The previous NARDB Player Movement article mentioned that moves might be few and far between, at least until after the 2026 MLR College Draft when teams start to sign their new draftees to deals for 2027. That certainly seems to have been the case, with signings of 2026 MLR names very sparse through the month of August. Of course, following the demise of Anthem RC after their World Rugby funding dried up, a 5-team competition is going to have less movement in general than previous off-seasons. Hopefully one day we’ll get back to double digit teams and 3/4 page Player Movement summaries but for now, we can spend more time on each of the few moves there have been so far this off-season.
Welcome back to NARDB’s Player Movement summary article, covering each and every signing to, from and within Major League Rugby during the 2026/27 Offseason. These summaries aim to keep fans engaged in MLR and keep a bit of attention on North America’s top rugby competition while fans wait for the games to get rolling again in the spring. It’s also the only place that provides a recap of every MLR signing on a regular basis, providing fans with an easy way of keeping up to date with their team in the run-up to the 2027 season.
Because of low volume, this Player Movement Summary covers every move over a 3-week period from August 10th to August 30th, but will not cover the Draft. All information on the 2026 MLR College Draft can be found here, and if/when teams officially sign their new draftees, they will be covered in future editions of this article series. As always, a summary graphic for all player moves covered in this article can be found below:
Short-Term Departures
As you may have noticed from it’s title, this article covers all moves from August 10th. However, the first sighting of this period wasn’t until the 18th when French club Oyonnax announced that they had signed Chicago Hounds tighthead prop Charlie Abel as a medical joker for the first chunk of the 2026/27 Pro D2 season.
The 34yo Australian is enjoying a career year. He earned four Team of the Week selections and scored 3 tries in 10 games (8 starts) for the Chicago Hounds in 2026, starting both of their playoff games to help the team to their first MLR Shield off the back of the first perfect season in MLR history. For his excellent 2026 season, Abel was named to the All-MLR First XV. Not long after, Abel was called up to the USA Eagles squad for the North American leg of the World Rugby Nations Cup where he earned his test debut as Eagle #604 in a victory over Spain.
Although new to test rugby, Charlie Abel definitely isn’t new to MLR. In fact, 2026 wasn’t even his first Shield! Abel first entered the competition with the LA Giltinis ahead of their inaugural season in 2021. He started 14 of his 16 appearances for the Giltinis, and was LA’s starting loosehead as they defeated Rugby ATL 31-17 in the Championship Game, claiming the Shield in their very first season. Abel would earn another 15 appearances (8 starts) for LA in 2022, before the team was disqualified prior to the post-season, and ultimately folded. As one door closed however, another opened. Abel was selected by the Chicago Hounds in the Expansion/Dispersal draft, and has played in green & white ever since.
Abel has been a stalwart of the Chicago team since their very first season, helping the expansion side through the rough early days to an unbeaten Championship. He’s earned over 50 appearances for the Hounds, and is sat on 85 total games in MLR with 59 starts and 11 tries scored, 7 of which have been for Chicago. He’s also gained over 1,500m in possession in his MLR career so far, and has racked up 732 tackles made, finishing with over 100 tackles in 5 of his 6 seasons. To relieve Hounds fans, Abel’s contract with Oyonnax does not rule him out a return to MLR for 2027. He’s playing in France due to an injury to regular prop Ali Oz, who is expected to be sidelined for several months with a hamstring injury. There’s plenty of time for Oz to recover and Abel to return to MLR for next season, but in the meantime it’s a great opportunity for a US-capped prop to stay sharp in what is probably the best 2nd tier competition in the world. Congratulations, Charlie!
Full Season Farewells
While Charlie Abel’s French adventure is a short term deal that does not rule him out from a return to MLR in 2027, there were a couple of departures that likely will make it tricky for players to play pro rugby in North American next year. On 21st August, newly promoted English Championship side Rotherham announced their starting line-up for a pre-season fixture with Oundle RFC. Included in the starting XV was a name familiar to Seattle Seawolves and Canada fans: Dewald Kotze. The South African born Alberta native was announced by the side the following day for their 2026/27 Championship campaign which runs from mid-September 2026 to the end of May, 2027.
Kotze has earned over a dozen test caps for Canada since his debut against Romania in 2024, with the most recent coming in Canada’s Nations Cup fixtures back in July. He entered MLR with the Dallas Jackals for their inaugural season in 2022, starting 3 of his 4 games in his debut season, before becoming an regular starter the following year. Over the next two seasons with the Jackals, Kotze started 26 of his 32 games to help turn the team from a 0-16 team in 2022 to playoff contenders in 2024. He scored 14 tries in total including a career high of 11 in 2024 when he finished level with NOLA’s Taniela Filimone as MLR’s 3rd highest try scorer that year. The bulk of these 11 tries came in one game against the Seattle Seawolves, where Kotze scored an incredible FIVE tries, which remains an MLR record.
Although the Seawolves scraped a victory in that game, Kotze clearly impressed them. After the Dallas Jackals withdrew from the competition, Seattle picked him up and he played with the Seawolves for a further two seasons. Kotze would start 15 of his 26 games for the Seawolves, scoring an additional 5 tries to take his career total to 19 tries in 62 games (44 starts). He passed 500 career tackles in MLR during the 2026 season, averaging 9 tackles per game across his career which rose to 12 per game this season. Kotze has recorded over 100 tackles in 5 of his 6 MLR seasons, and gained over 600m in possession. Now that Canadian players are no longer considered domestic in MLR, it’s possible that Kotze traded in some uncertainty for a full season contract in England, and Canadian fans should be happy to see a regular international getting the opportunity across the pond. He links up with former New England Free Jacks scrum-half and 2x MLR Champion Cam Kelemeti with the Titans. Very best of luck, Dewy!
A few days after Rotherham announced the signing of Dewald Kotze, the announcement came that another MLR-er would be heading to Yorkshire. On 26th August, fellow Yorkshire based CHAMP rugby side the Doncaster Knights announced that they had signed former MLR draftee and 2026 Old Glory DC Young Player of the Year Aidan King for their 2026/27 campaign! The US-born Australian raised back row heads to the UK after a pair of solid seasons in Major League Rugby.
Having grown up playing rugby in Queensland, Aidan King headed back to the US for school, enrolling at Penn State. Upon his graduation, he declared for the 2024 MLR College Draft and was selected in the 1st Round, 6th overall by the NOLA Gold, and was included on their MLR roster ahead of the 2025 season. Aidan King could’ve easily been named the MLR Rookie of the Year for his performance during hid debut season. In a tough year for the Gold, he was a standout. King appeared in 14 of NOLA’s 16 games in 2025, starting 9 times and averaging 11.8 tackles per game for a total of 166 on the season, also adding his first pro try and over 100m gained in possession. Unfortunately this was his only season in New Orleans, as the team withdrew from MLR in the offseason, adn King headed northeast to join Old Glory DC for 2026.
In his sophomore season, King kept up his reputation as a reliable tackler, holding his own against other DC tackle machines Ben Bonasso and Cory Daniel, recording 113 tackles in 9 games, starting all 9. This actually took his tackle per game average over 12, sitting on a huge 279 in just 23 games (18 starts). His ball carrying also improved, passing 200m gained on the season for an average of 23 per game and beating 13 defenders, he was named as the Old Glory DC Young Player of the Year for his efforts. King now joins up with fellow MLR alum Ben Sugars at the Knights where US fans should keep a keen eye on his minutes, even if it’s unlikely that he’ll return to MLR for 2027. Congratulations Aidan, and best of luck in the Championship!
Sandwiching those two moves to the Championship was the announcement from Red Hurricanes Osaka on the other side of the world, who announced that they had signed Anthem RC lock Will Sherman for the Japan Rugby League One D2 season! The Utahn lock was a standout at UCLA, where he was named Collegiate All-American as well as both UCLA Players’ Player and Forward of the Year before a busy summer where he toured South America with the USA U23s, and declared for the 2025 MLR College Draft before heading down to Sydney to play with Randwick in the Shute Shield. In that draft, he was selected 1st overall by Anthem RC, becoming the 2nd UCLA Bruin to be drafted 1st overall after Eric Naposki in 2021.
Unsurprisingly, after going 1st overall Will Sherman was signed to the Anthem RC MLR squad for the 2026 season where he appeared in all 10 games for the rising stars, starting 6 times. He started in Anthem’s first game of the season against the California Legion, completing 19 tackles to help the team record their first ever victory, and scored his lone MLR try off the bench during their second (and unfortunately, final) victory of the year over the Seattle Seawolves a few weeks later. Although this was only his first season of pro rugby, Sherman’s performance was good enough to earn him a contract overseas in a league that boasts the likes of former MLR standouts Reece MacDonald, Dylan Nel, and Frank Lochore.
With Anthem no longer operating after the 3 years of funding from World Rugby expired at the end of the 2026 season, the entire Rising Stars roster is looking for playing opportunities for next season. Sherman has found that opportunity all the way in Japan. Although the JRLO has a tendency to bury international players to limited minutes, Sherman is the first #1 pick in MLR history to play overseas instead of in MLR, with the JRLO D2 season running from December 2026 to May 2027. Just like Dewald Kotze, this doesn’t leave a lot of time for Sherman to return to MLR for the business end of the 2027 season, but it’s a possibility. US fans may be disappointed not to see Sherman in MLR next season, but should be happy that a homegrown talent has earned a contract overseas. Congratulations, Will!
It appears that Will Sherman isn’t the only big MLR forward headed to Japan. On 22nd August, the Tokyo Gas Blue Flames in Division 1 of Japan’s Top East League posted their matchday squad for a pre-season clash with the Daigas Struggers. Included in the reserves for that match was New England Free Jacks lock and test capped Canadian Piers von Dadelszen, who earned his team debut a week later against the AZ-COM Maruwa Momotaro’s.
The BC native earned his test debut for Canada in 2022 while he was attending the University of Oxford in the UK, and was signed by the Free Jacks in late 2023 ahead of the 2024 MLR season. Von Dadelszen was a regular in the New England lineup in his debut season, earning 17 appearances starting 11 times that year. He added two tries and gained just shy of 250m in possession, completing over 120 tackles on defence to help the Free Jacks lift their 2nd Shield in a row in 2024. For his efforts that season, he was named the 2024 Free Jacks Rookie of the Year. Von Dadelszen returned for a second season with the Free Jacks in 2025 and remained a high impact player for the defending champions. He started 15 of his 16 games that year and completed a career high 145 tackles as he helped New England to lift their 3rd successive MLR Shield. The 2nd in as many seasons for Piers von Dadelszen.
Piers von Dadelszen was one of the few Canadians to return to the Free Jacks for 2026, as MLR removed the domestic status from Canadian players which drastically reduced the number of Canucks in the league, and forcing New England to pivot away from their Canadian core. As a result, the 2026 season was tough for the team. they missed out on the playoffs with a 3-7 record, finishing 5th. Nevertheless, von Dadelszen continued to be a regular in the Free Jacks squad, starting all 8 of his appearances. For the 3rd season in a row, he recorded over 100 tackles made, averaging an impressive 14.3 tackles per game with 114 in his 8 matches.
Internationally, Piers von Dadelszen started every single game for Canada in 2025 as well as the first two matches of their Nations Cup campaign in 2026. In fact, Canada’s victory over Zimbabwe in their final test of the July series was the first game that didn’t feature von Dadelszen in the lineup since their clash with Romania in November 2024. Unlike other moves in this article, von Dadelszen’s move to Japan doesn’t rule him out of returning to MLR for the 2027 season. The Japanese Top East League regular season runs from September to December, with the playoffs (the National Amateur Championship) running from December to late January. With MLR likely to start in March 2027, he has plenty of time to return to Quincy, should he re-sign at all. As a final point, he isn’t the only MLR name on the Blue Flames roster. He’ll link up with former San Diego Legion man Rhian Stowers, as well as former Toronto Arrows and Houston SaberCats centre, Tautalatasi Tasi. Best of luck, Piers!
Wrapping Up
It’s been another quiet 3 weeks in terms of player moves. Only 5 moves were confirmed, all from MLR to elsewhere in the world with only a couple of these allowing for a return to MLR for the 2027 season. Obviously, the big moves into MLR during this period was the 2026 College Draft, however until the 5 remaining MLR teams confirm that they have signed their new draftees for the 2027 season, they won’t be covered in these Player Movement articles. NARDB has all the details of the 2026 MLR College draft on a dedicated page which can be found here.
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