Tag: Rugby FC LA

Major League Rugby Releases Full Schedule for 8th Season in 2025

NARDatabase

James Deeley

On November 19th, a gloomy Tuesday deep in the off-season, Major League Rugby announced it’s full slate of regular season games for it’s upcoming 2025 season that kicks off on February 15th, 2025. With it, there were a number of tidbits surrounding venues for 2025, and as with almost everything when it comes to Major League Rugby, it was not without it’s share of controversy.

For those of you who prefer to listen than to read, below is a video I made (NARStats on Youtube) that basically summarises this article. Give it a watch and let me know what you think!

The Facts

Let’s start with the facts. The 2025 Major League rugby season will begin on Saturday February 15th, 2025 with a 88 game regular season spread over the 17 weeks to June 8th, 2025. From there, the Post-Season will begin with the Conference Semifinals, Conference Finals, and finally the 2025 Championship Game to finish a 95 game season. The beginning of the season is a few weeks earlier than last year, and the regular season is squeezed from 18 weeks to 17 to ensure that the season is finished by the July test window that wreaked havoc on the post-season in 2024. This is a good thing. The 2-week break between regular season and playoffs in 2024 stopped all the momentum that a great regular season generated, and caused a lot of the more casual fans to forget that the MLR season hadn’t actually finished yet.

The season will kick-off with the Miami Sharks playing host to Old Glory DC in an Eastern Conference clash, the first of 3 games on February 15th that unfortunately all have some overlap with one another. The Utah Warriors pulled the short straw and have to sit through a week 1 bye. This is pretty silly on the surface, but with only 11 teams in the competition this year there was always going to be an odd one out.

The reigning Champion New England Free Jacks start their 2nd title defence in a row on the road against Rugby FC LA, and play 5 of their first 6 games on the road. This may be because of the climate in Massachusetts in February/March, similar to how the Toronto Arrows would always start their season with a huge number of road games, although the Chicago Hounds in Illinois play 3 games at home in their first 5 games in a similar climate. Round 1 treats us to a classic MLR rivalry when the San Diego Legion host the Seattle Seawolves on February 16th, as well as the Cats v Dogs game, when the Chicago Hounds travel to Texas to face the Houston SaberCats.

Venue Changes

The release of the 2025 schedule brought with it a bit of news regarding venues for 2025. In typical MLR fashion, the schedule released with venues listed, spoiling a few surprises for eagle-eyed fans. Firstly, that all of the San Diego Legion’s home games were listed as TBD suggesting a move away from the venue of the 2024 Championship Game, Snapdragon Stadium. Sure enough, a few hours after the schedule was released, Legion season ticket members received an email confirming the rumour that the Legion were returning to Torero Stadium, their home from 2018-2021 and the venue for the 2018 & 2019 MLR Finals. For Legion fans, they had been waiting for Snapdragon to be completed and were treated to a truly world-class venue, only to take a step back to a much smaller, older venue. However, this will no doubt help the team save on costs, and a large contributing factor to moving back to Torero was to ensure good time slots for Legion games that just weren’t available at Snapdragon.

Source: San Diego Legion

Staying in California, mere minutes after all teams announced the schedule and the buzz was at it’s max, Rugby FC LA slipped in the news that they were moving from Dignity Health Sports Park to the 2,145 seater Wallis Annenberg Stadium within UCLA, which will host 6 of RFCLA’s 8 home games in 2025. The team also announced that there were two ‘marquee’ matches with venues still to be announced, indicating a larger venue may be hosting their season opener against the New England Free Jacks, and the Cali Cup clash with the San Diego Legion. Also included in LA’s announcment was the news that they would begin to reveal their roster for 2025 on Monday, November 25th, so keep an eye on NARDB’s social media and summary articles over the next few weeks!

RFCLA & the San Diego Legion appear to be the only teams relocating for the entire season, but Anthem RC appear to be playing a number of games at the Mecklenberg County Sportsplex in Matthews, NC. The first of which is to support the Carolina Ruggerfest. Pro teams supporting local rugby, you love to see it! Additionally, the Utah Warriors will be returning to America First Field towards the end of the season, likely for another ‘Warriorsfest’ party that reported an attendance of over 10,000 for their final game of 2024.

Mid-week Matches and Player Welfare

As mentioned in the introduction, the 2025 regular season has been squeezed from 18 weeks to 17. As a result, a small number of the 88 games will be played during the week on Mondays, Tuesdays, or Wednesdays. In 2025 there will be 7 games played mid-week. This blurs the lines of when one round of matches starts and another begins, and is a bit of a shift from a league that has typically only had one or two matches a season played on a “school night”.

Of the 11 teams competing in MLR in 2025, only the Miami Sharks will avoid a mid-week game. The New England Free Jacks, Anthem RC, San Diego Legion, NOLA Gold, Houston SaberCats and Old Glory DC will play in one each, while Rugby FC LA, the Utah Warriors, Seattle Seawolves, and Chicago Hounds will play in two each. From a fan perspective, this is not ideal. In general, teams have made good progress in making a day out of attending a game and at weekends. For example the Free Jacks turn every home game into a different themed festival. The majority of fans obviously don’t have to worry about work or school on Friday/Saturday/Sunday, can bring kids along, etc. For these mid-week games, fans will get home from work already tired and have to head straight out into the heavier traffic to get to games. In general, we can expect to see lower attendances for these games. Judging by the reaction on social media, many fans are confused as to why MLR have shifted to mid-week games at all.

Finally, to the controversy surrounding these midweek games and player welfare. For all of the games held during the week, teams will often be playing a second game that weekend. For example, in Round 11 Anthem RC host the Seattle Seawolves on Wednesday, April 23rd, before flying to Miami to face the Sharks on April 27th, just 4 days later with travel. Similarly, the Seawolves will finish their game against Anthem, only to fly to New Orleans to face the Gold on the same turnaround. Rugby FC LA have it really tough that same week, facing the New England Free Jacks on Tuesday, April 22nd only to then fly the roughly 2,500 miles back to LA to host the San Diego Legion on the Saturday. The Legion who only have to travel the roughly 100 miles down the I-405. Unsurprisingly, playing so many high intensity, professional games has implications for Player Welfare, and the United States Rugby Players Association (USRPA) & Major League Rugby Players’ Association (MLRPA) jumped on this. Here is their statement:

Source: United States Rugby Players Association

At the most basic level, without ensuring the safety of the players, they will stop playing in MLR and without players, Major League Rugby cannot hope to grow. With teams only getting 4 days between games, and in many cases needing to travel large distances to make their next games, to claim this is ‘at least four “clear days”‘ rest is a tough sell. The fact that the league rolled out this schedule without consulting the PA is, unfortunately, not a huge surprise to anyone who has been following the league for some time. I encourage everyone reading this article to check out the USRPA’s site at rugbyunionnow.com.

To conclude, we have a kick-off date for the 2025 MLR season, and a full 88 game regular season that is going to be excellent quality professional rugby games that will continue rivalries that have been forged over past seasons, and maybe even generate some new ones. It’s fantastic news that MLR has avoided the July test window to allow the season to run uninterrupted, but the league needs to be careful not to jeopardise player welfare with a compressed schedule.

Thank you very much for reading, what’re your thoughts on the schedule and mid-week games? Did you notice the venue changes? For more news and stats around Major League Rugby, be sure to follow James and NARDB on social media: @MLRStats on Instagram & Threads, and either @JamDelay or @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, or @JamDelay/@NARDB on Bluesky.

MLR Player Move Summary: November 11-17, 2024

NARDatabase

James Deeley

Could Player announcements be starting to slow down as we plod towards US Thanksgiving? for the first time in three weeks the Player Move summary is “only” two pages, and with the San Diego Legion seemingly finished their roster announcement, the tide may be starting to let up! As with every week, this article will provide more context and detail around all of last week’s moves, helping MLR fans to stay on top of the latest signings from their team and from around the league. As always, here is the first page of this week’s summary:

Summary of MLR Player Moves: November 11-17, 2024 (1 of 2)

In total last week, there were 19 re-signings from 5 different teams, 4 inter-league moves, 4 new signings, 2 departures and a trade. Just like in past summaries, we’ll start with the re-signings which make up the bulk of last week’s announcements.

Re-Signings

The San Diego Legion, who have been announcing their entire roster from November 1st to 15th, completed their announcements with another 6 returnees from last years’ squad. Wingers James Vaifale, Ryan James, and Tomas Aoake all return, as do centres Marcel Brache & Tiaan Loots, as well as utility back Ethan Grayson. Vaifale has 32 MLR caps since 2020, but only earned 3 appearances for the Legion in 2024, starting twice and scoring 2 tries, however. A 2021 MLR Champion with the LA Giltinis, Ryan James earned half of his career MLR starts for the Legion last season, also setting career highs in Meters Gained (821m) and tackles made (83). Tomas Aoake returns for the 2nd year of a 3yr deal that will see him stay with the Legion through 2026, and has scored 18 tries in 37 games (all starts). He passed 250 career tackles and 2,500m gained in 2024. Moving to the centre, veteran MLR-er Marcel Brache, who turned 37 in October, will return for a 4th season in the league and 3rd with San Diego. Brache has scored 5 tries in 41 games (39 starts) since his first season with the Austin Gilgronis in 2022. He passed 250 tackles and 2,000m gained in 2024. Tiaan Loots is also back for his 5th season with the Legion, having scored 14 tries in his 41 games (37 starts) since 2020, amassing over 3,200m gained and over 360 tackles. Englishman Ethan Grayson, the son of Rugby World Cup winner Paul Grayson, returns for a 2nd season with the Legion. Grayson can play across the back line and is currently playing in the 10 shirt for the Newcastle Falcons in the Premiership. He scored 2 tries in 9 games (6 starts) for the Legion in 2024.

Moving east from the coast of California to the mountains of Utah, the Warriors announced another 4 familiar faces returning for their 2025 campaign. The 4 forwards are Warriors veterans Saia ‘Uhila, Bailey Wilson, Angus MacLellan, and Matt Jensen. Two of these, MacLellan and ‘Uhila, have represented the Warriors since 2018 and are returning for their eighth seasons in 2025. They’re two of the most capped players in league history, ‘Uhila with 82 appearances (54 starts), scoring 7 tries and completing over 500 tackles, and MacLellan with 92 appearances, tied for 3rd all-time with Seattle scrum-half JP Smith. MacLellan also has over 500 tackles completed and 58 starts, with his 3 tries all coming before 2020. The other returners announced last week, Matt Jensen and Club Captain Bailey Wilson, both return for a 5th season with the Warriors. Wilson has represented the Warriors continuously since 2020, scoring 7 tries in his 66 games (57 starts), amassing just over 2000m gained and completing a huge 660 tackles. Jensen played with the Warriors between 2018-2021 before stepping away, returning in 2024. He’s earned 54 appearances (50 starts), scoring 4 tries. He will likely pass 500 tackles made in 2025.

Continuing our journey east into Texas, the Houston SaberCats also announced 4 returning players from their 14-2 2024 season. Stand-out scrumhalf André Warner is back after being the only SaberCat named to the 2024 All-MLR First XV, scoring 8 tries in 15 games and completing almost 120 tackles (as a scrumhalf!). Points machine AJ Alatimu returns for a 2nd season in Houston after 3 in Seattle. Alatimu hasn’t scored a try, but has 406pts in his 56 games (52 starts) since 2021 and is currently MLR’s 3rd highest scorer all-time but will likely move to 2nd in 2025, passing Legion legend Joe Pietersen on 420pts. A SaberCats stand out in the pack will also return in the form of Ronan Murphy, the former American Raptor has 20 MLR appearances since 2022 and appeared in all 17 games for Houston in 2024, starting 15 times, scoring 6 tries and completing a huge 172 tackles. Murphy was unlucky to miss out on a Eagles call up for their 2024 tours, and is surely a lock for an international debut if he has another season like 2024. Finally for the Texas team, English centre Sam Hill is back after earning 8 appearances (all starts) in his debut MLR season.

Summary of MLR Player Moves: November 11-17, 2024 (2 of 2)

Reaching the east coast, the Miami Sharks keep sprinkling in re-signing announcements, confirming the return of prop Reinaldo Piussi and fly-half/fullback Shane O’Leary. At 6’4 and over 280lbs, Uruguayan international Piussi is a formidable presence in the Sharks scrum, scoring 1 try in his 8 appearances (7 starts) during Miami’s inaugural season. Canada-capped Irishman Shane O’Leary has 63pts in MLR since 2023, scoring his only MLR try for the Sharks, earning 5 appearances (all starts).

Finishing our cross-country journey by moving up the east coast to Boston, the New England Free Jacks announced another trio of returnees from their 2024 Championship squad, including a loanee to the Miami Sharks. Tongan prop Tevita Sole has earned 25 MLR caps since 2022 (7 starts), spending 2022-2023 with the Free Jacks before being loaned to the Sharks for the 2024 season, where he earned 6 appearances. He returned to the Free Jacks for the playoffs and came off the bench in the 2024 Championship game, his only appearance for New England in 2024. Also returning in red, white, and blue is Canadian eligible back row Piers von Dadelszen who scored 2 tries in 17 games (11 starts) and completed over 120 tackles, starting all 3 Free Jacks playoff games in 2024, and Fijian/English scrumhalf Cam Nordli-Kelemeti who started 8 of his 14 games for New England in 2024.

Intra-League Moves & New Signings

There’s a steady trickle of Dallas Jackals players finding new homes for 2025, which is excellent to see. The Houston SaberCats confirmed the signing of fearsome runner Sam Tuifua after selecting him 8th. Tuifua scored 6 tries in 10 games (all starts), racking up over 950m gained in possession. The busiest team for the 2nd week in a row was the San Diego Legion, who announced the first of two blockbusters early last week when they signed MLR Draftee and USA Eagle #543, Tavite Lopeti. Lopeti was drafted 3rd overall by the Seawolves out of St. Mary’s College in 2021 and was named as MLR’s Rookie of the Year for the 2022 season. Lopeti has scored 8 tries in 44 games for Seattle (32 starts), completing almost 300 tackles and amassing over 2,100m gained. He and the Seawolves have finished as MLR runners-up twice (2022 & 2024), and although he’s a California native, I’m sure Seattle fans aren’t thrilled that he’s joining their biggest rival. The Legion also announced the addition of US-eligible Welsh fullback/fly-half Steffan Crimp. Crimp, a former Legion U23 player who’s mother was born and raised in San Diego, joined Anthem RC late in 2024, making 4 appearances (3 starts). The second intra-league blockbuster came right at the end of last week, when the NOLA Gold announced the signing of veteran Utah Warriors fullback Caleb Makene for 2025. Makene was a stand-out during his 3 seasons with Utah, scoring 12 tries and 98pts across 44 games (all starts) and averaging over 1,100m gained per season. He was one of the many many departures announced by the Warriors in September, and probably one of the most high-profile players.

Source: @nolagoldrugby on Instagram

Moving on to new faces entering MLR for the first time, the San Diego Legion announced the signing of Bond University stand-out Rhian Stowers for 2025. the 2024 Slipper Trophy recipient has played almost every format of rugby imaginable, and was a regular on Bond’s 7s team. Additionally, the Legion picked up another former Melbourne Rebel in Australian utility back Nick Jooste. the former Western Force player was a regular in the Rebels’ Super Rugby Lineups, and will join fellow Rebel Brad Wilkin in San Diego. The Legion were not the only team shopping around Super Rugby, however. The reigning Champs announced that Wallabies capped hooker Connal McInerney will join the Free Jacks from the Brumbies, where he won a Super Rugby AU title in 2020, and the NOLA Gold announced the signing of NZ-born centre Nikolai Foliaki, joining from the Western Force where he had played since 2023. Foliaki is internationally capped for Tonga, representing them in the 2024 Pacific Nations Cup.

Departures & Trades

On the subject of Super Rugby, the top flight of rugby in Australia & New Zealand began announcing their rosters last week, and both the Utah Warriors and NOLA Gold will be wishing they hadn’t. Both Utah & NOLA lost stand-out players to the Highlanders for their 2025 Super Rugby Season. The Utah Warriors lost Player of the Season candidate Michael Manson, who was named to the Highlanders squad after scoring 14 tries in 12 games for the Warriors in 2024, racking up 1,491m gained. The NOLA Gold lost another prolific try scorer in Taniela Filimone who, although not named to the Highlanders squad, is believed to have been included in the wider training squad. Filimone amassed 1,071m gained in possession, scoring 11 tries in 17 games (all starts) for the Gold. Both Manson & Filimone were under contract for the 2025 season, so this is a definite both to both teams and fanbases.

Finishing up with the only trade of the week, on November 13th the Houston SaberCats acquired Brazilian international prop and 2022 MLR Champion Wilton Rebolo from Rugby FC LA in exchange for their 1st Rd Draft Pick in 2025. This is a valuable pick to give away but Rebolo is a quality player. He is the first Brazilian to play in MLR and, when he joined the Western Force for their 2023 season, became the first Brazilian to sign for a Super Rugby team. Rebolo earned 27 appearances for New York between 2021-2022, including a high of 15 in their Shield-winning 2022 season, and made 7 appearances for RFCLA in their inaugural season in 2024. As mentioned, a first round pick is a valuable asset to trade away, but if the SaberCats are looking to win now, then at the very least this pick will be lower in the first round, Houston will be hoping 11th. RFCLA now have two first round picks in 2025, so depending on their exact position, we could see one (or both) of these moving as the draft approaches in August.

Source: MLR Trade Wire

That concludes this week’s summary of last week’s player moves around MLR. The purpose of these articles are to add context and some more detail to all the movement around Major League Rugby, allowing fans to stay up to date with every player signing in one easy-to-digest article. These articles are released every Monday along with posts on all of NARDB Social Media. Please visit @MLRStats on Instagram or Threads, or either @JamDelay or @NARugbyDB on Twitter/x and Bluesky.

As we’re edging closer to the holidays, remember to visit shopmlr.com and pick up some swag in the end-of-season sales, and remember to use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off your order!

The Most Carded Active Teams in MLR

NARDatabase

James Deeley

Last week, NARDB posted a graphic and article analysing the overall number of cards shown per Major League Rugby season, identifying trends and offering explanations for the reasons behind them. That article can be found here. As promised, this is a continuation of that. We’ll be breaking down the most carded teams in MLR, both all-time and per season, while also highlighting some of the most carded teams and games in Major League Rugby history.

As identified last week, MLR put in place a new Match Official Management Team ahead of the 2024 season. This was a contributing factor to the huge increase in cards handed out this year and this article will focus on the 2024 season above others, as it is (obviously) the season most likely to influence how carding in the 2025 season will unfold.

The below graphic shows how many cards in total each active MLR team has received all time, as well as each team’s Yellow Cards per Game (YCpG) and Red Cards per Game (RCpG) and their most heavily carded seasons:

How often each active MLR team are shown yellow & red cards. Table is sorted by YCpG

There are only two active teams in Major League Rugby that are averaging over 1.0 yellow card per game, and both of those enjoyed their inaugural season in 2024. The Miami Sharks averaged 1.13 YCpG, and Rugby FC LA lead the league in this unenviable category, with a huge 1.38 YCpG. Both Miami and RFCLA are head and shoulders ahead of the rest of the league, with the San Diego Legion sitting third with only 0.75 YCpG. This means that RFCLA average an additional yellow card than the Legion every 2 games, and Miami average an extra yellow every 3 games. In fact, with 3 red cards and a whopping 22 yellow cards for 25 cards total in 16 games, RFCLA‘s inaugural season this year was the most cards a MLR team has ever received in a single season.

The caveat to this is that with the Miami Sharks and RFCLA competing in their first MLR season in 2024, the sample size for these two teams is far lower than most other teams in the league. However, the Sharks and RFCLA were not the only expansion teams in 2024. MLR’s partnership with USA Rugby and World Rugby, Anthem RC, have the same sample size and ARC are sat right in the mid-table on a 0.69 YCpG. Nice. This is level with the 2024 regular season leaders the Houston SaberCats, and the 2024 Champions the New England Free Jacks. Anthem RC received literally half as many yellow cards as RFCLA in as many games. This will not be the record that Rugby FC LA’s players and coaches enjoy, and I’m sure their new coaching team for 2025 will be working hard to not see a repeat of this.

As mentioned in last week’s article, the 2024 Major League Rugby season saw a big jump in the number of both yellow and red cards shown compared to previous seasons. As a result, in addition to the 3 expansion sides, four active MLR teams received a season high in total cards in 2024. The San Diego Legion, NOLA Gold, Seattle Seawolves and Old Glory DC. A fifth team, the Utah Warriors, tied their most carded season with 14 yellows and a red, level with their 2023 season.

The Seattle Seawolves are worth mentioning for a couple of reasons. Firstly and most impressively, they have played the most games of any team in MLR, at 105 in total since 2018 and In that time they have only received 56 yellow cards in total. This is tied with Old Glory DC for the lowest YCpG among active teams, at only 0.53, roughly 1 yellow card every two games. Old Glory DC have received 4 red cards total, however. The Seattle Seawolves, remarkably, have never had a player red carded. They have gone 105 games without seeing a red card, the only other active team in MLR to have never received a red card is the Miami Sharks, who have only played 1 season. 56 yellow cards in 105 games is excellent discipline from the 2x MLR Champions. However, in 2024 they received the 2nd highest number of yellow cards among active teams with 20, and are just the 2nd team in league history to have been shown 20+ cards in a season (behind RFCLA, also in 2024). The Seawolves received 35.7% of every yellow card they’ve ever had in the 2024 season alone.

As mentioned above, Rugby FC LA were the most carded team in Major League Rugby in 2024, setting a new record for the number of cards received by a team in a single season. Despite the jump in cards in 2024, last season did not see the most carded game in MLR history. That honour goes to an infamous game between the Dallas Jackals and the Chicago Hounds in the final round of the 2023 regular season. This match, a nail-biting 28-29 victory for the visiting Hounds, saw a brawl shortly after half time, resulting in five red cards, two for the Jackals and 3 for Chicago. Add this to the 4 yellow cards the Hounds received throughout the match and this becomes the most carded game in MLR history at 9. Unsurprisingly, the 9-card punch-up contributed significantly to Round 18 of the 2023 season becoming the most carded round in MLR history with 13 yellows and 6 reds handed out in total.

Proportion and amounts of Yellow & Red Cards in the Western Conference in 2024

Last week’s article went some way to explaining why (in theory) 2024 saw a noticeable jump in cards. That explanation can be found at the bottom of that article, and centres around MLR’s introduction of a Director of Match Officials, and a Match Official Management Team. As mentioned at the start of this article, the 2024 season, being the most recent, will give us the best idea of how the 2025 season may unfold, so let’s jump into how regularly each team was carded last season.

The above graphic shows the breakdown of cards for the 2024 Western Conference. This includes the Dallas Jackals, who unfortunately will not compete in 2025. Of the 180 yellow cards shown in 2024, 105 were shown to Western Conference teams, that’s 58%. Of those went to the top 3 most yellow carded teams, Rugby FC LA & the Seattle Seawolves (as mentioned earlier), and the San Diego Legion. Even the best regular season team in MLR, the Houston SaberCats, recorded close to 1 yellow per game (0.81 YCpG) and four of the six teams in the Western Conference had a YCpG over 1. The picture looks similar when we turn to red cards. A record 17 reds were shown in 2024, and 9 of those (53%) were shown to Western Conference teams. When remembering that the Seattle Seawolves received 0 red cards, that evens out to almost 2 reds for each of the five remaining Western Conference teams. Unsurprisingly, the most carded team in 2024 received the most red cards in the West, averaging around 0.19 RCpG, over double the Western Conference average of 0.09 RCpG. Is there something about the way that Western Conference teams play that causes them to be carded more? Possibly. If I knew the reason/s why this was the case I would probably have a much higher paying job, but I believe there is value in identifying these patterns.

Moving over to the Eastern Conference, after a quick look at the below graphic a couple of things should stand out almost straight away. Firstly, the lack of red (with one obvious exception). The Eastern Conference received 8 of 2024’s 17 red cards, with five of those going to the NOLA Gold. The Gold received more red cards than any other team last season and recorded a whopping 0.29 RCpG, significantly higher than even RFCLA. NOLA’s indiscipline counteracted the three teams in the East who didn’t see red (the Chicago Hounds, Miami Sharks, and the Champions, the New England Free Jacks), bringing the RCpG in the east to 0.08, essentially identical to the West.

Proportion and amounts of Yellow & Red Cards in the Eastern Conference in 2024

The second stand out, when looking at the above a little deeper, should be the numbers of yellows shown to teams in the east. The Western Conference teams were all in the teens and above, but the East only saw one team in the teens: The Miami Sharks on 18. The remaining 5 teams received between 10-12 including Old Glory DC, a historically low-carded team (0.53 YCpG, level as lowest among active teams in MLR). Old Glory DC received 12 cards in total (10y, 2r), the joint-least carded team in 2024 with Anthem (11y, 1r), Chicago (12y, 0r), and New England (12y, 0r). with the Sharks collecting almost a quarter of the yellow cards in the east, and the NOLA Gold collecting almost two thirds of the reds, there’s room for improvement on both sides, and with the Gold bringing in a new Head Coach in Danny Lee for 2025, will we see a decrease in reds down in Louisiana? For the remaining four teams in the east, while I’m sure all coaching teams would rather see fewer cards shown to their squads, they’re being carded a whole lot less than the Western Conference, and are all below the YCpG average of 0.73 for the East.

As mentioned earlier and last week, while I have presented a theory as to why the number of red & yellow cards increased across the league generally in 2024, the reasons for certain teams being carded more than others could be down to ‘over-zealous’ individuals, it could be down to the way certain teams play (giving away more penalties generally likely results in more yellows from repeat infringements, for example), or it could even be down to the officiating team on the day. There aren’t numbers available (publicly, anyway) for which officials hand out the most cards, but if there is an interest in that then NARDB will happily dig into that. In the meantime, for any questions or comments, feel free to leave them under this article or reach out to @MLRStats on Instagram and Threads, or either @JamDelay or @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X.

Major League Rugby’s All-Time Top 10 Tacklers!

NAR Database

James Deeley

The final entry in NARDB’s series on All-Time Top 10 lists, let’s explore Major League Rugby’s most consistent heavy hitters with the league’s All-Time leading Tacklers. Nothing gets fans hyped up like big hits, and it should be no surprise that 8 of these 10 names are forwards! Complete with Tackles per Game (TpG), the leaderboard is as follows:

To any fans who have been following along with this series over the last few weeks, your eyes are not deceiving you. Dylan Fawsitt is on top of yet another MLR All-Time list. The Chicago Hounds try-machine is a monster on both sides of the ball with 883 career tackles across 98 MLR games, for an average of 9 TpG. 678 of his tackles (76.78%) came as a Rugby New York Ironworker including a PB of 181 in 2019, but Fawsitt still completed 131 tackles for the Hounds in 2024, just above his season average of 126.14.

Fawsitt’s lead is far from safe, however. Canadian international Captain and former Toronto Arrows stalwart Lucas Rumball sits just 3 tackles behind, on 880 in 66 MLR games for a much higher average of 13.3 TpG. as with Fawsitt, a huge majority of Rumball’s tackles came outside the Hounds, with 87.5%, including a PB of 228 in 2021 when he finished as MLR’s highest tackler, coming as an Arrow. Rumball completed 110 tackles in 12 games (only 5 starts) in 2024, way down from his season average of 146.67. He’ll be hoping to get back to his regular numbers to crack 1000 in 2025.

Sitting in 3rd despite retiring at the end of 2023 is Rugby New York legend Nate Brakeley, one of the two inactive players on this list. With 842 tackles in 65 MLR games, all with the Ironworkers for a TpG of basically 13, Brakeley was a monster tackler year-in, year-out for New York. He averaged a huge 168.4 tackles per season, only brought down by the truncated 2020 season, when Brakeley still finished with 96 tackles in just 5 games, leading all of MLR.

Source: @rugbynewyork on Instagram

The top 10 MLR tacklers of All-Time currently includes the only 10 players to have passed 750 career tackles, and of these 10 tackling machines, only 6 of them are over the 800 mark. Sitting 4th is NOLA Gold’s JP du Plessis, MLR’s all-time leading Meter Eater and the most tackles of any back in MLR history. Du Plessis averages just under 10 tackles a game, with 837 total in 84 MLR games and averaging 119.57 tackles per season.

The latest player to pass the 800 mark is Rugby FC LA‘s Matt Heaton, holding the highest TpG of all players on this list with a massive 14.3 tackles per game. The Canadian back rower completed almost 80% of his tackles as a member of Rugby ATL, including a PB of 215 tackles in the 2023 season. Heaton shows no signs of slowing down after following the franchise to the West Coast, completing 166 tackles in RFCLA‘s debut season, just above his average of 160.2. With a strong 2025, Heaton could be knocking on the door of the top 3 soon enough…

Source: @RugbyFCLA on Instagram

Bringing up the rear of this list is New England Free Jacks Club Captain Josh Larsen, who sits in the Top 10 despite an injury-marred 2023 season where he only managed 18 tackles that season. This brought Larsen‘s average down to 125.17 tacklers per season, but he exceeded that with 133 tackles in 2024 and has a PB of 231 in 2022 so could easily be over 800 if not for injury. Here’s hoping no injuries prevent any of these guys from continuing to dominate the tackle charts.

Only 2 other players not on this list are over 700 tackles. Matt Heaton’s former teammate, now Houston SaberCat Johan Momsen on 741 (125 tackles in 2024, average of 148.2 per season) and Larsen’s teammate Andrew Quattrin on 706 (PB of 169 in 2024, way up from his average of 117.67 per season. Could we see either of these two crack the Top 10?

As for MLR’s new Single-Season Tackle Leader, Cory Daniel? His 276 tackles in 2024 was more than any other player in MLR history per season, but he’s had a few that have held his career total back. Daniel currently sits 16th with 651 tackles, but has never finished a season with a tackle count between 100-250. He has either fallen well short of 100 due to injury (totals of 59 in 8 games in 2021, and 61 in 4 games in 2023), or exploded to over 250 tackles per season (255 in 2022, record-breaking 276 in 2024). Daniel’s averages are high, with 162.75 per season and a huge 15.5 per game, but he might need another record-challenging season or two to crack the Top 10. If he can remain healthy, could we see him on next year’s list?

Source: @MLRStats on Instagram