee who was selected 37th overall in the 2022 Collegiate Draft by the Free Jacks. the Washington prop earned 7 MLR appearances for Anthem while on loan there for the 2024 season. Pula wasn’t the only loanee returning to their team from Carolina, though. Canadian born US- eligible forward Logan Weidner was confirmed as returning to Old Glory DC. The 6’6 USA U20 player earned 2 starts in 12 appearances for Anthem RC on loan, completing a solid 81 tackles in the process. Staying in the Eastern Conference, the Miami Sharks signed Argentinian centre Tomy Malanos after two seasons with the Dallas Jackals. Malanos scored 9 tries in 29 games for Dallas, recording over 1,250m gained and just shy of 200 tackles completed (198).

Not listed on the summary graphics from last week is a lone retirement. Austin White announced the end of his professional playing career after 4 seasons in Major League Rugby. A 2021 Runner-Up, White represented Rugby ATL from 2020-2023 before following the franchise to LA, playing with Rugby FC LA for their debut season in 2024. White scored 8 tries in his 43 games (30 starts), recording over 1,800m gained and 127 tackles in his MLR career. Best of luck in your next chapter, Austin!

In Conclusion

This Player Move summary is a few days late due to the holidays. They are typically published every Monday so if you are reading this article on it’s release date (December 28th, 2024), you’ll only have to wait a couple more days for the next summary. A busy week from December 16-22 makes way for a much quieter week for the holidays, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been moves. The purpose of this article is to keep MLR fans up to date during the off-season and now that we are under 50 days away from kick off on the 2025 season, teams are hurriedly preparing for training camps, that are only a couple of weeks away.

As always, it’s recommended to follow NARDB and James on social media to stay up to date on moves as they happen. Follow @MLRStats on Instagram and Threads, @NARugbyDB or @JamDelay on Twitter/X, and @NARDB & @JamDelay on Bluesky.

MLR Player Movement Summary: December 9-15, 2024

NARDatabase

James Deeley

Another week closer to kick-off on the 2025 Major League Rugby season, and teams are still busy finalising their rosters in the run up to the holidays. This weekly article will summarise all the roster changes around the league from December 9th to December 15th, 2024. NARDB is the best place to keep up to date on all the changes, informing fans and helping to build the hype for next season!

Last week we saw 18 re-signings across 4 teams, a relatively high 10 new additions, three intra-league moves and a retirement. With so much movement this article will be on the larger side, but let’s get stuck in. As always, we will be starting with the re-signings and here is the first of the two-page summary graphic for last week’s moves:

Rapid Re-signings

As mentioned in the introduction, last week saw 18 re-signings across 4 teams. Continuing their (almost) daily announcements, Old Glory DC confirmed 6 further players for their 2025 roster including Irish pathway product Declan O’Loughlin, who was signed as a development player last year and impressed with the academy, earning a full MLR contract this season. As well as O’Loughlin, DC are bringing back prospect Charlie Overton for a 2nd season. Overton was drafted 14th overall by the Miami Sharks out of Life University in 2022, and earned his MLR debut for OGDC last season having been traded there from the Sharks. The Flags also announced the return of a pair of back three players in John Rizzo and John Powers. Rizzo scored 3 of his 5 career tries in 2024, also earning 10 of his 14 career starts and 11 of his 24 appearances. It was a breakout year for the Indiana native, who will play in his 4th MLR season in 2025. Powers, like Rizzo, also enjoyed a breakout year last season. A MLR Champion with New York in 2022, Powers scored both of his MLR tries for DC in 2024, and earned his first 9 starts, completing 51 of his 58 career tackles in his 14 games for DC. Powers returns for his 5th MLR season, but only his 2nd with Old Glory DC. The 6th returnee for the Flags is the only player in MLR history to score a hat trick in the playoffs, Connor Buckley. The 2022 Champion (alongside Powers) has 9 tries in 46 games (27 starts) since 2021, and scored 6 of those tries in 2024, and 3 in Old Glory DC’s Eastern Conference Semifinal nailbiter.

Just behind Old Glory DC is Rugby FC LA, who announced five re-signings of their own. RFCLA’s All-MLR First XV selection Semi Kunatani returns for his 2nd season in MLR, having scored 10 tries in 15 games (11 starts) in 2024, recording over 1,100m gained and 161 tackles completed. Kunatani sat just behind Ben Strang in the tackle count. Strang appeared in all 16 games for RFCLA last season scoring 5 tries and recording 170 tackles. He also returns for the team’s sophomore season. Another forward who featured in every RFCLA game during their inaugural season is Australian prop Dane Zander, who started 12 of their 16 games in 2024, and appeared from the bench in the remaining four. Zander is the third returnee for Rugby FC LA announced last week. The team also announced the return of a pair of US-eligible depth pieces, Alessandro Heaney and Lincoln Sii. Heaney earned his first 4 MLR appearances off the bench last season, and Lincoln Sii added 5 appearances to take his MLR total to 20 appearances since 2021.

Staying in the Western Conference, the Houston SaberCats continue their announcements with an additional four returning players announced last week, including the 2nd overall pick in 2023, Max Schumacher. Schumacher didn’t earn a start in his rookie season but made 14 appearances and gained over 100m in possession. Houston also re-signed kiwi scrum-half Jay Renton, who was a late addition to the ‘Cats last season, and scored one 7pt try in his 2 appearances (both starts). Also returning to the SaberCats are a pair of Smiths, although they share no relation. Seimou and Seth Smith are both back for a second year with Houston. Seimou Smith played with New York in 2019 before joining the US military. He returned for the SaberCats in 2024, scoring 2 tries in 7 games (6 starts) and running for almost 250m gained. Seth Smith, a product of the SaberCats pathway, became the youngest player in MLR history in Rd 1 of last season, at the age of 18y, 8m, 7d. He earned 1 start in 6 games, scoring 2 tries and was named the MLR Player of the Week in Rd 10, before joining the USA U20 team for a clash with Canada.

Finally for re-signings, we jump back to the Eastern Conference and to the Miami Sharks, who also announced 4 re-signings during a busy week in Florida. Three of these resignings spent the Miami Sharks’ inaugural season on the sidelines due to injury. Alex Tucci returns for a 2nd season in Miami and 7th in MLR, and has 53 appearances to date in MLR. Connor Burns is a second returning Shark who spent Miami’s entire inaugural season injured, he, like Tucci, will be hoping to earn his Sharks debut in 2025. Thirdly, Isaac Bales will be back for a second season in Miami. Bales was drafted 12th overall by Rugby ATL in 2021, and has had even worse luck with injury than Tucci and Burns. Bales has been sidelined for two entire seasons so far, in 2022 and in 2024. He earned his MLR debut in 2023 with the RATLers and I’m sure will be hoping to stay healthy for Miami in 2025. The fourth returnee announced by the Miami Sharks last week is Damian Morley, a promising US talent who has experience playing in South Africa and in France. He earned 7 MLR appearances for the Sharks from the bench in 2024.

New Faces

On the subject of the Miami Sharks, they announced the addition of a pair of Argentinian locks from Europe, Federico Gutierrez & Mauro Rebussone. Gutierrez has played with the Argentina XV side many times, and joins from Colorno in the Italian Serie A Elite, having previously played with AC Albi in the French 3rd tier, the Nationale. Fellow Argentine Rebussone did this the other way around, playing with Colorno before heading to the Nationale to play with Narbonne in France.

Moving up the east coast to Massachusetts, the New England Free Jacks announced the signing of a pair of fly-halves from the Bunnings NPC in New Zealand, both of which have played with the Samoan U20 side. Faletoi Peni joins from the Southland Stags where he played over 400 minutes in 2024, and Simon-Peter Toleafoa joins from Counties Manukau, scoring 4 tries in 11 games and over 600 minutes of play time. In addition to this pair of signings, the Free Jacks also announced the signing of Canada-eligible wing/centre Jack Reeves from Gloucester in the Premiership. Reeves isn’t a ‘new’ face to MLR or the Free Jacks, as he spent the 2022 season in New England on loan from Gloucester, making 72 tackles and gaining over 265m in posession in 12 games (6 starts) before returning to England. Since 2022 Reeves has played in the Premiership, the Prem Rugby Cup, and both the Challange and Champions Cups in Europe.

Moving back over to the Western Conference and back to Los Angeles, Rugby FC LA announced the signing of a pair of Australian centres from Randwick in the Shute Shield. 21yo Nick Chan has been knocking on the door of Super Rugby for some time, he played with the Western Force in the 2022 pre-season, and recently featured for the NSW Waratahs in an exhibition game against the Kubota Spears in Japan. Also joining RFCLA is Matias Jensen, who played with the Brumbies U19s in 2022 and represented the Super Rugby side in the 2024 pre-season trials. Both Chan and Jensen have represented the Junior Wallabies, and join a strong Aussie contingent in LA which was made even stronger by their third new addition last week, US-eligible back Robert Mapa. Born in California but raised in Australia, Mapa has played both Rugby League and Rugby Union, playing with a Queensland Reds U19 side in 2022 after stand-out performances for his club, Brothers. He was spotted by the Melbourne Storm of the NRL in 2023, and played with their U21 side in 2024.

Finally for new additions, we head up the west coast to Washington State and to Seattle. The Seawolves announced the addition of experienced South African utility back Eddie Fouché for 2025. Fouché played with the Golden Lions in the Currie Cup from 2016-19 before joining the Pumas and winning a Currie Cup with them in 2022. He joined the Griquas for the 2022/23 season before joining Seattle for his first professional season outside South Africa.

Intra-league Moves and Retirements

As we move another week further away from the Dallas Jackals withdrawal from MLR, we learned the destination of a pair of 2024 Jackals. Both Lucas Bur and Vaughen Isaacs signed with Rugby FC LA (probably MLR’s busiest team last week!) having been selected by them in the dispersal draft. Bur earned 28 appearances for Dallas between 2023-24, gaining nearly 700m in possession and completing a huge 296 tackles in just two seasons. He was selected 13th by RFCLA. Vaughen Isaacs was also selected by LA in the dispersal draft, 5th overall. Although the South African playmaker missed a huge chunk of 2024 due to injury, Isaacs still scored 3 tries and 32pts in his 8 games (all starts) for Dallas, recording 643m gained for an average of over 80m per game. NARDB is working on a graphic for all Dallas Jackals players in 2024 to show their destinations for 2025, stay tuned!

On the subject of Rugby FC LA and to wrap up the intra-league moves from last week, the Chicago Hounds announced the signing of fly-half Sam Walsh for the 2025 season. Walsh, a capped USA sevens player, earned 8 MLR appearances (2 starts) with RFCLA in his debut season in 2024, amassing 135m gained. One final signing that, frankly doesn’t fit in any other second is the Seattle Seawolves’ signing of Calvin Liulamaga, their 1st Rd draft pick in the 2024 MLR Collegiate Draft. Liulamaga, a Rudy Scholz award nominee and a Washington native, was drafted 11th overall out of Central Washington University.

And finally, we have a retirement. USA Eagles veteran (and often, Captain) Greg Peterson announced his retirement last week. Peterson only spent one season in MLR, earning 13 appearanced as the San Diego Legion Captain in 2024, and finished his career with 51 test caps for the USA. Peterson has represented the Newcastle Falcons in the Premiership, the Glasgow Warriors in the URC, and the NSW Waratahs in Super Rugby.

To Conclude…

There you have it, another player movement summary complete and another week closer to kicking off hte 2025 season. The North American Rugby Database works hard to ensure that rugby fans are able to keep up to date on all the happenings around Major League Rugby year-round, not just while the games are being played (although that’s much more fun!). Please considering supporting this site if you’re able and find it a helpful resource, even sharing an article or player page is a huge help.

To stay even more up to date on player moves and MLR news, follow James and NARDB on social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, @JamDelay or @NARugbyDB on X/Twitter, and @JamDelay or @NARDB on Bluesky! If you’re looking for some last minute Christmas shopping, check out the shopmlr.com sales and use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off your order!