Tag: Rugby FC LA

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 9 of MLR2025!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

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

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

RFCLA’s new All-Time Top Scorer

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

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

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

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

Team Milestones

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

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

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

Gold Rack Up a Half-Century in New Orleans!

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

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

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

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

Appearance Achievements

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

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

Source: @HoustonSaberCats via Instagram

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

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

Source: @Oldglorydc via Instagram

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

Wrapping Up

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

Thank you for reading! If you like this series, please get in touch on social media and share this article to help highlight these achievements! If there’s anything that has been missed that you feel is worth mentioning, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site. Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB or James on social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, @JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky! NARDB also has a Youtube channel: NARStats!

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

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 8 of MLR2025!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

Another week of the 2025 Major League Rugby has flown past, and the parity of MLR’s 8th season has arguably never been better. 4 teams in the Eastern Conference won during Round 8, with Rugby FC LA taking the lone victory in the West! Welcome back to Midweek Milestones, a weekly article that highlights the big achievements and standout stats from each round of the MLR season.

If this is your first time reading an article from this series, these weekly articles highlight milestones or standout stats achieved by players and/or teams that may have gone under the radar in order to give them the attention they deserve, as well as to keep fans informed of some of the big milestones and the less publicized (but no less deserving) achievements around the League for each week! If you want to read previous Midweek Milestones articles, feel free to search ‘Midweek Milestones’, or click on the category just below the title of this article!

Beast from the East defeats Best in the West!

The clash of the week for many coming into Round 8 was the San Diego Legion taking on the Chicago Hounds at Torero Stadium. #1 in the West hosting the #1 in the East with the opportunity for the victor to take a commanding hold over their conference! When the dust settled, it was the Chicago Hounds who had emerged as 20-27 winners to stay on top of the Eastern Conference!

The Hounds are developing a reputation as road warriors in 2025. They are currently on a team record 5 game win streak and are yet to lose on the road. Chicago have chalked up road victories against the NOLA Gold, a very impressive Round 1 win over the SaberCats in Houston, and have now handed the San Diego Legion their first home defeat in almost a calendar year! The Legion have not lost at home since a nail-biting 23-24 defeat to the New England Free Jacks in Round 12 of the 2024 season, a span of 321 days! Whats more, it’s the first time that the San Diego Legion have been defeated at Torero Stadium since 26th June, 2021 against the Austin Gilgronis – 1,379 days, although the obvious caveat there is that the Legion did not play at Torero Stadium from 2022-2024.

Legion suffer first home defeat in close to a year

For the San Diego Legion, their 5-game win streak to start the 2025 season seems a very long time ago already. Now sat on a 2-game skid and no longer atop the Western Conference, things don’t get easier for the Legion, as they make their first-ever trip to Quincy to face the resurgent reigning champions, the New England Free Jacks.

LA Make it 4 on the Bounce!

As mentioned above, the Chicago are now on a team-record 5 game win streak, but they aren’t the only team on best-ever form. Rugby FC LA started the season with 3 losses in a row but have since flicked a switch and rattled off 4 wins on the trot, extending a team record win streak following a gutsy 22-24 road victory over the Houston SaberCats! The ‘Cats had the chance to walk away with a draw, but AJ Alatimu‘s last-minute conversion couldn’t curl in, and RFCLA record their first ever victory over their Western Conference rivals!

Between RFCLA and the Chicago Hounds the Western Conference has been blown wide open, with 3 teams separated by 4pts at the top and the Utah Warriors sitting 2pts back with a game in hand! Even the Seattle Seawolves, currently at the bottom of the West, just need a good couple of weeks to get right back in it!

Appearance Achievements

In the now-weekly segment of the Midweek Milestones article, it’s time to recognise the appearance milestones from around MLR during Round 8. This week saw an MLR debut and five players reach 50 appearances, including 3 in one game!

Beginning with the debutant. The San Diego Legion announced the addition of Zak Farrance just before Round 7, and he came off the bench for the Legion in their massive clash with the Chicago Hounds! With experience in the English Championship and nearly a decade of experience playing in France, Farrance made 18 meters and 5 tackles over 32 minutes of game time in his MLR debut. Congratulations Zak, and welcome to MLR!

In the same game that Zak Farrance earned his MLR debut, a trio of players all earned their 50th MLR appearances, including his San Diego Legion teammate, Tavite Lopeti! Raised in the Bay Area, Lopeti represented Saint Mary’s College Gaels and was a Rudy Scholz Award nominee. He declared for the 2021 MLR Draft and was selected 3rd overall by the Seattle Seawolves, with whom he played between 2022-2024. The 2022 MLR Rookie of the Year scored 8 tries in 44 games with Seattle, finishing as MLR Runners-Up in both 2022 and 2024. He left the Seawolves ahead of this season and returned to his home state, signing with the San Diego Legion for 2025. Lopeti becomes just the 2nd MLR Draftee to reach 50 appearances in the competition, and he’s started 38 of his 50 games. Congratulations, Tavite!

Moving over to the Legion’s opposition in Round 8, the Chicago Hounds celebrated a pair of players reaching their half-century of MLR appearances! The first of two Hounds to reach 50 games in MLR is test capped Canadian, Mason Flesch. The Cobourg, ON native began his MLR career with the Toronto Arrows, representing MLR’s lone Canadian outfit from 2021-23, earning 22 starts in 28 games. Following the withdrawal of the team, Flesch followed his Arrows and national team captain Lucas Rumball to Chicago where he has scored 6 tries in 23 games (22 starts). He set personal bests across the board for the Hounds in 2024 and is enjoying another stellar season in 2025. Congratulations, Mason!

Source: @chicagohoundsrugby via Instagram

Coming into the game from the Chicago Hounds bench and earning his 50th cap alongside Mason Flesch was scrum-half Jason Higgins. Born in Ireland, Higgins’ career shares similarities with Flesch’s. Both are former Toronto Arrows that have been test capped for Canada! Higgins represented the Arrows for only a season, scoring 4 tries in 13 games (3 starts) in 2021 before signing with the San Diego Legion from 2022-23. He finished as a MLR runner-up with the Legion in 2023 and scored 8 tries in 20 games over his two seasons in California. Higgins has represented the Chicago Hounds after being traded there in 2023 and has scored another 4 tries in 17 games for a total of 16 tries and 21 starts in his 50 games in MLR. Higgins is also the first (and so far, only) player in MLR history to record hat tricks with multiple teams, having scored one for the Legion in 2022, and another for the Hounds in 2024. Congratulations, Jason!

Staying on the topic of test-capped Canadians, over in Texas Andrew Coe made his 50th MLR appearance as Rugby FC LA earned an impressive win over the Houston SaberCats! A native of Markham, ON, Coe’s MLR journey started when he joined Rugby New York for the 2022 season. He scored 13 tries in 32 games (30 starts) for the Ironworkers, helping them lift the Shield in his debut season in 2022. Coe signed with Rugby FC LA after the Ironworkers withdrew from MLR in 2023, and has scored another 9 tries to take his total to 22 tries in 50 games (48 starts), along with 228 tackles and over 3,400m made in his MLR career to date. Congratulations, Andrew!

Source: @rugbyfcla via Instagram

And to wrap up the new members of the half-century club for this week is 2024 Player of the Year, Wayne van der Bank! A back-to-back MLR Champion with the New England Free Jacks in 2023 & 2024, van der Bank entered MLR in 2022, and has earned all 50 of his appearances with the Free Jacks. He has started 46 times and scored 16 tries including 10 in the 2024 season. The Pretoria native has recently passed 500 career tackles and has 3,139m made to date! Unfortunately, van der Bank’s 50th game did not last long, as he was substituted after only 8 minutes due to a head knock. Hopefully this is precautionary and we’ll see him back for his 51st game soon. Congratulations, Wayne!

Balekana Bags MLR’s 50th Hatty!

Sticking with the New England Free Jacks, their dominant 43-6 win over the Miami Sharks in Quincy was helped in part by Paula Balekana’s 3 tries, recording a hat trick! Given how prolific a try scorer he is, it’s amazing that this is the only first hat trick of Balekana’s MLR career! It takes his career total to 35 tries, putting the Free Jacks’ Fijian Flyer 3rd all-time, behind only Riekert Hattingh (45) and Dylan Fawsitt (59) in terms of tries scored.

Although this was the first hat trick in Paula Balekana’s MLR career, it’s not the first hat trick by a New England Free Jacks player, and it’s definitely not the first hat trick in MLR history. In fact, Balekana is the 6th player to record a hatty as a Free Jack and the 45th player in league history! With Jason Higgins and Dewald Kotze recording 2 hat tricks each and Seattle Seawolves’ Lauina Futi recording 3, this makes Paula Balekana’s hat trick on Sunday the 50th triple in Major League Rugby History! Congratulations!

NOLA’s Du Plessis Reaches New Heights

As Major League Rugby marches closer to it’s 10th season, there are fewer and fewer players around the league who have been here from the start. At this point, they’re pretty much all legends of this league, and that definitely applies to the NOLA Gold’s JP Du Plessis. The South African center spent 3 seasons with the San Diego Legion in the early years of the league, finishing as a MLR runner-up in 2019, the same year that he was named MLR Back of the Year on the back of a 1,200m, 200 tackle year. He scored 9 tries in 26 games (all starts) for the Legion before moving to New Orleans and joining the Gold, who he’s represented in every MLR season since.

JP Du Plessis has scored 22 tries in his 89 MLR games to date (86 starts) and recorded more tackles than any other back in league history, 868. He’s recorded 3 seasons with over 1,000m made including a career high of 1,533 in 2022, and added 73m during Round 8 of the 2025 season to become the first player in MLR history to eclipse SIX THOUSAND meters in the competition! Now sat on 6,026m, Du Plessis has over almost 800m more than the next nearest active player (Riekert Hattingh – 5,296m) and could get close to 7,000m in 2025 if he keeps it up. Congratulations, JP!

Wrapping Up

Major League Rugby’s 50th hat trick, five players join the half-century club, and JP Du Plessis reaches a milestone never seen before in MLR in this week’s edition of Midweek Milestones! What standout stats will Round 9 have for us? Be sure to check back next week to find out!

Thank you for reading! If you like this series, please get in touch on social media and share this article to help highlight these achievements! If there’s anything that has been missed that you feel is worth mentioning, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site. Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB or James on social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, @JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky! NARDB also has a Youtube channel: NARStats!

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

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 7 of MLR2025!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

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

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

NOLA Gold reach a century!

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

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

LA & DC play a Slobberknocker!

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

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

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

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

Appearance Achievements

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

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

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

Source: @SeawolvesRugby via Instagram

Scoring Standouts

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

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

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

AJ Alatimu becomes MLR’s 2nd Highest Scorer

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

Wrapping Up

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

Thank you for reading! If you like this series, please get in touch on social media and share this article to help highlight these achievements! If there’s anything that has been missed that you feel is worth mentioning, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site. Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB or James on social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, @JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay and @NARDB on Bluesky!

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

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 6 of MLR2025!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

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

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

Utah join the 100 Club!

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

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

Heartbreak for Anthem RC

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

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

Kicking Credits

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

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

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

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

NOLA Gold’s Luke Carty

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

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

Appearance Achievements

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

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

MLR Debutant Isikeli Kava (center)


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

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

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

Source: @usmlr via Instagram

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

Wrapping Up

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

If you like this series, please get in touch on social media and share this article to help highlight these achievements! If there’s anything that has been missed that you feel is worth mentioning, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site. Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB or James on social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, @JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay and @NARDB on Bluesky!

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

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 2 of MLR2025!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

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

Midweek Milestones is a weekly series of articles that aims to highlight milestones achieved by players and/or teams that may go under the radar otherwise, but are no less worthy of recognition and praise. This series of articles will be released midweek (clue is in the name…) each week, and will take milestones from the latest round of MLR matches during the 2025 season.

Dylan Fawsitt: MLR’s First Centurion!

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

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

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

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

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

San Diego Run Riot in The Queen City!

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

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

Coetzer Enters Elite Company!

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

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

Damm Reaches Half-Century!

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

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

Source: @Rugbyfcla via Twitter/X

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

To Conclude

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

If you like this series, please let me know on social media and share this article to bring attention to these achievements! If there’s anything that may have been missed that you feel is worth mentioning, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site. Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB or James via social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, @JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay and @NARDB on Bluesky!

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

MLR Player Movement Summary: Dec 30, 2024 – Jan 5, 2025

NARDatabase

James Deeley

Welcome to 2025! Every week these MLR Player Movement Summary articles outline each roster move around Major League Rugby, whether that is a returning player, a new signing, or a departure, so that MLR fans can easily stay up to date on all the off-season activity ahead of the 2025 season. This week’s article covers the week from December 30, 2024 to January 5, 2025 and so, as mentioned already, welcome to 2025!

With pre-season camps opening today (January 6th), it could be assumed that all MLR teams have pretty much finished announcing their 2025 rosters, but considering we still haven’t heard a peep out of Anthem RC, and the Seattle Seawolves haven’t announced a single returning player, it’s likely that player announcements will continue almost right up to opening kick-off on February 15th. Last week saw another relatively quiet week but as with the week before, there is still plenty to discuss. 10 re-signings across 4 teams made up the bulk of the announcements as usual, with an intra-league move and two big names returning to MLR from overseas. As always, we start with the summary graphic and then jump in to the re-signings:

MLR Player Movement Summary: December 30th, 2024 – January 5th, 2025 (Page 1 of 1)

Re-signings

Of the 10 re-signings last week, the NOLA Gold announced four returning back three players for their 2025 roster. Samoan try machine Ed Fidow is back for his second season with the Gold after scoring 5 tries in 7 games for the team in an injury-affected 2024. A 2022 MLR Champion with New York, Fidow has a very impressive 21 tries in his 35 career MLR games with over 3,000m gained with ball in hand. Alongside Fidow will be NOLA Gold veteran Harley Wheeler, who has 8 tries in his 38 games for the club since 2020 (29 starts) and over 150 tackles completed with a high of 84 in 2022. Academy graduate Jack Webster, who can also play centre, returns for a 4th season with the Gold having earned 16 appearances since 2022. Webster also played a game for the Dallas Jackals in 2022 while on short term loan to the Texas team. Last but by no means least for the Gold is impressive rookie Julian Roberts, returning for his sophomore season in New Orleans. Drafted 6th overall by the Gold in 2023 out of Life University, Roberts started 4 of his 11 appearances in 2024, scoring 2 tries and running for over 350m gained in possession.

Staying in the Eastern Conference and heading up to Illinois, the Chicago Hounds announced a returning trio of their own last week. Kansan scrum-half and capped USA Eagle Michael Baska is back for a 3rd year with the Hounds and 7th in MLR. Baska has 8 tries and 46pts in his 58 career games (30 starts), with 10 starts in 22 for Chicago since 2023. Also returning to the Hounds back line is South African fly-half/fullback Kian Meadon for a second year in Chicago after a pair of seasons with the Houston SaberCats. Meadon has 1 try and 37pts in his 11 MLR games since 2022 with a 61% success rate from the tee, but has struggled for game time over the last two seasons with only 2 games in 2023 and 1 in 2024. Although an international player, Meadon will be hoping for some consistent game time in 2025, but will be fighting with Tim Swiel, Adriaan Carelse, and Ben Pollack for games. In the pack, MLR veteran Paddy Ryan returns for his 8th season in the front row, and 3rd with Chicago. One of three players named ‘Paddy Ryan’ to have played in MLR, the Chicago-born Irishman has 8 tries in 71 games (53 starts) since 2018, with over 360 tackles completed and 1,107m gained as a prop.

Heading over to the Western Conference, a pair of depth pieces are returning to Zions Bank in 2025. Former Portland State defensive Lineman Tonga Kofe is back for a second season with the Utah Warriors in 2025. The 6’2, 310lb behemoth earned 6 appearances in 2024, and may be the heaviest player in MLR history. A monster in the front row. Returning to the Warriors’ backline for a third season is local product Sione Mahe, who earned 2 starts in 3 games in 2024 before suffering an ACL injury that sidelined him for much of the year. Heading to California but staying on the subject of injuries, Rugby FC LA announce the return of lock Jurie van Vuuren for a second season in LA, and 6th in MLR. Van Vuuren has scored 9 tries in 55 games (47 starts) since 2020, completing 584 tackles. He spent 4 seasons with the Utah Warriors before joining RFCLA in 2024 where he earned 4 appearances before suffering an injury that rule him out of the majority of the 2024 season.

‘New’ Faces

In this section we typically cover the new players entering MLR from leagues around the world. While that is still the case this week, it’s not strictly true to say that these faces are ‘new’. Both of last week’s signings from leagues outside MLR have already played in Major League Rugby at some point in their careers. Capped USA Eagle Mikey Sosene-Feagai signs with Rugby FC LA for the 2025 season, marking the first time the California-born hooker has played in MLR since 2021. Sosene-Feagai scored 2 tries in 15 games (all starts) for Old Glory DC between 2020-2021 before signing with Toulon in the French Top 14. He signed with Agen in the Pro D2 after a season with Toulon, where he played from 2022-2024.

Over in the Eastern Conference, the NOLA Gold have negotiated a season-loan for regular USA starting 9 Ruben de Haas for 2025. The South African moved with his family from the Western Cape to Arkansas when he was young, and has been a member of the Cheetahs system since 2017. He started 4 of his 6 appearances for the Austin Gilgronis in 2021 before heading to England and playing with Saracens in the Premiership between 2021-2023. De Haas returned to the Cheetahs following his time in the Premiership, playing in the Currie Cup and Challenge Cup. He will return to the Cheetahs once again following the 2025 MLR season.

Intra-League Moves

To wrap things up for this week’s summary article, the Chicago Hounds announced the signing of Californian hooker Jackson Zabierek for his sophomore season in 2025. Zabierek was drafted 18th overall by Rugby FC LA in 2023 out of the University of Santa Cruz, but did not sign with RFCLA. Instead, he joined the American Raptors for their 2024 Super Rugby Americas season. Once the Raptors season was over, Zabierek joined the Seattle Seawolves for their 2024 playoff push where he earned 6 appearances. He came off the bench in every playoff game for the Seawolves including the Championship Game against the New England Free Jacks, finishing as MLR runners-up.

In Conclusion

That wraps up this week’s summary article for player announcements around Major League Rugby from last week! We’ve almost made it through the long, dark MLR off-season and with kick-off on MLR 2025 just around the corner, it’s likely that the majority of player announcements are behind us. Anticipate teams making final adjustments to their rosters and possibly some promotions from academy sides, but there may still be a surprise or two in store for us. Another week gone, and still silence from Anthem RC. Pre-Season camps open on January 6th, so I hope they’ve got some idea who will be turning up.

Stay up to date on all player announcements as they happen by following NARDB and James on Social Media! @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, @NARugbyDB and @JamDelay on Twitter/X, or @NARDB and @JamDelay on Bluesky!

MLR Player Movement Summary: December 16-22, 2024

NARDatabase

James Deeley

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

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

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

Re-Signings

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

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

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

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

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

New to MLR

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

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

New Draftees Confirmed

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

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

Intra-League Moves and Retirements

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

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

In Conclusion

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

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

MLR Player Movement Summary: December 9-15, 2024

NARDatabase

James Deeley

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

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

Rapid Re-signings

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

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

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

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

New Faces

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

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

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

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

Intra-league Moves and Retirements

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

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

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

To Conclude…

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

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

NARDB’s Ranking of the MLR2025 Away Jerseys

NARDatabase

James Deeley

On Tuesday December 3rd, 2024, almost entirely out of the blue save a vague TRN tweet, Major League Rugby revealed the home and away jerseys for all 11 teams for the 8th season of the competition in 2025. Credit where it’s due, a huge round of applause to MLR, Macron, and all 11 teams for getting these jerseys ready to launch before the holidays. Even though all jerseys are currently only available to pre-order and may not ship until after the 2025 season kicks off on February 15th, fans will know what they are getting if they ask for their teams’ jerseys from Santa!

Last week, NARDB revealed it’s rankings for all 11 MLR2025 Home Kits. The article for which you can read here. Now this article will follow the same format but for ranking the 11 Away kits for MLR2025. Generally speaking, the away kits feel like the weaker selection, but that could be because I tend to find white jerseys plain and a little lazy, most of the time. We have five away jerseys that are primarily white, and it’s been difficult to a) tell them all apart and b) rank them. As with NARDB’s Home kit rankings, it’s impossible that everyone will agree with the Away kit rankings completely. This is just to offer my opinion. If you disagree, please let me know your favourites in the comments section below, but please keep things civil. We are all rugby and MLR fans, and ‘Kitmas’ is always the major event of the off-season, kick-starting the hype for the upcoming season. Here are my rankings of MLR’s 2025 away kits, followed by an explanation of each ranking. A reminder that each row is also ranked left to right:

Excellent – San Diego Legion

Okay, but just hear me out. The Legion’s 2025 home kit really grew on me, and I’d always preferred the Legion away of the two of them. Perhaps because it looks very similar to a Rugby Canada kit, right down to the Macron logo! The shading stands out better on the red, and the ‘fulmina’ (lightning bolts used in the insignia of some units of the Roman Army, such as Legions) remain. the San Diego Legion claim that the pattern is based on ‘Dazzle Camo’ used on warships, tying the kit in with the close relationship that San Diego has with the US Navy. I’ll let you decide which explanation is better, or if both things can be true. This fits with the Legion’s traditional red and is still a really clean look. The white edges and collar are a nice touch but similar to my comment on their home kit, what if they were black? As mentioned already, the away kits seem weaker in general than the home kits for 2025, but the Legion’s Away is my personal favourite.

Excellent – Chicago Hounds

A double-Excellent for the Chicago Hounds 2025 kits! The Hounds, unlike the Legion, have always had white as a part of their brand, and the collar, sides, bottom edge, and houndstooth sleeves really pops on that beautiful green. I was initially puzzled by the darker design across the body of the jersey, but the Hounds posted a great, informative little video explaining the design:

The design is based on the patterns in the water that are made when the Chicago River is dyed green for St. Patrick’s Day, an iconic feature of the City of Chicago. Adjusted to the darker Hounds green, the simple, effective link to their city makes the Chicago Hounds 2025 away kit an excellent jersey.

Great – Utah Warriors

The Utah Warriors away kit is a colour-swapped version of their home, which NARDB also ranked as ‘Great’. The black parts of the home kit become red on the away, with the outlines and edges now white. I still think this jersey really works and if anything, the jersey sponsor actually fits in better on the away kit. The 4 lines representing the Utah Warriors’ core values of Community, Family, Tradition, and Respect still look great in white, stopping behind the crest again. Those core values also look to be written around the edges of the sleeves, which wasn’t obvious on the home jersey but is a great addition. although I prefer the Warriors’ home kit of the two, and don’t think the away kit is quite as good as San Diego or Chicago, it’s still a bold jersey. If they go with red shorts and white socks, it could look fantastic on the field.

Great – Miami Sharks

If you thought the Miami Sharks home kit was unique, take a look at this. the black works great with the vibrant hot pink, the simple shark fin design throughout works perfectly with the brand, outlined with a slightly different shade of pink to add layers. It’s madness. An absolutely bonkers design, and it’s exactly the kind of thing I hoped for out of Miami. Someone (who shall remain nameless) said that it looked a little like a kid’s pajamas which, is a fair point that took a while for me to unsee, but I love this thing. The white Macron logo with the subtle outline fits really well with the sponsor that is the right size, and the blue of the crest still sits on top of the main design. Unlike the Utah Warriors just before this, the Miami Sharks’ away kit is a truly unique jersey that I hope to see plenty of in the crowds. Only Miami could go for a kit like this, and I’m glad they have.

Great – Old Glory DC

At the start of this article I mentioned that generally speaking, I’m not a fan of white away kits. The Old Glory DC away kit for 2025 is the exception to this rule. Perhaps it’s because I keep seeing the little stars and thinking they’re maple leafs which, like the San Diego Legion, make me think it could be a Rugby Canada jersey. Perhaps it’s because the navy and red edges, coupled with the white body and dark Macron logo look incredible similar to the Rugby Canada away jersey from 2024. The busy-ness of all the stars don’t alter the colour on the Old Glory DC away kit like they do with the Home kit, and the edges, while very similar to Canada’s 2024 away, look sharp. It still has a bit of ‘polo shirt’ about it, however. It’s been a while since the Flags had a white away kit and this is a solid entry, my preferred Old Glory DC jersey for 2025.

Solid – Seattle Seawolves

The Seattle Seawolves’ home jersey was one of NARDB’s top three for 2025, but the away kit finds itself in the middle of the pack. This jersey is straddling the line between bland white away kit and something unique, but definitely leans more towards the latter. The Seawolves explained the unique design as a nod to the ‘Crashing Waves’ of the Pacific Ocean and, now that I know what they were going for, I see it. The colour of the jersey sponsor has changed to navy to fit with the accents throughout which look fantastic, and that’s about it. It’s a relatively simple design that fits with the Seawolves away kits of recent years and, as is typical for a Seattle Seawolves kit, contains details tying it to the PNW and Washington State.

Solid – New England Free Jacks

The New England Free Jacks aren’t used to having their kits below the first or second tier of my rankings, but there’s a first time for everything. I can’t quite put my finger on why the Free Jacks 2025 ‘Member’ (away) jersey doesn’t speak to me in the same way as previous years, or even the 2025 ‘Club’ (home) kit. Perhaps it’s because the thicker hoops just end half way down, turning into a block of plain red. If they continued the hoops I think it would look better, but then it would look too similar to their home kit. On one hand the first top half of this jersey looks phenomenal, the navy Macron logo on the white is great, and the sponsor is un-invasive in the centre. On the other, that big patch of plain red doesn’t sit well with me. This isn’t to say that it’s anything remotely close to a bad jersey, It’s solid and the white collar on the navy shoulders is gorgeous, it’s just not quite at the regular high standard of Free Jacks jerseys.

Fine – Anthem RC

For their 2025 away kit, Anthem RC didn’t change much from their home kit. The ‘rising stars’ design stays in the background but in white, with the blue being relegated to the accents on the sleeves and around the neck. The team crest and Macron logo stay the same colour, but don’t seem to work as well against the white as they do against the blue of their home kit. The blue pops around the collar more than on the sleeves, and I can’t help wondering what the kit would look like if the logos shared that same shade of blue or better still, the away kit was a complete colour swap of the home with blue logos on a gold jersey. THAT I would like to see. In essence, the Anthem away kit is just a white version of their home kit, which is a bit boring. We are beginning to enter the territory of bland white alternate kits.

Fine – NOLA Gold

A break with tradition from the NOLA Gold for their 2025 away kit, that has just missed the mark. As one comment I saw online put it: ‘it looks like a golf shirt you’d see on the rack at Goodwill’, and it’s hard to argue against that. This kit may work if NOLA go with purple shorts and/or socks, but any other colour feels like it’d be a mish mash. The NOLA away kit was so close to being in the ‘Meh’ category, but after taking another look, it doesn’t quite deserve that. The Gold tried something different while maintaining the Mardi Gras colours that look fantastic in previous kits such as their 2024 Away jersey. The jersey sponsor fits really well in that green band, and the white actually works really well with the gold logos, seams, and collar (which are actually, obviously gold, unlike the Houston SaberCats…). From the white line under the jersey sponsor up, this is a good looking kit but the large purple section, while a unique colour, just doesn’t look right, similar to the plain red section in the Free Jacks away kit. The Gold made a bold decision in going for something different, and they were close to nailing it but as I stated at the start of this section, they just missed the mark.

Meh – Rugby FC LA

Unfortunately for Rugby FC LA fans, their away kit ranks even lower than their home kit for 2025. The seams and sides change to the light blue seem on the home kit, while the team and Macron logos stay dark blue which actually looks quite good in the chest. The yellow collar and sleeve edges worked better on the home kit, as the blue and yellow looked like a beach, or which LA has some famous ones, of course. The strange dots remain and the team have not given any reasons behind this choice. Unlike the home kit which looked just like TV static, the dots on this away kit start random around the shoulders, but seem to form vague lines further down the kit, before fading completely. At least it’s not complete copy of the home kit but in white, it is however a pretty bland effort. I mentioned this for RFCLA’s home kit, but I was really hoping for a bit more purple like their 2024 City Jersey, which I think was their best kit to date.

Meh – Houston SaberCats

Speaking of boring white recolourings of home kits, the Houston SaberCats. The stripe at the bottom, Macron logo, and neck line have changed from yellow to black, but otherwise this kit is almost identical to the home kit, but in white. Some points for the subtle SaberCat logo pattern as the background, but there is still the baffling decision not to include a crest (again, after announcing a ‘new’ logo, why would you not use it?), which subtracts a lot of points. At least the Houston home kit was their classic black and yellow (maybe gold? It doesn’t look like it…), but white has never been a kit colour for the SaberCats, and is a boring choice for a new colour to try. What happened to the yellow? That was unique and usually a strong kit. I keep mentioning this almost unnoticeable ‘rebrand’ that the SaberCats announced, stating that they were ‘entering their gold era’ (Hello, NOLA?), but the gold that is used still looks yellow, and there’s barely any of it on either kit. The SaberCats may finish top of the league in the regular season again in 2025, but unfortunately, their kits are very disappointing. It’s a double ‘Meh’ for the Houston SaberCats kits in 2025.

That concludes NARDB’s rankings for Major League Rugby’s Away kits for the 2025 Season. As with the Home Kit rankings, I don’t expect everyone to agree with me completely. There will be people that disagree with my rankings of the Legion, New England, Miami, NOLA, etc. but that is part of the fun of ‘Kitmas’, it generates debate and begins the build the hype for the upcoming season, which is what this article is hoping to generate. Please let me know in the comments below or on social media what you think of my rankings, what you agree with, or what you disagree with, and why!

You can find NARDB and James on social media at @MLRStats on Instagram and Threads, at @JamDelay or @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay and @NARDB on Bluesky. Additionally, now that all jerseys are available to pre-order, be sure to visit shopmlr.com and use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off your order!

MLR Player Movement Summary: December 2-8, 2024

NARDatabase

James Deeley

Faint jingle bells can be heard in the distance, the elves are hard at work, and Mariah Carey is almost completely thawed out for the holidays. Major League Rugby teams are staying busy as we move into December, with a bumper week around the league that included the unveiling of all home and away kits for the 2025 season! NARDB’s ranking of the 2025 home kits can be found here, and the away kit ranking will be coming later this week. This article, however, will focus on the player announcements from last week, December 2nd to December 8th, 2024. It will add a bit more context and detail to each move, giving fans a better understanding of the roles these players may play in 2025, and keeping them up to date on all the roster changes. The summary graphic just about stretches onto two pages, and as always here is page one:

Player Moves Around MLR: December 2-8, 2024 (1 of 2)
Returnees and Re-Signings

As you can see from the first page of the summary graphic above, the majority of last week’s player announcements were players returning to their 2024 teams. There were TWENTY re-signings announced last week across four teams, including 7 for Old Glory DC and 6 for Rugby FC LA.

Old Glory DC began their roster announcements for 2025 on December 1st, following an advent calendar type of reveal. Last week, they announced seven returning forwards from their 2024 pack. Beginning in the front row, the Flags announced the return of KoiKoi Nelligan, Martin Vaca, and Cali Martinez. A Washington DC native, KoiKoi Nelligan was drafted 34th overall by the San Diego Legion in 2022 out of the Army West Point rugby program, and traded to Old Glory shortly after in exchange for DC’s 1st Rd pick in 2023 (used to select James Rivers 10th overall). Nelligan has earned 15 MLR appearances for DC since 2023, including 13 in 2024 where he scored his first two MLR tries and set career highs across the board. Also returning at hooker is former Argentinian U20 player Martin Vaca, who scored 5 tries in 11 games (9 starts) in his debut MLR season in 2024, completing 114 tackles and amassing over 300m gained. Finally for the front row, the Flags confirmed the return of newly capped Canadian international prop Cali Martinez. Earning his test debut for Canada in a win over Romania in July, Martinez has earned 27 appearances since 2023, and was the highest drafted Canadian in MLR history when he was selected 3rd overall out of the University of British Columbia.

Moving into the second row, DC will have Tevita Naqali and Bill Whiteside returning next year. A MLR and Old Glory DC veteran, Fijian lock Naqali has scored 7 tries in his 54 appearances (51 starts) for DC since 2020, and is US-eligible through residency. He has over 550 tackles completed and 2,359m gained in posession in his career. 2022 Draftee Billy Whiteside also returns. Whiteside was selected 29th overall out of Lindenwood by New York, but did not feature in an MLR game for the Ironworkers. Following their withdrawal he joined Old Glory DC, earning his MLR debut and 12 appearances in 2024, including 4 starts and over 50 tackles. In the back row, Collin Grosse and Brady Daniel are both back for the Flags in 2025. Brady Daniel, the brother of DC standout and USA Eagle Cory, has 10 MLR appearances for Old Glory since 2022 including 7 in 2024 where he earned his first two starts and scored his first MLR try. Grosse, like Nelligan, is an Army West Poitn Alum and was drafted 15th overall by Old Glory DC in 2022. He’s scored 3 tries in 31 games (18 starts) across two seasons so far, completing an impressive 279 tackles.

Player Moves Around MLR: December 2-8, 2024 (2 of 2)

Moving away from Old Glory DC to Rugby FC LA, who began announcing their 2025 roster back in November. RFCLA announced 6 returnees of their own, all in the back line with 5 of them deemed domestic players. Rory van Vugt will return for a second year with LA and 4th year in MLR after playing with Rugby ATL between 2020-2021 before joining the Highlanders. Kiwi wing/fullback van Vugt has 5 tries and 33pts in 25 MLR games (24 starts) in his career, and scored a career high 16pts for RFCLA in 2024. Also returning on the wing is English born Canadian raised draftee Jack Shaw. Shaw was selected 22nd overall out of Bishop’s University by Rugby ATL in 2022, and followed the franchise to LA after representing the RATLers in 2023. Shaw has scored 8 tries in 24 games (22 starts) in his career, recording over 1,000m gained already.
Moving to the centre, another Canadian draftee returns in the form of Seth Purdey. A schoolmate of Shaw’s at Shawnigan Lake School in British Columbia, Purdey attended UC-Berkeley where he was drafted 4th Overall in 2022, also by Rugby ATL. Purdey scored his first MLR try for LA in 2024, earning 10 of his 17 MLR appearances and 6 of his 8 starts. RFCLA will also have newly US-eligible Irish centre Will Leonard returning for 2025. A MLR veteran, Leonard has 70 MLR appearances since 2019 between New York (2019-2021), Atlanta (2022-2023), and LA (2024), starting 65 times and scoring 13 tries. Leonard qualified for domestic status on residency, and has amassed just shy of 4,000m gained in his MLR career to date.
From the centres to the half-backs, RFCLA announced the return of US-born Australian scrum-half Tasman Smith for his 3rd season in MLR. Born in New York, Smith played with the LA Giltinis in 2022 before spending 2023 in the Shute Shield while finishing his studies at the University of Sydney. he returned to LA in 2024 and has earned 30 MLR appearances in his career to date, scoring 2 tries and completing over 120 tackles including a high of 77 in 2024. At fly-half, RFCLA have MLR Draftee Matt Anticev returning for his sophomore season. the USA national team are in desperate need of the next fly-half, so the pressure is on the Dartmouth alum and 6th overall pick from 2023. Another ATL pick, Anticev earned 6 appearances and 2 starts for RFCLA in his rookie season in 2024.

Staying in the Western Conference but moving to Texas, the Houston SaberCats continue their steady announcements for their 2025 roster. MLR veteran LaRome White will return for his 2nd season with the ‘Cats in 2025, his EIGHTH in the league. A 2018 MLR Champion with the Seattle Seawolves, White has 65 appearances under his belt between Seattle (2018), the Austin Gilgronis (2019-2022), the Chicago Hounds (2023), and the SaberCats (2024). He’s completed over 250 tackles in his career and has over 900m gained as a prop. Also returning to the Houston front row is SaberCats veteran Valdemar Lee-Lo. With the exception of 2022 that he missed due to injury, Lee-Lo has represented Houston in every season since 2020, earning 17 appearances to date and 7 starts. On the subject of injury, South African wing/fullback Gerrie Labuschagne will return for the ‘Cats after missing out on the entire 2024 season. Labuschagne scored 5 tries and 30pts in his 24 games (21 starts) between 2022-2024 and recorded over 600m gained in both seasons he featured for the SaberCats. Joining Labuschagne on the wing is Jeremy Misailegalu. A teammate of LaRome White with the Seattle Seawolves for their 2018 Shield winning season, ‘Missile‘ has 9 tries in 50 MLR appearances between Seattle (2018), the Utah Warriors (2019), Rugby ATL (2020-2021), and Houston (2024). He has over 250 tackles completed on the wing, and over 1,800m gained in his career.

Staying in the south but moving to the Eastern Conference, the Miami Sharks, like Houston, continue their steady announcements for 2025 with a further 3 returnees. USA Sevens man Chase Schor-Haskin returns for a second season in Miami after earning 10 appearances for them in their inaugural season. Schor-Haskin was drafted 6th overall in 2021 by New York before being traded to the NOLA Gold, representing them in 2022. He spent 2022-2023 in the USA Sevens program, returning to the league in 2024. The Sharks also announced a pair of depth pieces for their sophomore season in American Samoan prop Setu Vole and South African centre Josh McAdam. Raised in Hawaii, Vole was drafted 27th overall by the Sharks in 2023 out of Lindenwood, earning his MLR debut in 2024. US-eligible Saffa Josh McAdam attended Davenport University and trained with the Chicago Hounds in 2023 before playing with the USA Hawks later that year. He earned 4 appearances for the Sharks off the bench during their inaugural season.

Intra-League Moves

If you couldn’t already tell, the 20 re-signings and returnees took up a lot of the oxygen last week, but they weren’t the only moves. A handful of players are returning to MLR in 2025, but they’ll be wearing a different kit. This includes probably the biggest move of the week, with which we’ll start. Rugby FC LA announced the signing of 2021 MLR Champion, and 2021-2022 back to back MLR Back of the Year Billy Meakes from the Chicago Hounds for 2025. This move might have been jaw-dropping to the average fan, but to the hardcore MLR fanbase (such as those reading this article!), it was predictable. Meakes, who has 7 tries in 57 MLR games since 2021, represented the LA Giltinis between 2021-2022 under head coach Stephen Hoiles and Captain Dave Dennis. Fast forward to 2025, and Hoiles is the RFCLA Director of Rugby/HC, and Dave Dennis is Assistant Coach. More than that, Meakes (a new father) is an LA resident and even has a business there, Boulevard. Although an obvious move, this is a huge signing for RFCLA and Meakes, who will look to add to his 4,704m gained and 546 tackles back on the west coast.

In addition to the huge signing of Billy Meakes by Rugby FC LA, last week we learned who three more Dallas Jackals would be representing in 2025. The Houston SaberCats announced the signing of Woodlands, TX native Evan Conlon after selecting him 19th in the Dallas Jackals Dispersal Draft. Somewhat ironically, Conlon’s only appearance for the Jackals was off the bench in the Western Conference Semifinal, where Dallas stunned the 14-2 Houston SaberCats. With Conlon’s signing, the SaberCats have now signed all their picks from the dispersal draft. On that point, the Miami Sharks also complete the signings of their Dispersal Draft picks after confirming the signing of Marques Fuala’au having picked him 3rd. Fuala’au was drafted 3rd overall by the Dallas Jackals in 2023 and earned 16 appearances (3 starts) with the team in 2024, scoring 1 try and completing over 80 tackles. The Seattle Seawolves also confirmed the signing of one of their Dispersal Draft selections, newly capped Canadian international scrum-half Brock Gallagher. Selected 21st, Gallagher earned 15 appearances for the Jackals in 2024 including in the Western Conference Final against his new side, the Seattle Seawolves. Just before the 2024 playoffs, Alberta native Gallagher earned his test debut for Canada off the bench against Scotland. He earned his first test start last month against Romania.

New Additions and Retirements

Wrapping up this week’s MLR Roster Moves Summary, arguably the busiest team of last week, Rugby FC LA, announced the addition of Californian lock Mikaea Wynyard for 2025. A San Jose native, Wynyard has spent the last two years in the La Rochelle system in France, playing with their Espoirs team and being mentored by the likes of Australian Rugby World Cup Captain Will Skelton. Wynyard is no stranger to Major League Rugby as he was signed to a development contract by the New England Free Jacks for the 2022 season, but he didn’t feature for the MLR side.

At the other end of their career is another 2024 Dallas Jackal, Mitch Richardson. A fan favourite in Toronto with the Arrows, Richardson represented Canada as recently as last month, but called time on his professional career last week at the age of 28. Richardson scored 11 tries in 52 MLR games (43 starts), representing the Toronto Arrows (2019-2023) and Dallas Jackals (2024), he gained 2,122m in posession and completed 338 tackles. Richardson experienced two teams withdraw in as any seasons, but it is unclear if this had any bearing on his decision to retire.

That concludes this week’s summary of roster moves from last week. We’ve heard from all but one team so far, but maybe this week Anthem RC will begin their announcements. Which was the biggest move of the week for you? And are you happy with your team’s moves so far? Stay tuned for NARDB’s ranking of the 2025 Away kits coming later next week, and these summary articles released every Monday.

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