Tag: Major League Rugby

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

NARDatabase

James Deeley

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

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

Appearance Achievements

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

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

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

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

Hounds make it 7 in a row!

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

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

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

Player Milestones

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

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

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

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

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

MLR ‘Scorigami’ for Round 8!

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

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

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

Wrapping Up

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

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

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

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



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

NARDatabase

James Deeley

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

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

Appearance Achievements

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

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

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

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

Team Milestones

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

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

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

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

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

Player Milestones

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

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

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

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

Wrapping Up

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

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

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

NARDatabase

James Deeley

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

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

Appearance Achievements

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

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

Seawolves earn 73rd win!

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

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

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

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

Scoring Milestones

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

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

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

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

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

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

Standout Stats

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

Wrapping Up

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

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

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

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

NARDatabase

James Deeley

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

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

Appearance Achievements – Duncan Matthews

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

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

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

O’Keeffe passes 5k!

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

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

Hounds’ Hat Trick Hero!

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

The Chicago Hounds’ New Top Scorer!

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

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

Team Stats

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

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

Tackle Milestones

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

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

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

Wrapping Up

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

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

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

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

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

NARDatabase

James Deeley

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

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

Appearance Achievements

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

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

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

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

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

Chicago Defend The Old Mate!

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

First Overall Pick Party in Charlotte!

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

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

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

Metres Milestones

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

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

Coetzer Passes 400!

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

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

Wrapping Up

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

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

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

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 3 of the 2026 MLR Season!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

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

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

Appearance Achievements

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

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

Scoring Milestones

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

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

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

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

Tackle Milestones

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

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

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

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

Wrapping Up

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

If you find any milestones that haven’t been mentioned here, you can let NARDB/James know on social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky! Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site.

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

MLR Player Moves Summary: March 2nd, 2026 – March 15th, 2026

NARDatabase

James Deeley

With Major League Rugby Training camps having opened at the start of March, one would think that teams would have their complete rosters announced well before then. While that is now the case for 5 of MLR’s 6 teams, the California Legion were still announcing players for their inaugural season through the first few weeks of training camp! As a result, this final Player Moves summary article of the 2025/26 off-season will once again be very California Legion heavy, but there’s some other player news scattered throughout!

Welcome to the final NARDB Player Moves Summary of the 2025/26 off-season! Over the last 6 months, this series has aimed to keep fans up to date on every single player announcement to, from, and all around Major League Rugby ahead of the 2026 season. This final article follows the same pattern as the last few weeks, but unlike the usual 1-week timeframe this edition covers a couple of weeks to account for the drop in Player Moves as squads report to camp. The summary graphic for Player Moves announced between March 2nd and March 15th is below, followed by the intra-league moves.

Summary Graphic of Player Moves around Major League Rugby between March 2 – March 15, 2026!

Intra-League Signings

The California Legion started their March announcements with a bang, when they confirmed the addition of Utah Warriors legend and try scoring machine Joe Mano for their inaugural season in 2026! Born in Hawaii and raised in American Samoa, Mano was a multi-sport athlete during his time at Fa’asaō Marist High School, before moving to Alaska in 2013 and joined the Alaska Green Dragons. He represented the Dragons until 2017 when he moved to Oklahoma, playing with Tulsa RFC. After a brief return to Alaska, Joe Mano moved to Utah with the aim of representing the Warriors, first playing with the Salt Lake City Gladiators, then representing the American Samoa Sevens side (Talavalu) at the Oceania 7s in Fiji. His success earned him a spot in the Utah Selects squad for their fall season in 2020, where he earned a MLR contract ahead of the Utah Warriors’ 2021 campaign. Between 2021-2025, Joe Mano scored an outrageous 39 tries in 54 games (49 starts) including two separate seasons with 14 tries to his name (2023 & 2025). In his first 14-try season in 2023, Mano racked up over 1,400m gained in possession and scored his 14 tries in as many games, but only earned an All-MLR Second XV selection. Following his 2nd 14-try campaign in 2025, Mano finally earned that All-MLR First XV selection, also finishing 7th league-wide in Metres gained with 869m (the 2025 season saw a fall in MGained across the board. His 1,416m in 2023 saw him finish 4th league wide despite being almost double his 2025 total). Joe Mano is one of only 4 players in MLR history to have recorded multiple hat tricks in the competition, and is tied with Seattle Seawolves winger (and fellow American Samoan) Lauina Futi, both with 3 hat tricks each. Undoubtedly a prolific try scorer, Joe Mano now heads to the West Coast for his 6th season in Major League Rugby, and the first not representing the Utah Warriors. It seems likely that Joe Mano will be a regular starting winger for the Legion, with Ryan James on the other side, and Oscar Treacy in reserve.

The California Legion would follow up the addition of long-time Utah Warrior winger Joe Mano, with the addition of a second long time Warrior in as many days when they announced that they had signed Hawaiian back row Lance Williams for their inaugural campaign in 2026! A D1 football player with the University of Hawaii, Williams has played in Major League Rugby since the league’s inaugural season back in 2018, representing the Utah Warriors in 25 games between 2018-19, starting 24 times and scoring 2 tries, also recording a career high of 190 tackles in the 2019 campaign. He suffered an injury in the build up to the 2020 season that saw him miss the truncated 2020 season, returning in 2021 to become a regular in the Warriors’ starting XV between 2021 and 2023, starting 43 of his 46 appearances and adding another 13 tries including a high of 5 in both 2022 and 2023, recording over 170 tackles made in each of these 3 seasons. Following the 2023 MLR campaign, the Warriors announced the departure of Lance Williams who was linking up with the USA Sevens program in their run up to the 2024 Olympics in Paris. This wasn’t his first foray into Sevens, as he had already earned his Eagles debut on the HSBC SVNS Series tour in Dubai back in 2022, and had represented his country at 10 tournaments to that point, however he was not ultimately selected for the Olympic squad and following the games Williams returned to the Utah Warriors part way through the 2025 campaign, adding another try and 8 starts in 10 games including both of their playoff matches, ultimately falling to the Houston SaberCats in the Western Conference Final. In total, Lance Williams scored 19 tries in 81 MLR appearances for the Utah Warriors, starting 75 times and recording five 100+ tackle seasons including 4 over 170 for a huge total of 891 tackles made in his MLR career so far as well as over 3,100m gained in possession. The 33yo flanker is effective on both sides of the ball, and is an excellent addition to a California Legion back row that includes the likes of Christian Poidevin, Ronan Murphy, and Ben Houston.

Sticking to the pattern of signing former Utah Warriors, a day later the California Legion added a third ex-Warrior to their squad for 2026, announcing the addition of Samoan born, US-eligible prop Fred Apulu! Born and raised in Samoa, Apulu represented the Manu Samoa U20s before moving to Hawaii to be with his now-wife, and joined the Hawaii Marist Rugby Club. He signed with the LA Giltinis for their 2022 campaign, and earned his MLR debut off the bench that season. Following the disqualification and subsequent folding of the Giltinis, Apulu signed with the San Diego Legion for the 2023 season, but was traded from San Diego to the Chicago Hounds before earning his Legion debut, joining the Hounds for the back half of their inaugural season and represented Chicago through the 2024 season, earning 18 appearances in total including his first career start in 2024, where he featured in 14 games including both of the Hounds playoff matches, gaining well over 100m in possession. Following his time in Chicago with the Hounds, Apulu headed southwest to Utah, signing with the Warriors for the 2025 campaign where he scored his first career MLR try and earned 3 of his 4 career starts in 8 appearances. Across his 4 seasons in Major League Rugby, Fred Apulu has earned 24 appearances for 3 different sides (not including the San Diego Legion, who he didn’t get a chance to suit up for in a MLR game), completing just shy of 100 tackles and gaining 241m in possession. The 29yo loosehead will be competeing for the Legion #1 jersey with the likes of Declan Leaney and Ma’ake Muti.

The California Legion seem to have thoroughly raided the remnants of the Utah Warriors for everything they can, announcing the signing of a 4th former Warriors on 5th March, Cole Semu! Born in Auckland, New Zealand, Semu moved to Washington State with his family at the age of 8 and it was here, rather than in New Zealand, where he started playing rugby (surprisingly!) with Chuckanut Bay RFC when he was 12. Semu enrolled at Brigham Young University in Utah, and represented the BYU Cougars while also progressing through the USA Rugby Age-Grade sides, representing the U18s, U20s, and U23s. He also travelled to Chile with the California Grizzlies U23s in 2024. That same year, he declared for the 2024 MLR Collegiate Draft and was selected in the 3rd Round, 28th overall, by the Utah Warriors, who signed him to an MLR deal for their 2025 campaign. In his rookie year, Cole Semu started 8 of his 10 appearances for the Warriors, scoring his first pro try during Round 16, where he earned a MLR Team of the Week selection for his performance. Semu gained 165m in total and completed 60 tackles to help the Utah Warriors finish as MLR’s top team during the 2025 regular season. Now heading to California to join the Legion, Cole Semu will join the likes of Billy Meakes, Cassh Maluia, and the player below as centre options, and has a good chance of earning starts based on the current Legion roster.

Finally on the California Legion’s shopping list from Utah was freshly test capped USA Eagle Tonga Kofe! The former Portland State University Defensive Lineman and 2013 Oregon State Wrestling Champion began playing rugby in his native Oregon with the Oregon U20s. He developed in the Utah Warriors pathway, first joining the Utah Selects in the fall of 2023 and was called up to the Warriors in February 2024, right before the Major League Rugby season. In his first year of pro rugby, Kofe earned 6 appearances for the Warriors off the bench and was named as the Utah Warriors’ Newcomer of the Year. He returned for a 2nd year at Zion’s Bank in 2025, and enjoyed a superb season. He earn his first career start and was named to the starting XV for 12 of his 14 appearances during the regular season to help the Utah Warriors finish as MLR’s top team heading into the playoffs. During the postseason, Kofe started both Warriors games as Utah advanced to the Western Conference Final, where they fell to the Houston SaberCats. Kofe scored 2 tries during the 2025 season and completed over 100 tackles, earning 3 MLR Team of the Week selections and a spot in the All-MLR Second XV for his performances. Following the MLR campaign, Tonga Kofe was called up to the USA national side, where he earned his international debut as Eagle #587 during their July test against Belgium. He also featured against England that summer, which proved handy as in August, the Leicester Tigers of the English Premiership announced that they had signed Kofe for the 2025/26 season. Kofe spent his time in the UK between the Tigers and Championship side Nottingham on loan, earning a handful of appearances in both flights of English pro rugby. Now returning to Major League Rugby with the California Legion, who boast a decent number of former Warriors including Joe Mano and Lance Williams, Tonga Kofe will likely be Stephen Hoiles’ first choice tighthead, but will face some competition from Michael Scott and another gridiron convert, Justus Tavai.

After they were done scavenging all they could from the Utah Warriors, the California Legion returned to their regularly scheduled broadcasting with the announcement that they had signed former Rugby FC LA centre, Nick Chan! Born and raised in Sydney, Chan grew up playing fly-half but switched to the centre as he grew. As with a great many players on the California Legion roster, Chan represented the Randwick Galloping Greens, joining the Shute Shield side in 2021 before being selected for the Junior Wallabies (U20s) late that year. He played with Randwick between 2021-2023, helping them to a Shute Shield title in 2023. Nick Chan had been on the edge of a Super Rugby deal for some time, joining the Western Force for their 2022 pre-season camp, and represented the NSW Waratahs on their tour of Japan in 2024. Chan first entered Major League Rugby with Rugby FC LA for the 2025 season, scoring 3 tries in 12 games (all starts) and gaining over 400m in possession while completing 121 tackles on defence, a solid debut season in the US. Chan returned to Randwick for the 2025 Shute Shield season, and now heads back to California to join the Legion for 2026 where he is the 4th centre confirmed in the squad alongside the players mentioned above.

New Additions

Right at the tail end of announcing their roster for the 2026 Major League Rugby campaign, the California Legion announce their first player who joins from outside of MLR, New Zealand fly-half Coby Miln! The young kiwi attended Hamilton Boys’ High School in New Zealand before moving to Australia and joining Randwick in the Shute Shield, a popular recruitment spot for the Legion. Miln earned his professional debut in Japan in 2022, representing the Munakata Sanix Blues in Division 3 of the Japan Rugby League One, before returning to Randwick and representing the Galloping Greens until 2024 when he moved to the Warringah Rats, also in the Shute Shield. Miln was excellent for Warringah, finishing with a club record 214pts scored in the 2024 Shute Shield and earning a spot on the Western Force’s tour to South Africa. From this, he earned his Super Rugby debut with the Force as an injury call-up during Round 5 of the 2025 season. Coby Miln now heads to California to join the Legion where he has a good shot of making the 10 jersey his own, competing with MLR Draftee Matt Anticev and possibly Steffan Crimp (who can also play 15) for game time.

Draftees turning Pro

Although the California Legion have been the only team regularly announcing players over the last few weeks, they were not the first! Back on March 2nd, the Seattle Seawolves became the 5th MLR side to announce their complete roster for the 2026 campaign. Included on that roster were two of the Seawolves’ 2025 draftees, marking their first pro contracts!

First up is Seawolves’ 2025 First Round Draft Pick and Seattle native, Tiai Vavao! The son of a Samoan father who played rugby back in Samoa, Vavao grew up as a football and wrestling fan but picked up rugby in high school, and immediately took to it. He quickly earned a spot on the USA U18s’ tour to Canada, before CWU Head Coach at the time Todd Thornley (now with the California Legion) contacted him about the chance to play rugby while earning his degree. Vavao enrolled at CWU and represented the Wildcats during his time there while also progressing through the USA age-grade sides, representing the Falcons, U20s, and most recently the U23s in 2025. Following his graduation from CWU, the 215lbs flanker declared for the 2025 MLR Collegiate Draft and was seleted 3rd overall by his hometown MLR team, the Seattle Seawolves, who signed him for his rookie season in 2026 where he will mosy likely serve a depth role in a strong Seawolves back row.

Joining Tiai Vavao on the Seattle Seawolves roster for 2026 is tighthead prop and fellow Major League Rugby draftee Charlie Walsh! Selected in the 2nd Round of the 2025 MLR Collegiate Draft (11th Overall) by the Seawolves, Walsh was born and raised in Hong Kong but is a US-citizen and the son of two American attorneys who met at Boston College before moving to Hong Kong. Charlie Walsh began playing rugby at the age of 8, and moved to New Zealand to play high-level high school rugby with St. Paul’s Collegiate School. He enjoyed regular Championships while at high school, and helped to lead St. Paul’s to a New Zealand Central North Island (CNI) First XV Championship, and earning a stint with the Waikato U18 side to boot. Following his time in New Zealand, Walsh headed to California and enrolled at UC-Berkeley, where he earned 45 starts for the Golden Bears, more than any other player at the time. After captaining the team to a 2025 D1A National Collegiate Championship, Charlie Walsh declared for the MLR Draft and has signed on for his rookie season with the team that drafted him, the Seattle Seawolves where similar to Vavao, will play a depth role behind Ignacio Peculo & Mason Pedersen.

Departures

On March 3rd, one of the biggest names in Major League Rugby history issued a statement of support for his former team, teammates, and their fans, and confirmed that he would not be participating in MLR during the 2026 season. This upcoming MLR season will be the first season in league history to not feature Dylan Fawsitt. Born and raised in Wexford, Ireland, ‘The Butcher‘ was one of few active MLR players that played in the short-lived PRO Rugby competition in 2016, representing the Ohio Aviators. Between the fall of PRO Rugby in 2016 and the rise of MLR in 2018, Fawsitt became US eligible through residency and earned his test debut for the USA as Eagle #523 against Chile in February of 2018 before heading to Colorado to join the Raptors for the inaugural Major League Rugby season. That year, Fawsitt started 6 of his 8 appearances and scored his first MLR try (of a great many!) as the Raptors advanced to the 2018 Championship Final, where they fell to the Seattle Seawolves. Having set himself up in the Tri-State area when he moved to the US, Fawsitt moved from Colorado to expansion side Rugby United New York for their inaugural season in 2019. Dylan Fawsitt would represent the Ironworkers between 2019-2023, starting 65 of his 72 appearances with the team across 5 seasons, scoring a mind blowing 41 tries for New York. Following the collapse of the Ironworkers during the 2023/24 off-season, Fawsitt headed to Chicago to join the Hounds where he spent a couple of seasons, adding 30 starts in 34 games, and another 23 tries including a career high of 14 scores in 18 games in 2024. Throughout his 8 seasons in Major League Rugby, Dylan Fawsitt has started 101 of his 114 games across 3 teams, and is the league’s all-time leading try scorer with a ridiculous 65 tries to his name.

As if Major League Rugby’s first Centurion and all-time leading Try Scorer with 329pts to his name weren’t achievements enough, Dylan Fawsitt is MLR’s 10th highest Points scorer with 329pts despite never kicking at goal, and was also the 2nd player in league history to pass 1,000 tackles made behind Chicago Hounds teammate Lucas Rumball, both passing the 1k mark during the 2025 season. Fawsitt is a SIX-TIME All-MLR selection, with 4 of these being First XV selections (2019, 2022, 2023, 2024), and for the icing on the cake, he’s a MLR Champion having lifted the Shield with New York in 2022, defeating the Seattle Seawolves to get some revenge for 2018. Add in just under 3,000m gained in possession as well a a couple of 50:22’s, and without a doubt you have the resume for a first-ballot Hall of Famer…if such a thing existed in MLR. It will be very strange to not see The Butcher suiting up in 2026, but when fans have the conversation about legends within MLR, the conversation starts with Dylan Fawsitt.

To wrap things up, in mid-March the reigning Super Rugby Americas Champions announced some reinforcements after the first few rounds of the SRA season. According to Uruguayan journalist Ignacio Chans, Peñarol signed 4 Canadians for their 2026 SRA campaign, including 3 former Major League Rugby players, starting with 2025 Chicago Hounds centre, Noah Flesch. The brother of fellow test capped Canadian Mason Flesch, Ontario native Noah developed his rugby with the Pacific Pride in British Columbia, Canada’s High Performance Development Pathway. He earned his test debut against Chile in the Autumn of 2024, starting alongside his brother. As with his test debut, Noah Flesch first entered Major League Rugby with his brother on the Chicago Hounds, who signed him in November of 2024 ahead of the 2025 season. In his debut season, Flesch scored his first MLR try on just shy of 100m, and started 3 of his 12 appearances with 36 tackles made to help the Hounds earn a playoff spot, finishing 3nd in the Eastern Conference with a 11-5 record.

Along with former Chicago Hounds centre Noah Flesch and Pacific Pride fullback James Thiel, defending SRA Champions Peñarol also added a pair of Canadian former Free Jacks for their 2026 season, starting with British Columbia native Foster DeWitt. The University of British Columbia graduate developed with both the UBC Thunderbirds and the Pacific Pride, and earned his test debut for the national side against Belgium in November 2021. DeWitt entered Major League Rugby with the Free Jacks in 2022, and represented them for 4 seasons from 2022-2025. He earned 10 starts and 46 appearances in total, scoring 3 tries on just shy of 500m gained, and completed 55 tackles in 11 games in 2025 to take his career total to an even 250 tackles. Foster DeWitt was a part of all three New England Free Jacks Championships, but now heads to Super Rugby Americas alongside another 3x MLR Champion, Ethan Fryer. Born in Washington State, Fryer is a duel US/Canadian citizen thanks to his Ontario born, Newfoundland raised father. Raised in Washington, Fryer has represented Canada at U20 level and like DeWitt, played with the Pacific Pride before entering MLR with the Free Jacks in 2022. He started 6 of his 22 MLR appearances for the Free Jacks, earning 19 of these since 2024 and featuring in all 3 Shield-winning seasons. Back row Fryer has 2 tries on over 300m gained, and just shy of 100 tackles completed in his MLR career. Fryer committed to his Canadian side when he earned his test debut for the Maple Leaf against Romania in July of 2024. DeWitt and Fryer exchange one 3x Championship winner for another as they join Flesch and Thiel at Peñarol in SRA.

Wrapping Up

That does it for another California Legion heavy Player Moves article, covering the final few weeks of the 2025/26 Major League Rugby off-season! Along with a handful of departures to South America, and the retirement of a true MLR great, the Seattle Seawolves confirmed the signing of a pair of 2025 Draftees when they announced their full squad. Finally, the California Legion have now announced their entire 31 man squad that includes 13 Rugby FC LA players, but only 3 San Diego Legion players on their roster following the ‘merger’. Although the Legion haven’t officially announced the full roster, NARDB understands that all players have now been confirmed for the 2026 season which means that this is the final MLR Player Moves Summary of the offseason! Congratulations, we’re nearly made it and a highly competitive MLR season is under 2 weeks away!

Thank you, as always, for tuning in to these Player Moves articles throughout the off-season! Even if there are a few last minute surprise Player Moves, these will be covered individually on socials rather than in a weekly summary. Regular articles on NARDB will now shift from Player Moves to Midweek Milestones during the season in addition to a few additional articles through the season. If there are any Player Moves that you notice, or just to say what you think about these articles or the site in general, you can let NARDB/James know on social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky! Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site.

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

MLR Player Moves Summary: February 16th, 2026 – March 1st, 2026

NARDatabase

James Deeley

Major League Rugby’s 2026 season kicks off at the end of THIS MONTH! 4 teams have announced their complete squads for the upcoming campaign, but there may still be a few surprises for the 2 remaining teams that have not revealed their full rosters: the California Legion, and the Seattle Seawolves. The California Legion left it late to begin their announcements, and the Seattle Seawolves are right at the tail end of revealing their roster for 2026!

Welcome back to NARDB’s Player Moves Summary series! This series aims to keep fans up to date on every single player announcement to, from, and all around Major League Rugby ahead of the 2026 season. This week’s article follows the same pattern as the last few weeks, but unlike the usual 1-week timeframe this edition covers a couple of weeks to account for the drop in Player Moves announced lately. As the last team to begin announcing their Player Moves (by quite some way), the California Legion are unsurprisingly the only team still going strong with their announcements, and as a result this article is very Legion-heavy. The summary graphic for Player Moves announced between February 16th and March 1st is below followed by the one BIG re-signing of the last couple of weeks:

Summary Graphic of Player Moves around Major League Rugby between February 16 – March 1, 2026!

Re-signings

Seattle Seawolves fans can breath a sigh of relief, as on 23rd February the team confirmed the return of a Major League Rugby and Seawolves legend for his NINTH season in the league and with the team, club captain Riekert Hattingh. The son of capped Springbok Drikus Hattingh and capped USA Eagle himself, Riekert developed in the Blue Bulls system before moving to the US in 2015 and is one of a dwindling number of MLR players that played in the short-lived PRO Rugby competition back in 2016, where he represented the Ohio Aviators. As PRO Rugby was replaced with Major League Rugby, Hattingh signed with the Seattle Seawolves ahead of the inaugural 2018 season, scoring his first MLR try and earning 4 appearances as the Seawolves claimed the very first MLR Shield. Hattingh was a huge part of the Seawolves’ 2nd Shield in 2019, starting all 17 of his appearances, scoring 8 tries and completing 203 tackles and gaining 1,374m in possession, both of which remain career highs through the 2025 season. Skipping forward a few years, it does need to be mentioned that Hattingh was handed a 6-month ban from August 2022 – February 2023 which ruled him out of USA Eagles selection that fall due to testing positive for Tamoxifen, a banned substance under USADA rules. The Seattle Seawolves released a statement which mentioned that “At the time the medication was prescribed, neither Riekert nor the physician who prescribed the medication were aware that the medication was on the Specified Substance list and required a Therapeutic Use Exemption.” and states that “His prescription use did not confer any competitive advantage to Riekert, as reflected in his sanction.” Hattingh accepted personal responsibility for this, and did not miss any of the 2023 Major League Rugby season as a result of this. At face value this seems like an unfortunate mistake rather than anything malicious, and should not take anything away from Riekert Hattingh’s numerous achievements in MLR. A one-club man, Hattingh is undoubtedly a MLR Great already, and likely a first ballot Hall of Famer (if such a thing existed…). Hattingh has started every single one of his 94 appearances for the Seattle Seawolves, scoring 10+ tries on 2 occasions and dotting down 48 times in total, 2nd all-time in MLR behind only Dylan Fawsitt on 65. Hattingh has gained more metres than any other player in MLR history and is one of only 5 players to record over 5,000m gained, sitting 3rd all time on 5,563m. Defensively, he’s recorded over 120 tackles in 4 seasons, and over 200 tackles twice, sitting on 950 tackles made all time which puts him 4th in league history. Now returning to the Seattle Seawolves for a 9th season, Hattingh is likely to pass 50 tries scored, 100 appearances, and 1000 tackles made in 2026! At still only 31yo and with 6 tries scored in 14 games for the Seawolves in 2025 with 139 tackles made, it’s likely that Riekert Hattingh will still be Seattle’s go-to starting Number 8, joining the likes of Marno Redelinghuys, Paddy Ryan, Callum Botchar, and Kalisi Moli as back row options for the Seawolves.

A few days later on 27th February, the Seattle Seawolves announced another returning player from their 2025 squad, veteran Major League Rugby scrum-half Nick Boyer will return for his 9th season in the competition in 2026. The Sacramento, CA native began his MLR career in the league’s inaugural season in 2018 with the San Diego Legion, having graduated from UC-Berkeley. He started 6 of his 8 appearances for the Legion, before earning his test debut for the USA as Eagle #530 when he was called up as injury cover. Nick Boyer represented the San Diego Legion for 2 seasons between 2018-2019, scoring 7 tries on 25 games (17 starts) and recording a career high with 479m gained in possession. He spent a brief season with the Colorado Raptors in 2020, adding 2 tries and appearing in all 5 games before COVID-19 shut the season down. When MLR returned in 2021, Boyer had signed with the LA Giltinis, but was traded to the Houston SaberCats before making his Giltinis debut, where he spent 3 seasons and earned 15 starts in 36 appearances and scoring another 9 tries before re-joining the San Diego Legion for the 2024 season and earning another 9 appearances. Most recently, Boyer was dropped in to the Seattle Seawolves squad late in the 2025 season, and scored 2 tries in 6 games (5 starts) and added a pair of assists to help Seattle secure a playoff spot. In his 81 game Major League Rugby career, Nick Boyer has started 38 games and scored 20 tries and 113pts on just under 1,500m gained, and completed 260 tackles on defence. The 32yo joins the Seawolves as a depth option at 9, playing behind André Warner and competing with Seattle stalwart JP Smith.

Intra-League Signings

As is tradition lately, the California Legion got things started with the first Player Move of the week on 17th February when they announced the addition of US-Eligible Tongan prop Ma’ake Muti for their 2026 squad. A native of Tongatapu in Tonga, Ma’ake Muti moved to Hawaii with his family in 2008 and was a multi-sport athlete through high school, competing in wrestling, shot put, and gridiron football as well as playing club rugby with the Kalihi Raiders. He became a US citizen in 2014 along with his brother Netane Muti who has played in the NFL as a Guard with the Denver Broncos, Las Vegas Raiders, and Detroit Lions. Ma’ake Muti played football while attending Azusa Pacific University from 2014-2019, before returning to rugby following his graduation. His pro rugby career got off to a rocky start, as he signed with the Dallas Jackals ahead of their planned entry into MLR in 2021, but when this was pushed back to 2022 he landed in Los Angeles with the Giltinis, earning 6 Major League Rugby appearances off the bench to help the team lift the MLR Shield in their inaugural season. After spending his debut professional season in MLR, the football convert joined the American Raptors in Colorado, playing with the team from 2021-2024 and representing them in the South American Super Rugby Americas competition. Following news that the Raptors would not be playing professional rugby in 2025, Ma’ake Muti was picked up by the Miami Sharks and returned to MLR for their 2025 campaign. Muti appeared in 16 of the Sharks’ 17 games in 2025 including their lone playoff appearance in the Eastern Conference Semifinal. He started 12 times and scored his first career MLR try on 78m (as a prop, remember) and completed 91 tackles in total. Tongan born, US front row now returns to California with the Legion, and is the first out-and-out loosehead prop announced by the team for their 2026 campaign.

The California Legion kept the ball rolling and on 19th February 2026, they announced the signing of a TENTH former Rugby FC LA player ahead of their inaugural season in 2023 Major League Rugby draftee Matt Anticev. A native of Staten Island, NY, Anticev played rugby under USA Eagle and former Rugby New York scrum-half, and current MLR commentator Mike Petri at Xavier High School before attending the College of the Holy Cross for his undergrad. He attended Dartmouth College between 2021-2023 to earn his Masters degree, playing rugby throughout his time there. Upon his graduation, Anticev declared for the 2023 MLR Collegiate Draft and was selected in the 1st Round, 5th overall by Rugby ATL shortly before the news came out that the RATLers were relocating to Los Angeles as Rugby FC LA. The team announced that they had signed the young Fly-half for their inaugural season, and in his rookie year he earned 6 pro appearances including a pair of starts, recording over 50m gained in total. Anticev returned for a 2nd season with RFCLA in 2025 and earned an additional two appearances to bring his career total to 8 and counting. Matt Anticev now returns for a 3rd season in MLR, joining a new team but with a very familiar feel in the California Legion. Anticev is the first Fly-half confirmed by the team, although Tas Smith did fill in at 10 at times for RFCLA.

Following their two new additions from the week of February 9-16, the California Legion would also announce the first player move of the following week when they confirmed the signing of a 2nd fly-half on 22nd February: US-eligible Welshman Steffan Crimp! Born and raised in Wales, Crimp’s mother was born in Indiana and raised in San Diego, making him US-eligible and therefore classified as a domestic player in Major League Rugby. Crimp attended Cardiff Met University and represented the USA U20s against Canada in June 2023, before first entering Major League Rugby with Anthem RC during the 2024 season. In his debut season, Crimp earned 3 starts in 4 games for the rising stars, before being named to the USA Eagles Extended Player Squad for their July tests in 2024. Crimp returned to MLR the following year, signing with the San Diego Legion and enjoying a solid season in 2025, scoring 2 tries and 26pts total (53.85% from the tee) and starting 6 of his 7 appearances, recording over 275m gained. The USA Eagles are relatively thin at the fly-half position, so fans should keep an eye on Steffan Crimp during the 2026 season. He will compete for game time with Matt Anticev as the only other fly-half announced by the California Legion so far.

The Legion followed up the signing of Steffan Crimp with another signing the following day, confirming the addition of California native Ale Lopeti for his 5th Major League Rugby season in 2026. The younger brother of capped USA Eagle Tavite Lopeti, Ale joined the NOLA Gold ahead of the 2022 MLR season after spending the fall of 2021 playing with the Austin Gilgronis academy side, the Outlaws. Lopeti earned his MLR debut and 4 appearances off the bench total during his first season in the competition, upping this to 6 the following year including his first pro start, and scored his first MLR try on just under 200m gained (194) which remains his career high. From 2024, Ale Lopeti became a regular in the NOLA Gold matchday 23. After earning 10 appearances in the previous 2 seasons combined, he earned another 14 in 2024 alone and added another pair of tries while also recording 88 tackles completed, more than double his previous career high of 38. Lopeti enjoyed another career year in 2025, breaking into the Gold’s starting XV and earning 11 of his 13 career starts in 15 appearances that season, scoring 4 of his 7 career tries on 126m gained to pass 500m in his career. Defensively, Lopeti set another career high with 111 tackles made, recording over 100 tackles for the first time in his career.

A few days later, the California Legion announced the signing of a second former NOLA Gold player in Davis, CA lock Chase Jones. A graduate of St. Mary’s College in California, Jones declared for the 2022 MLR Collegiate Draft and was selected in the 1st Round, 6th Overall by the NOLA Gold using a pick acquired from the LA Giltinis. Jones signed with the team ahead of the 2023 season and played with the NOLA Gold academy side in fall of 2022, suffering an serious achilles injury that ruled him out for the entirety of the 2023 MLR season, with recovering lasting until well after the 2024 season had begun, 22months in total. Despite this major set back, Chase Jones remained with the NOLA Gold and re-signed with them for the 2025 season, where he finally earned his pro debut. Jones scored his first MLR try that year, and started 8 of his 11 appearances, completing just under 100 tackles completed in his first real season in Major League Rugby. Like Ale Lopeti, Jones now returns home to California to join the Legion for their inaugural season following the withdrawal of the NOLA Gold from MLR and is the first lock confirmed by the California Legion ahead of the 2026 season.

Averaging an announcement a day over the last week, the Legion announced the addition of another front row on 25th February with the signing of Scottish tighthead prop Michael Scott for his 2nd Major League Rugby campaign in 2026. The Scotsman developed in the Glasgow Warriors system, progressing through their academy before playing with the Ayrshire Bulls in the Super 6 competition from 2021-22. In 2023, he headed to Australia and joined the Northern Suburbs in the Shure Shield competition, representing the Norths between 2023-24 and must have impressed, as he was called up the the NSW Waratahs in Super Rugby as injury cover in 2024, earning his Super Rugby debut against the Moana Pasifika in Round 14. After a couple of years in Australia, Scott signed with the Houston SaberCats for the 2025 MLR season. In his first year in North America, Michael Scott appeared in 18 of the SaberCats’ 19 games, helping the team to a 14-2 regular season record and appearing in all 3 post-season games for Houston, including their 2025 Championship Game defeat to the New England Free Jacks. He earned 3 starts in 18 appearances, and recorded over 75 tackles made before the SaberCats’ surprise withdrawal from Major League Rugby. Now joining the California Legion, Michael Scott will compete for game time with Justus Tavai, the only other tighthead prop confirmed by the team so far.

The Legion continued to monopolise the Player Moves when they announced the addition of Fijian born Major League Rugby veteran Keni Nasoqeqe to their 2026 squad on 26th February! The 32yo lock/back row started is US rugby journey with Belmont Shore RFC in 2015, representing the California club until 2019 when he signed with the San Diego Legion at MLR level scoring 2 tries and starting 12 of his 13 games, earning three MLR Team of the Week selections to help the Legion advance to the 2019 Championship Game against the Seattle Seawolves. He would represent the San Diego Legion for 3 seasons between 2019-2021, earning 28 MLR appearances (22 starts) and scoring 5 tries. Following the 2021 campaign, Keni Nasoqeqe left California for Texas, signing with the Houston SaberCats and representing them for 4 seasons between 2022-2025. Nasoqeqe was a regular in the SaberCats’ matchday 23, and enjoyed a career year in 2024 when he scored a career high 4 tries in 17 games (13 starts) and gained 407m in possession (another career high) while completing 107 tackles in defence, his 3rd 100+ tackle season. Nasoqeqe earned 17 appearances in 3 of his 4 seasons in Houston, including both 2024 and 2025, and is closing in on 100 appearances in his career. He has earned 54 starts in 91 appearances across 7 MLR seasons to date, scoring 10 tries on just under 1,800m gained, and completing 630 tackles. Keni Nasoqeqe now returns to California to join the new-look Legion for their inaugural season in 2026. Although he primarily played in the back row for the SaberCats, the California Legion list Nasoqeqe as a lock (where he does have experience). He would be the first lock announced by the team for 2026, but it is likely that he will serve as a reserve for both the second and back rows of the Legion pack.

Believe it or not, the California Legion weren’t done there! Later on the 26th, the Golden State franchise announced the signing of their ELEVENTH former Rugby FC LA player: Australian loosehead prop Declan Leaney! A native of New South Wales, Leaney played with the famous Randwick Galloping Greens between 2019-2024, a favourite recruiting ground of California Legion (and former RFCLA) head coach Stephen Hoiles. Leaney was a part of the Shute Shield winning Randwick team in 2023, playing through a foot injury after entering the Championship game early. He headed to California to join Rugby FC LA ahead of the 2025 season, and started 2 of his 7 Major League Rugby appearances, earning a Team of the Week Selection on his debut in Round 8. He scored a first MLR try and recorded over 50m gained as well as 57 tackles made to help RFCLA qualify for their first, and only, playoff appearance. Leaney now returns for a 2nd MLR campaign for the California Legion’s inaugural season, and will be competing with new aquisition Ma’ake Muti for the Legion’s ‘1’ jersey in 2026.

Retirements & Departures

Early on 25th February, Missourian prop Alec McDonnell announced his retirement after 6 seasons of professional competition in Major League Rugby. Capable of playing both tighthead or loosehead, McDonnell developed in the famous Lindenwood Lions rugby program, attending LU between 2015-2019. Following his graduation, McDonnell headed to New York and signed with Rugby United New York ahead of the 2020 season where he earned his professional debut off the bench before the season shut down due to COVID-19. When MLR returned for the 2021 campaign, McDonnell had signed with the Houston SaberCats and spent three years in Texas, earning 10 starts in 25 appearances, playing 16 games for the ‘Cats in 2023. Following his time in Houston, McDonnell headed to Florida to join the Miami Sharks for their inaugural season in 2024, earning 16 appearances for the 2nd season in a row, starting 4 times and gaining a career high 101m in possession. He returned for a 2nd season with the Sharks in 2025 and enjoyed a career year, earning a personal best 10 starts in 15 games to pass 50 Major League Rugby appearances across his career and completing 55 tackles, marking the 4th season in a row where he recorded over 50 tackles made (55, 56, 52, 55, talk about consistent!). With the Miami Sharks withdrawing from Major League Rugby during the 2025/26 offseason, McDonnell has made the decision to call time on his playing career after 6 seasons and 24 starts in 57 appearances across 3 teams. This is a shame, as at only 29yo, he is entering prime front row age and had caught the eye of the National Team after a solid 2025 season, having been named as a non-travelling reserve for the Eagles’ July tests following the season. Unfortunately, with significantly fewer roster spots available in MLR in 2026 compared to previous years, playing professionally is no longer a viable career path for players like McDonnell. Regardless, Congratulations Alec on a fantastic career in MLR, and all very best of luck in your next chapter!

In a bit of a jaw-dropping development, on 26th February Old Glory DC announced the departure of starting scrum-half Connor Buckley, thanking him for his contributions to the team just a month out from the start of the 2026 MLR season! This shock departure comes just over a month after Old Glory DC announced that Buckley would return for the 2026 season back on January 20th, and Buckley was included when the Flags confirmed their complete 2026 squad just 2 weeks ago on 16th February. As mentioned in the Player Moves Summary article that covered his re-signing, Buckley has earned 40 starts in 61 appearances across his 5 seasons in Major League Rugby, recording over 200 tackles made and 600m gained, scoring 11 tries. Buckley is a MLR Champion, having lifted the Shield with New York in 2022, and started 21 of his 30 appearances with Old Glory DC from 2024-25. NARDB understands that although Connor Buckley has not officially retired, the New York native will not participate in the 2026 season and may be pursuing opportunities away from professional rugby. Without Buckley, the Flags are now down to John Levfevre and 2024 draftee and academy call-up Aidan Ridgway at scrum-half. Lefevre has experience in the 9 jersey in MLR, but may struggle as a regular starter and Ridgway is yet to make his MLR debut.

Old Glory DC got to work immediately and signed a replacement for Buckley the following day, announcing the addition of New Zealand scrum-half and former Houston SaberCat, Jay Renton for their 2026 squad. A former All Blacks U20 player, Renton played with the Southland Stags in New Zealand’s National Provincial Championship competition between 2017-2024. He first entered Major League Rugby with the Houston SaberCats during the 2nd half of the 2024 season, starting both of his appearances that season and scoring his first MLR try. The following season Renton was a regular in the SaberCats 23, starting 7 times and appearing in 17 of their 19 games, including all 3 playoff contests and finishing as a Major League Rugby runner-up following defeat to the New England Free Jacks in the 2025 Championship Game in Rhode Island. Renton added a 2nd MLR try that year and a pair of assists recording just under 250m gained in possession. Re-entering MLR after playing with the Tasman Mako for the 2025 NPC season, Renton will likely slot in as Old Glory DC’s starting scrum-half with John Lefevre acting as reserve with a handful of starts, and Aidan Ridgway a 3rd string option. The fact that Renton is not classed as a domestic player will make things tricky for DC, but he is a great last minute replacement for Connor Buckley.

Wrapping Up

Unlike recent Player Moves articles, this edition covers the last fortnight of Player Moves rather than just the last week due to the general decrease of announcements across the league, which does make sense given that training camps have begun! This doesn’t apply to the California Legion however, who are yet to announce roughly a third of their roster, even though these players have surely turned up in camp in California. As a result, this week’s article is remarkably Legion-heavy, with 8 of the 13 moves involving new additions for the California Legion’s inaugural squad. However, the Seattle Seawolves helped to mix things up with a pair of re-signings including club legend Riekert Hattingh, and Old Glory DC had to scramble to replace Connor Buckley, who is pursuing opportunities outside of rugby. The California Legion will no doubt still be busy with their Player Moves as we are under 4 weeks out of their opening game against Anthem RC to kick off the 2026 season!

Thank you, as always, for reading this week’s Player Moves Article! We’re no doubt at the tail end of Player Moves ahead of the 2026 season. Be sure to check back here next week (dependant on player moves…) to find out more about all of this week’s news. If there are any Player Moves that you notice, or just to say what you think about these articles or the site in general, you can let NARDB/James know on social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky! Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site.

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

MLR Player Moves Summary: February 9th, 2026 – February 15th, 2026

NARDatabase

James Deeley

With the Superbowl now in the rearview and the Six Nations in full swing, it’s rugby’s time to step up. Although we are still around 6 weeks away from the 2026 season kicking off on March 28th, there will be plenty of news and plenty to talk about between now and then including jerseys, pre-season, training camps, and of course the final few Player Moves, which is the purpse of this article!

Welcome back to NARDB’s Player Moves Summary series, covering all the Player Moves around the league last week! As regular readers are well aware, this series aims to keep fans up to date on every single player announcement to, from, and all around Major League Rugby ahead of the 2026 season. This week’s article kicks off in the now-traditional way, with the summary graphic for Player Moves announced between February 9th and February 15th, 2026, followed by the Intra-league moves as for the 2nd week in a row:

Summary Graphic of Player Moves around Major League Rugby between February 9 – February 15, 2026!

Intra-League Moves

The California Legion remain the busiest team in MLR, and once again kicked off last week’s Player Moves by announcing the addition of a Rudy Scholz Award nominee and 2025 MLR Runner-Up with the Houston SaberCats, back row Ronan Murphy! The California native played with the Gaels at St. Mary’s College to earn the Rudy Scholz nomination, before heading to Ireland to attend Trinity College in Dublin in 2021, continuing his rugby journey while there. After returning from Ireland Murphy dipped his toe into Major League Rugby for the first time, signing with the Austin Gilgronis for the 2022 season and earned his pro debut, starting all 3 of his appearances before the AGs were disqualified from the MLR season, folding shortly after. Rather than return to MLR, Ronan Murphy signed with the American Raptors in Colorado for their fall season at the end of 2022, earning a full contract with the team for their 2023 Super Rugby Americas campaign where he earned a number of SRA Team of the Week selections. Following a year playing with the Raptors in the South American top tier, Ronan Murphy returned to Major League Rugby with the Houston SaberCats ahead of their 2024 campaign, where he enjoyed a career year in Texas. He appeared in all 17 games for Houston in his debut year with the team, starting 15 times and scoring 6 tries on 440m gained while also completing a very impressive 172 tackles made to finish as the 4th highest tackler league-wide that season. Murphy would return to the SaberCats for a 2nd season in 2025 but struggled with injury. He still added a 7th career MLR try on another 72m gained, and started 2 of his 6 appearances to help the SaberCats to a 14-2 regular season record, and finished the year as a MLR Runner-Up following defeat to the New England Free Jacks in the 2025 Championship Final. With the Houston SaberCats’ surprise withdrawal from MLR during the 2025/26 offseason, Murphy returns to his home state with the California Legion for their inaugural season in 2026. Ronan Murphy joins a stacked Legion back row, and will compete with the likes of USA Eagles Christian Poidevin & Jason Damm, as well as former RFCLA players Ben Houston and Ben Sugars.

Unsurprisingly, the California Legion would announce the signing of yet another former Rugby FC LA player a couple of days later on February 11th, when they confirmed the signing of Major League Rugby veteran Jurie van Vuuren for his 7th season in the competition in 2026! The former Springboks U20 forward played with The Stormers in Super Rugby (at the time) and both Western Province and the Southern Kings in the Currie Cup before entering MLR with the Utah Warriors in 2020. Van Vuuren would represent the Utah Warriors for 4 seasons, earning 51 appearances in that time (43 starts) and scoring 8 tries on over 1,600m gained while completing 544 tackles made including a high of 199 in 2021, and 3 seasons with over 100 tackles made. During the MLR off-seasons, Jurie van Vuuren played with the Tel Aviv Heat in the Rugby Europe Super Cup so it wasn’t surprising that, when a consortium with significant overlap with the ownership of the Heat took over Rugby ATL and relocated them to Los Angeles, van Vuuren signed with the newly rebranded Rugby FC LA for their inaugural season in 2024. He would represent RFCLA for a further 2 seasons, his 5th & 6th in MLR, starting all 17 of his appearances and adding another 173 tackles including a 4th 100+ tackle season in 2025 when he recorded 133 to pass 700 in his 68 game MLR career through 6 seasons. Van Vuuren added another 2 tries to reach 10 in his career, and over 200m gained to pass 1,800m gained in his career. Jurie van Vuuren started all 13 of his appearances for RFCLA in 2025 under Stephen Hoiles, so will likely earn a number of starts under Hoiles with the California Legion in 2026. He is listed on the Legion’s signing announcement as a number 8 so would join Ronan Foley in competing for game time among a stacked Legion back row.

The final California Legion Player Move from last week came on 15th February when the team announced that they had signed US-born Australian scrum-half Tas Smith to their 2026 squad. Born in New York but raised in Australia, Smith has been selected for both the USA U20s and Australia U20s, but was unable to attend due to COVID-19. He first entered Major League Rugby with the LA Giltinis in 2022, earning 6 starts in 14 games under Stephen Hoiles before the team was disqualified at the end of the season. Smith returned to Australia to complete his studies at the University of Sydney in 2023, but returned to Los Angeles once again in 2024, signing with Rugby FC LA. Over 2 seasons from 2024-2025, Tas Smith appeared in 32 of the franchises 33 games, starting 10 times and scoring 2 tries, also recording a career high 77 tackles in 2024. Having played under Stephen Hoiles at both the Giltinis and RFCLA, it is no surprise that the 24yo has joined the California Legion ahead of their inaugural 2026 season. Smith is the 9th former RFCLA player to join the Legion for 2026, and will likely play behind 2025 MLR Back of the Year Gonzalo Bertranou.

On February 10th, Old Glory DC announced the first Player Move not related to a West Coast team when they announced the addition of former NOLA Gold standout Jordan Jackson-Hope for his 3rd Major League Rugby season in 2026! The Australian centre represented the Junior Wallabies at the 2016 Junior World Championship and made his Super Rugby debut that same year with his local team, the ACT Brumbies. The Canberra native represented the Brumbies in Super Rugby from 2016-2019 before heading to Japan and playing with the Toyko Shokki Shuttles in the JRLO – D2. He also enjoyed a spell with the Sunwolves in Super Rugby in 2020, and represented Tokyo Gas from 2020-2022. Following his time in Japan, Jordan Jackson-Hope headed stateside and signed with the NOLA Gold for their 2023 MLR campaign, and represented the Gold for 2 seasons between 2023-24 where he was a consistent standout in the midfield. Jackson-Hope started all 25 of his games for the NOLA Gold across 2 seasons, gaining over 850m each season and scoring 8 tries in total including 6 in 2024 alone. He completed 238 tackles in total (well over 100 each season) and was named to the MLR Team of the Week 5 times during the 2024 season. Jackson-Hope started the first (and only) playoff game in NOLA Gold team history, gaining over 50m and scoring a try as the Gold fell to the Chicago Hounds in the 2024 Eastern Conference Semifinal. He was named as NOLA Gold’s Player of the Year in both 2023 and 2024, and was selected for the All-MLR First XV for the 2024 season. Following a year away from MLR during which he focused on training and coaching, Jordan Jackson-Hope now joins Old Glory DC for his 3rd season in the competition and will likely be a first-choice 12 for the Flags in 2026, joining former NOLA Gold teammate Ross Depperschmidt in the midfield, as well as possibly Jason Emery and John Powers.

The Seattle Seawolves announced their first intra-league move of last week on February 12th, when they confirmed the signing of US-eligible Irish winger Michael Hand for his 3rd Major League Rugby campaign in 2026! Born in Connecticut but raised in Ireland, Hand played rugby and was a 4x100m sprinter growing up. He attended UC Cork and represented Cork Constitution in the All-Ireland League following his graduationin 2023. At the tail end of that year, the Chicago Hounds announced that they had signed Michael Hand for the 2024 MLR season but before he could earn his MLR debut with the Hounds, he was loaned to the Miami Sharks where he started 6 of his 8 appearances, scoring 3 tries for the Sharks on over 200m gained. Still under contract with Chicago, Hand returned to the Hounds the following season and started all 5 of his appearances during their impressive 2025 season, gaining a career high 310m gained including 86m in the Hounds’ Round 3 drubbing of the New England Free Jacks, scoring a 4th career try and earning his first MLR Team of the Week selection in that game. He suffered a hamstring injury later in the season which impacted his gametime, however. With 4 tries on over 500m gained in 13 MLR games across 2 seasons, Michael Hand is one to watch out for and may even get on the USA Eagles’ radar if he can get some quality game time in Seattle. He will join a Seawolves back three roster that includes Divan Rossouw, Ina Futi, Duncan Matthews, and a new Seawolves signing covered below…

New Additions

In what is a rarity for the 2025/26 Major League Rugby offseason, the Seattle Seawolves announced that they had signed a completely new addition to the league in US-eligible Italian winger Matthias Douglas! Born and raised in Italy but US-eligible through his father, Douglas developed in the Italian domestic leagues, primarily in the Mogliano Veneto system where he played in the Top flight of Italian domestic competition, the Serie A Élite. Douglas has featured for the Italian age grade sides at U18, U20, and U23 level, scoring a try against France during the 2023 U20 Six Nations while playing with URC’s Benetton. That same year he also represented the Italian Sevens side in the World Rugby Sevens Challenger Series in 2023. The following year, Matthias Douglas returned to Mogliano Veneto and continued to represent Italy at age-grade level, this time with the U23s before heading to Australia in 2025 to join the Wests Bulldogs, playing Premier Grade rugby in Queensland before returning to Italy with Rangers Vincenza, another Serie A Élite. The 22yo enters Major League Rugby from Vicenza, and will join Michael Hand in a strong Seattle Seawolves back three.

Wrapping Up

For the 2nd week in a row there were no re-signings among last week’s Player Moves, and for the 2nd week in a row the California Legion are the busiest team around the league after leaving it late to begin their announcements. The new-look Legion added another pair of former RFCLA players to take their running total to 9 of the 16 players already announced by the team which includes the addition of former Houston SaberCats back row Ronan Murphy, also announced last week. The Seattle Seawolves also stayed busy with the addition of a pair of new wingers for the 2026 season, and Old Glory DC are the first non-West Coast team to announce a Player Move in 2 weeks with the addition of former NOLA Gold standout Jordan Jackson-Hope!

Thank you, as always, for reading this week’s Player Moves Article! We’re no doubt at the tail end of Player Moves ahead of the 2026 season, but the California Legion still have plenty of players to announce yet. Be sure to check back here next Monday (16th February) to find out more about all of this week’s news. If there are any Player Moves that you notice, or just to say what you think about these articles or the site in general,, you can let NARDB/James know on social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky! Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site.

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

MLR, USRPA, and a CBA: What does it all mean?

NARDatabase

James Deeley

On 11th February 2026, Major League Rugby (MLR), the United States Rugby Players Association (USRPA), and the Major league Rugby Players Association (MLRPA) announced that they had unanimously ratified the first ever Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) in American Rugby history!

This is undoubtedly a huge step for MLR and for professional rugby in North America, but what exactly is a CBA? What does the CBA contain/involve? and what does this agreement mean for the players and for fans? This article intends to tackle all of the acronyms and jargon, and lay out why this is such a big deal, especially going into a critical 2026 season. This article will cover CBAs as they apply to sports specifically, rather than in the wider employment market.

What is a CBA?

Starting off with the basics, A CBA or Collective Bargaining Agreement is a contract between a union (in this case, USRPA) and an employer (in this case, MLR) that guarantees certain standards and securities. In sports, this most commonly affects the players within a certain league. Players will choose to work with the league in a group (collectively) on these agreements as their bargaining power is far stronger as a group than as individuals. A league will be less likely to accept an individual’s request (however reasonable) even if it means that player not signing in the league, but if a large group of players present a reasonable set of demands the league is more likely to take notice as without players, there is no league.

CBAs almost always have an ‘expiry’ date’, in that they are negotiated between a league and their players for ‘X’ number of years. For leagues that have a CBA in place, when it comes to negotiating a new CBA ahead of the expiry date of the current CBA, things can get tense. If no agreement can be found between the players and the league to either instate a CBA or ratify a new agreement, this can become a labour dispute and can result in a lockout, shutting a league down. Across the ‘Big 4’ North American leagues (MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL) there have been numerous strikes or lockouts due to a failure to agree on a new CBA. Notably, the 2004/05 NHL lockout cancelled the entire season, and roughly half a season was lost in 2012/13 due to labour disputes, but this is not unique to hockey. The NFLPA strikes in 1982 & 1987 affected those seasons, the 1998/99 and 2011/12 NBA seasons had to be shortened due to lockouts, and more recently, a lockout in the MLB in 2021/22 didn’t cancel any games, but forced Opening Day of the 2022/23 season to be pushed back a week.

While this may seem extreme to some, a CBA means a great deal to the athletes that put their bodies on the line in these sports during what is a relatively short career even for stars. If an athlete is going to risk their health and well being in a professional sports league, they will need certain guarantees. For example, if a player gets injured during the season, will they still earn an income even if they are unable to play? Will healthcare costs be taken care of to recover from that injury? If a player is traded, will relocation costs be covered by the league, Players’ Association, or team(s)? Who owns a player’s Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) and the ability to profit from the commercial use of that? A CBA provides all kinds of basic rights and protections for the players within a union or Players’ Association, even covering basic issues like minimum compensation and access to healthcare.

To summarise, in a sporting landscape a CBA provides members of a Union or Players’ Association with basic rights and protections to guarantee that they can live while playing in a professional league, and make a decent career while doing so. Generally speaking it improves conditions for the players and can serve as an incentive or attraction for players considering a career in that sport or pro league. As mentioned earlier, a professional sports league cannot exist without it’s players, and a CBA ensures that these players can exist. With that being said, let’s move into the specifics of this historic CBA between MLR and the USRPA.

The MLR x USRPA Collective Bargaining Agreement

Before digging into the details, some clarification may be necessary. This historic CBA is between MLR and the USRPA. Some more ‘in the know’ fans may be wondering what the difference is between the USRPA, and the Major League Rugby Players’ Association, the MLRPA. With former MLR player and USA Eagle Chris Mattina at the helm of both as Executive Director, it seems that the MLRPA is simply a bargaining unit of USRPA. To alleviate any concerns that the USRPA may not include any foreign players within MLR, their statement regarding the new CBA confirms that ‘The bargaining committee of over 20+ Players consisting of USA Eagles, Canadians, Internationals, and Player leaders were the heart and voice of this agreement.’ so this agreement affects all players within Major League Rugby regardless of eligibility.

With that cleared up, let’s dive into the weeds of what we know about the CBA so far. This was by no means a quick process. The USRPA was founded in late 2016 (prior to the start of MLR) with it’s MLRPA bargaining unit formed in mid-2023, but was only formally recognised by MLR in January of 2024. In June 2025 the USRPA announced that Chris Mattina had been named as Executive Director, and that his ‘initial priorities include leading the MLRPA through it’s first-ever Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) negotiations with Major League Rugby’. In the roughly 6 months since Mattina’s appointment, the USRPA and MLR have been in constant negotiation through labour group Sports Solidary and it’s president, Harry Marino in order to get this first-ever CBA in place prior to the 2026 campaign, and congratulations to everyone involved in making this a reality.

‘This CBA formalized key protections and provides stability so Players can focus on performing at the highest level’ – Chris Mattina, USRPA Executive Director

Although the announcement from MLR was short on details, Alex Goff of Goff Rugby Report (who broke the news of this CBA first) was able to provide a bit more information in his article. Goff writes that ‘this CBA provides every MLR Player with increased salaries alongside several other new rights and protections, including rights for injured players and free agents, health and safety protections, and the establishment of a clear discipline policy and neutral grievance procedure‘.

The USRPA themselves were the first to provide some concrete details about what is included in this new CBA, and divided it into 4 categories: Economic, Health & Safety, Player Rights & Representation, and Fair Discipline & Grievance Procedures. The USRPA revealed that the new CBA secured Economic wins such as an immediate $2,000 lump sum payment for every player, as well as an increase to the minimum weekly compensation for all players and a team assistance to help players find housing in their new cities, if needed. On the Health & Safety front, the new CBA ensures that injured players will remain under contract and continue to earn their full salary and enjoy full benefits as if they were fully fit, with guaranteed access to doctors, trainers, medical health clinicians, and a surgeon of the player’s choosing if required and full compliance with World Rugby safety protocols such as minimum rest periods between matches and Graduated Return to Play (GRTP) protocols for head injuries. In regards to player rights and representation, the CBA also guarantees certain rights to Free Agents not currently under contract and although the release does not specify what these rights are, it’s hard to view that as a negative in any way. This is in addition to returning core NIL rights, allowing players to profit and benefit of their own images which in turn may help to promote bigger personalities that the North American sports landscape loves so much. And finally (at least, publically), the CBA ensures that written notice is required for any disciplinary action against any player, and that any fines are stayed (paused) during grievances, with those grievances settled by a neutral and impartial arbitrator.

Per Irving Mejia-Hilario’s article in the Sports Business Journal, the new CBA is valid for 2 years and covers the 2026 & 2027 MLR seasons. Considering it took the best part of 6 months to negotiate, this is relatively short when compared to other CBAs around North America. The most recent NHL CBA, ratified in July 2025 for the 2026/27 season, will run through to September 2030 (4 seasons). NFL’s current CBA was ratified in 2020 and also runs through the 2030 season. the NBA CBA runs from the 2023/24 season through (you guessed it) 2029/30, and the MLB CBA covered 5 seasons from 2022-2026. Even within the sport of rugby, the Rugby Union Players Association (RUPA) in Australia ratified a CBA that would run from January 2023 to November 2026, and in England, there is a ‘Men’s Professional Game Partnership’ (MPGP) between the RFU, PREM Rugby, and the Rugby Players’ Association (RPA) from 2024-2032, 8 years in total. So the question is, why is the first ever CBA between MLR and USRPA so short?

As you may have noticed, MLR has had a rough time of things lately, contracting from 11 teams in the 2025 season to just 6 in 2026. With the league in such a precarious state, the 2026 season is critical and it’s in the best interests of both MLR and the USRPA that it recovers, and so there is no point negotiating a 5-10 year agreement when the MLR landscape is in turmoil. A longer term CBA is far better negotiated when the league has regained stability and bounced back financially. This short term CBA helps to stabilise the league, and will contribute to the success of MLR whcih will put the USRPA in a better position to negotiate in 2 years time. To put it simply, if this CBA was for 10 years (an extreme case), but by 2030 MLR is profitable and growing ahead of the 2031 home RWC, the Players’ Association would potentially be losing out on securing more benefits for their members until they were able to negotiate once again. When you remember that prior to this, there was NO CBA and very little guarantees for players in the league, a short, 2yr first CBA is a very savvy move given the present state of MLR. What’s more, the details released by USRPA highlight the ability for the Union to ‘reopen economic terms next offseason if the League’s finances improve’. Meaning that should MLR enjoy a wildly successful 2026 season (fingers crossed!) and meet financial goals (that have not been disclosed), USRPA can renegotiate player compensation to adjust for that during the 2026/27 offseason. the Players’ Association have put themselves in a great position, and they have done so by working in cooperation with Major League Rugby who, to their credit, seem to understand that without the players they have nothing.

What does this mean for MLR?

It seems approriate to reiterate that this is the first CBA in Major League Rugby history, and the first CBA for rugby in North America at all. Prior to this, there was no guaranteed welfare, financial, or represensational rights for players. Yes, there were vague ‘industry standards’ prior to this agreement, but nothing set in stone. As a result, players could be dropped, wages may not be paid to injured players, traded players would have to relocate themselves, and all sorts of other potential nightmares that doesn’t even touch on the worst-case scenario of teams folding, which MLR knows a little bit about, unfortunately. This historic CBA changes that. It lays that foundation for player rights, securities, and guarantees that all future CBAs between MLR and the USRPA can build on. As mentioned above, the USRPA announced that the CBA contains a clause that allows the Union to ‘reopen economic terms next offseason should league finances improve’, which more closely ties player salaries and compensation to the success of the league. It means that both sides are rowing together to achieve the same goals: The success of professional rugby in North America.

‘Make no mistake – this is a momentous achievement for the sport in the U.S., as reaching the first CBA for American rugby provides clarity heading into the 2026 season and demonstrates a commitment to finding common ground as MLR seeks to grow the game in the U.S.’ – Graeme Bradbury, MLR Co-President

For fans, this doesn’t really change anything in practice, but it means a huge deal and show the commitment from both MLR and the USRPA to pro rugby in the US. It should settle some nerves following the worst offseason in league history full of chaos that has filled not only fans, but also players and executives with uncertainty ahead of a critical 2026 season, the announcement of this new CBA is a refreshing sign of co-operation between MLR and it’s players. It serves as a commitment from both sides to their mutual success and while lockouts were touched on early in this article, this historic CBA ‘was a really good-faith negotiation with the league’ said Chris Mattina to the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly. From a fan perspective, there really is no downside to the players improving their conditions within the the MLR environment. Given the short duration of this CBA, it’s likely that we will hear more on this subject following the 2026 season but for now, both MLR and the USRPA are shoring up the foundations of the league, stabilising ahead of what must be the most important season in league history so far.