Tag: San Diego Legion

MLR Player Moves Summary: July 21 – August 17, 2025

NARDatabase

James Deeley

As the young 2025/26 Major League Offseason approaches it’s first big event in the MLR Collegiate Draft scheduled for August 21st, the League will be painfully aware that much of the discourse surrounding Major League Rugby has not been about the 2025 edition of the draft lately, and barely about any players at all.

With news that the San Diego Legion and Rugby FC LA are merging to form the California Legion, as well as the withdrawals of the NOLA Gold and Miami Sharks all but confirmed (although not by the League themselves, and there has been no word from the Sharks at all), NARDB is hoping that the worst is now behind us. As things stand, MLR will move forward with a 8-team competition in 2026 but of course, those teams need players, which brings us to the purpose of this article.

Welcome back to the latest edition of NARDB.com’s Player Moves Summary! These articles will keep MLR fans up to date on all the retirements, signings, re-signings, and departures of players to and from Major League Rugby teams for the 2026 season. Typically these articles will be released weekly on Monday’s, but due to a lack of moves over the last few weeks, this article covers the period from 21st July to August 17th, 2025. Obviously with news of the league’s contraction still very fresh, player moves might take a while to pick up, but these articles will keep up up to date, nevertheless! As with the end of every season, some players have decided that they have played their last campaign, and have called time on their career. This article will start by recognising the MLR legends that have done just that.

Source: @MLRStats on Instagram

Retirements

Beginning in Chicago, where a USA Eagle and Hound #1 has hung up his boots. Bryce Campbell, Eagle #497, announced his retirement on instagram after 3 seasons with the Chicago Hounds where he scored 4 tries and started 45 of his 48 appearances in green & white, and Captaining the side through their inaugural season in 2023. Prior to the Hounds, the Indiana University grad represented both the Glendale Raptors in 2018, and the Austin Gilgronis from 2021-2022, where he also captained the AGs through the 2021 season. Outside of MLR, Campbell spent two seasons with London Irish, helping them earn promotion from the Championship back to the Premiership, playing there for the 2019-20 season. In total, Campbell earned 84 MLR appearances across 6 seasons of competition, starting 81 times and scoring 11 tries. He racked up over 4000m gained in possession and 730 tackles completed including a career high of 158 in 2025, his final season. Internationally, Bryce Campbell earned his test debut against Romania in 2016, and earned 47 appearances for his country in total, representing the Eagles at the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan. All the best in your retirement, Bryce!

Unfortunately for the USA, Campbell was not the only Eagle to announce the end of his playing career in the last few weeks. On 23rd July 2025, Christian Dyer announced the end of his playing career on instagram at the age of 27 after spending 4 seasons in Major League Rugby between the Houston SaberCats (2022-2024) and Rugby FC LA (2025) in his home state of California. Having played rugby and gridiron football through high school, Sacramento native Dyer continued to play rugby at UC Berkeley before signing with the Dallas Jackals for the 2021 MLR season. This was a big year for Dyer, who earned his international Sevens debut in Vancouver, and his test debut as Eagle #539 against England in July, the first of his 14 test caps. Dyer had to wait for his MLR debut however. Once the Dallas Jackals deferred their entry to 2022, Dyer was selected by Rugby New York in the dispersal draft, but didn’t end up signing in the Big Apple. He signed with the Houston SaberCats ahead of the 2022 season, and scored 19 tries in 45 games across 3 seasons for the ‘Cats, including a high of 9 in 2023. Following 3 seasons in Texas he returned to his home state, signing with Rugby FC LA for the 2025 season, helping them qualify for the postseason for the first time in club history and scoring 2 tries in 6 games in California. In total, Dyer scored 21 tries and 109pts in 51 MLR appearances, starting 48 times and recording just shy of 2000m gained (1,987m) in possession, and 287 tackles. Very best of luck in what’s next, Christian!

Source: @usarugby via Instagram

Departures

Maybe Christian Dyer had an idea about what was going down with the creation of the California Legion, who knows? Staying on the subject of Rugby FC LA, they are also be saying farewell to 2024 MLR Back of the Year Reece MacDonald. The kiwi fullback will be plying his trade in Japan after signing with the NEC Green Rockets Tokatsu in JRLO Div 2. MacDonald won two Shields with the New England Free Jacks from 2023-2024, scoring 12 tries and 86pts in 30 games including 10 in his Back of the Year season in 2024 when he also gained 1,535m in possession. MacDonald made a high-profile move to Rugby FC LA for the 2025 season, and still scored 3 tries and 33pts in 10 games (6 starts) despite missing a hefty chunk of the season with injury. In his career, Reece MacDonald score 15 tries and 119pts in 40 MLR games, starting 34 times and gaining 3,331m in possession.

Source: @nec_gr_official via instagram

MacDonald isn’t the only Green Rockets signing that will be familiar with MLR fans, as on the same day that the club announced his signing, they also announced the addition of Utah Warriors stalwart Dylan Nel for their 2025/26 campaign. Nel, the 2024 Utah Warriors Forward of the Year, spent two seasons at Zion’s Bank, scoring 6 tries and completing 362 tackles in 27 games (26 starts) including a high of 234 in 2025, finishing 3rd League wide. Nel was a significant contributing factor to the Warriors finishing as the top team in MLR during the regular season and earning a spot in the postseason for the first time since 2021. He started both of their playoff games in 2025, defeating the Seattle Seawolves to advance to the Western Conference Final where they fell to the Houston SaberCats. Nel follows his father-in-law to Japan, former Utah Warriors head coach Greg Cooper, who now serves as head coach of the Green Rockets.

Moving to the other side of the California merger but sticking with Japan, Australian fullback Rhian Stowers has signed with Tokyo Gas in the Japanese 4th tier, the Top East League. Stowers played his debut MLR season with the San Diego Legion in 2025, starting 6 of his 10 appearances and scoring 3 tries while racking up 590m gained including 150m in a single game for the Legion in Rd 12.

Best of luck in Japan to Reece, Dylan, and Rhian!

Although he converted from football relatively late in his career, the meteoric rise of former Portland State University Defensive Lineman Tonga Kofe continues! The 6’2, 300lb+ giant signed with the Utah Warriors ahead of the 2024 MLR season, earning his professional debut as he came off the bench 6 times in his debut season. In his sophomore season in 2025 however, Kofe proved a fearsome scrummager. He earned his first pro start, starting 14 of his 16 games and completing over 100 tackles to help the Utah Warriors top the league during the regular season, making it all the way to the Western Conference Final where they fell to the Houston SaberCats. Kofe’s strong performances earned him a call up to the national team for the USA’s July tests, where he earned his test debut as Eagle #587 as a starter against Belgium. He earned 3 caps for the Eagles in July, and was included in their squad for the 2025 Pacific Nations Cup. On 16th August 2025, Prem Rugby side Leicester Tigers announced the signing of Tonga Kofe for the 2025/26 Prem season, marking the next chapter in Kofe’s short but already storied rugby journey. Best of luck with the Tigers, Tonga!

Source: @leicestertigers via Instagram

Temporary Departures

In addition to the confirmed departures above, there was one move that was slightly more unusual. Jeremy ‘Missile’ Misailegalu is spending the Major League Rugby offseason with RC Arka Gdynia in Poland’s professional league, the Ekstraliga. Misailegalu finished as a MLR runner-up with the Houston SaberCats in 2025 and for any ‘Cats fans concerned about his departure, his agency (Westsyde Pathways) strongly suggests that this move is just for the offseason, hence this move is in it’s own ‘Temporary Departures’ section.

Misailegalu, a 2018 MLR Champion with the Seattle Seawolves, has finished as a MLR runner-up twice. He played with Rugby ATL in their 2021 season when they fell to the LA Giltinis in the Final, and represented the Houston SaberCats in 2025, who fell to the New England Free Jacks in the 2025 Championship. To date, Misailegalu has scored 11 tries in his 61 MLR appearances for 4 teams across 6 seasons of competition, starting 47 times. He’s recorded over 2000m gained in possession and just shy of 300 career tackles (293). Best of luck in Poland, Missile!

Source: @westsydepathways via Instagram

Misailegalu wasn’t the only MLR player to head elsewhere for the offseason, however. Rugby FC LA saw another pair of names heading overseas, starting with MLR veteran Jurie van Vuuren. The South African lock signed with the Boland Cavaliers for their 2025 Currie Cup campaign. Van Vuuren has played in MLR since 2020, representing the Utah Warriors from 2020-2023 before moving to RFCLA for two seasons from 2024-2025. In total he scored 10 tries in 68 games, starting 60 times. He recorded over 1800m in possession and 717 tackles completed including a high of 199 in 2021. The Currie Cup doesn’t overlap with the MLR season so it’s a possible that van Vuuren returns in 2026, should he sign with the California Legion.

In a similar boat to Jurie van Vuuren is US-eligible Irish age grade representative prop Alessandro Heaney, who signed a short-term deal with the Cornish Pirates in the English 2nd tier, Champ Rugby, for the remainder of 2025. Heaney stepped up in a big way for RFCLA after their forward pack was hit with a wave of injuries. Despite not earning a start in 2024, he started 12 of his 15 games in 2025 and completed 118 tackles to help LA qualify for the postseason for the first (and as it turns out, last) time! Heaney went to school in the south of England so it’s a move that makes sense, but he has value as a domestic player in MLR so we could see him back for 2026 should he sign with the California Legion.

Source: @cornishpirates via Instagram

Wrapping Up

These Player Move Summaries are few and far between at present, but will pick up speed as the 2025/26 Major League Rugby offseason rumbles on. Although this is only the 2nd of the offseason and the 2025 MLR Collegiate Draft is only a few days away, there were a handful of moves to cover, and no doubt there will be plenty more as the fallout from a frenetic few weeks is realised.

Thank you for reading! These articles will pick up in regularity as the player moves do, with the articles coming out every Monday at their peak. NARDB continues to strive to keep fans informed and aware of the goings on around both the league and around each team.

If there are any player moves that you notice, you can let NARDB/James know on social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, @JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky! Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site. Finally, if you’re looking to jump into the End of Season sales or pick up some discounted merch, visit shopmlr.com and use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off of your order!

Mayhem in Major League Rugby!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

The 2025 Major League Rugby Championship is barely a month old, but the MLR silly season has well and truly begun! A trio of groundbreaking announcements shocked the league and it’s fanbase within a week. This article will cover of those as well as addressing .

Welcome back to NARDB.com! With two huge announcements now public and a third imminent, we’ll take a look at where we go from here and what the 2025 Draft (set to take place on August 21st) will look like now, and what changes we can expect to the 2026 season. For those that prefer to listen, a video covering the California Merger and NOLA Gold withdrawal is available below and on the NARugbyDB Youtube Channel:

Pooling resources in California

The first bombshell to hit was over in California. On 30th July 2025 the San Diego Legion, a founding member of Major League Rugby and the winningest team in League history by games won, Rugby FC LA, and Major League Rugby announced that the two California teams were merging to create 1 professional rugby team for the state of California that would begin play in the 2026 MLR season and be known as the California Legion.

Major League Rugby issued this press release on their website about the merger. The release confirms that the California Legion would be splitting their home games between San Diego, Los Angeles, and Orange County, with the possibility of also playing a home game in northern California as well. Assuming a 16 game Major League Rugby regular season in 2026, this means that each city will only host 2/3 home games per season. Even though you are now appealing to the whole of California and it’s 40 million people, with only a couple of games a year in each location it’s going to prove incredibly difficult to establish a loyal fanbase, and that’s just the start.

The above Instagram post seems to suggest that there may be different Legion branding for each city (including Long Beach, which isn’t mentioned anywhere in any press release regarding this merger). While this may help to establish ‘fan chapters’ in each city similar to what the Free Jacks are enjoying in New England, it’s hardly going to save on costs and again, with only a couple of games in each location how are fanbases going to grow?

How will season tickets work for this bold move? Given the traffic situation in Southern California, it doesn’t sound like many fans will be willing to travel even the roughly 100 miles between LA and San Diego to watch games in other cities. Season ticket numbers could plummet. Perhaps the Legion could sell ‘City Packs’ for all games in each location?
On the subject of fan willingness to travel, many San Diego fans are already viewing this as Los Angeles taking another of their professional sports teams, and are justifiably outraged. With the NBA’s San Diego Clippers moving to Los Angeles in the 1980s, and the NFL’s Chargers making the same move in 2016, San Diegans are sick of their teams turning their back on the city and heading to the City of Angels, and many in the Legion’s fierce fanbase have seen it all before and had enough.

That is not necessarily the case. NARDB understands that it was either merge or fold, resulting in potentially zero teams in California which has, as newly appointed California Legion CEO Adam Freier stated ‘the most registered rugby players in the United States’ so it would be a disaster if there was no professional team to tap into that market. To try and sell fans on this being the plan all long however, is doing them a disservice. The question of ownership is another talking point. Owner of the San Diego Legion Ryan Patterson also serves as Chair of the MLR Board. Is he still chair? Are Patterson and RFCLA owner Pete Sickle now equal partners or is there a majority owner? As usual, MLR is as clear as mud.

“Major League Rugby will always prioritize long-term growth of the game in the U.S., delivering an exceptional on-field product and an incredible fan experience, and The California Legion is a way to showcase that in Southern California,” – MLR CEO Nick Benson – 30th July, 2025

The above quote from Major League Rugby CEO Nick Benson (named as MLR Commissioner in the official press release, which would be a title change for Benson) suggests that MLR are aware of the importance of maintaining a professional team in the Golden State to the long-term growth of rugby in the US, and that this merger was the only way to sustain that. The release tries it’s best to put a positive spin on it but the bottom line is that California now has 1 professional team rather than 2, and MLR has 1 fewer team for the 2026 season.

We will have to wait for their home opener to see what the impact to the fanbase is, but there are some questions lingering that need answering long before then. With two rosters merging into 1 team, there are obviously only so many spots available. Who will make the California Legion roster? Who will be the head coach? Are any multi-year contracts signed with San Diego/RFCLA still valid? Questions like these will be answered in time as the team begins unveiling their 2026 roster, but are worth keeping in the back of your mind when thinking about what the team will look like next season.

In a more pressing matter, where with the California Legion draft? The 2025 MLR Collegiate Draft has been confirmed for August 21st, just over 2 weeks away. The San Diego Legion already traded their 1st Rd pick (3rd overall) to Anthem RC. Will Anthem get to keep that pick? Will the Legion draft as if they were an expansion team which would put them 1st overall? As usual, only time will tell.

Via Major League Rugby’s Press Release

Even though this merger is a first in Major League Rugby, it is easy to see through. There has been an argument floating around that this merger is part of a bigger plan to split out into 2/3 teams in the future. If that is indeed the plan, why not say it? Instead, we have been fed this story about how pooling resources will allow the team to better capitalize on the large California rugby market. A market that is easily capable of supporting at least two fanbases. Although nothing has been confirmed, it is far more likely that this is a case of merge or die, than part of some larger plan.

There is only a short press release from 30th July to go off and nothing since. This California merger clearly has a lot of moving parts, as shown by things like the new team’s website is still copyright of RFCLA, and the media contact is an RFCLA email address. For now, MLR fans are left with more questions than answers. Hopefully in the coming weeks, we’ll be given answers to at least some of these. The California Legion means that professional rugby remains in the Golden State at least for 2026 which is at it’s core a good thing. The Legion might think themselves lucky that the 2nd bombshell of the week took the spotlight off of them.

No More NOLA

On the same day that Major League Rugby announced the merger of their two California franchises, another of the League’s founding members, the NOLA Gold, posted the following statement to their website:

“NOLA Gold has informed the League that we do not intend to participate in the 2026 season. Discussions are ongoing with the League regarding future opportunities and potential pathways forward.”

After weeks of rumours and speculation about the future of New Orleans’ professional rugby team, this short statement confirmed that the NOLA Gold would not participate in the 2026 MLR season. Fans who supported the team through 8 seasons of competition, players who gave their all for the white & gold, and staff that worked tirelessly to create fantastic gameday atmospheres weren’t thanked or even mentioned. Just a vague two line statement that heralded the end of the Gold’s participation in Major League Rugby without even mentioning MLR itself.

Source: @nolagoldrugby via Instagram

San Diego Legion fans are entitled to be angry at another local team moving away from their city, but NOLA Gold fans are outraged. Given what has happened with the team in the last year they might be justified. Following the 2024 MLR season in which the NOLA Gold finally earned their first ever postseason berth, the team received an influx of French investment with Intervalle Capital becoming the new majority owner of the team and Partner Thierry Daupin becoming Chairman. Remember that name. In November 2024, the NOLA Gold unveiled ‘Vision 31’, a 7yr roadmap to revolutionise the franchise, making it the standard for professional rugby in the USA by their home World Cup in 2031.

Intervalle Capital’s comprehensive Vision 31 stated that ‘Over the next 7 years, we are committed to transforming NOLA Gold into a dominant force in US rugby’ but less than a year after this ‘vision’ was published, the Gold have withdrawn from Major League Rugby.

Source: Vision 31

“This isn’t just a plan; it’s our commitment to lead rugby’s growth in America. We’ve poured our hearts into creating a 70-page game plan that captures years of dedication, collaboration, and ambition. Vision 31 represents a turning point—not just for NOLA Gold but for the sport itself.” – NOLA Gold Chairman Thierry Daupin – 22nd November, 2024

From a commitment to rugby in the USA and the NOLA Gold in November 2024, to withdrawing from MLR in July 2025. It seems impossible that Intervalle Capital thought that investing in MLR would be a short term money making scheme, so why pull the plug just 1 season in after creating a 7yr roadmap for the team? NOLA Gold Chairman and Intervalle Capital Partner Thierry Daupin is intimately familiar with Major League Rugby, he’s been here before. Daupin was involved in the Austin Elite ownership group back in 2020, pulling out at the 11th hour causing MLR and Commissioner George Killebrew (at the time) to scramble to find other investors, coming up with a certain Adam Gilchrist. I’m sure plenty of MLR fans still shudder at that name, so no need to go any further there. Clearly Daupin is a smart guy, and having been involved with the League in the past he would have known the financial status of MLR heading into this. Is this just the Austin situation all over again? Who knows.

Along with a great many long term commitments, Vision 31 also includes an ambitious ‘Stadium Project’ which seems to hint at either creating a new purpose-built home for the Gold, or refurbishing the Shrine on Airline to create an entertainment hub ‘operating 7 days a week’. What is interesting here is that the hints at a new venue for the Gold were echoed in the team’s 2025 end of season statement from CEO Alexandre Maumont less than a month before their withdrawal announcement.

Source: @nolagoldrugby via Instagram

Despite a tough season on the pitch, this end of season statement shows that the NOLA Gold made some significant strides on the business side. Statements such as ‘More than 4,500 local children were introduced to rugby’, ‘Our high school rugby championship expanded’, and critically ‘On the professional front, we saw a 30% increase in ticketing revenue’ caused fans across the league to applaud the Gold, and gave no indication of the heartbreak that was to come. Circling back to the stadium hints, the statement goes on to say that NOLA’s ‘long-term vision for a permanent home for NOLA Gold continues to advance, and we look forward to sharing significant updates soon’. Unfortunately, those updates were never shared. Nor was the promise of ‘sharing additional updates with our fans and partners in early July, including a detailed roadmap for the 2025-2026 season and beyond’. Instead, the Gold withdrew from MLR in late July.

“We are moving forward with determination, clarity, and the full support of a committed ownership group that believes in what we are building for this region” – NOLA Gold CEO Alexandre Maumont – 9th June, 2025

There is a glimmer of hope for Gold fans. Even after their 2-line statement, rumours persist that the NOLA Gold are sitting out on the 2026 season, with plans to return in 2027. This would be hugely ambitious and very optimistic, given that they would essentially be starting from scratch. With teams that have withdrawn in the past, we see a statement posted, and then everything goes silent. If the Gold plan to return to Major League Rugby in the future, they would essentially be starting from scratch as an expansion team. Why not say that, though? It can’t hurt to have some of the fanbase looking forward to your return. Looking into the idea of a return in 2027, the NOLA Gold’s home in Metairie, LA, the Shrine on Airline, affectionately known as the Gold Mine, is undergoing major renovations later this year to finish converting it from a baseball stadium to a rectangular field, and would not have been finished in time for the 2026 MLR season. There was also rumblings that the Gold had their eyes on another facility in the New Orleans area that was also undergoing renovations, that would be complete in time for 2027. To add to this, there are rumblings that the team’s deal for a temporary home for 2026 fell through at the last minute that contributed to the withdrawal, but this is nothing but rumour.

Are the NOLA Gold are just sitting out the 2026 season to save costs as they had nowhere to play, and do plan to return with a shiny new venue in 2027? It’s possible, but don’t hold your breath. If the Gold maintain a presence during the offseason and through 2026, it would show that someone is still paying to keep the lights on, and improves the chances of a return. If it goes silent, it is likely that the Gold have sadly joined the list of defunct Major League Rugby franchises. With GM Ryan Fitzgerald already joining the Loyola University New Orleans rugby program, it’s leaning towards the latter.

Miami Makes it Three

One of these announcements would have been enormous, two on the same day is almost cataclysmic for the League, but less than a week later on 6th August 2025, it was confirmed that a third team had pulled out of the 2026 MLR season: The Miami Sharks.

Just a couple of days after Major League Rugby announced Miami Sharks CEO Milagros Cubelli the inaugural winner of a new award for MLR Executive of the Year, decided based on ‘the success of the team, operational excellence, business growth, community engagement, innovation, and leadership.’ The sister of Sharks player Tomas Cubelli, Milagros was voted for by her peers, League Office, and select media members, and was the winner by a landslide. The Miami Sharks were a very impressive organisation both on and off the field in 2025 under Cubelli’s leadership, but now they too have withdrawn despite a good year. Will this award be rescinded? It seems strange to give the Executive of the Year to the CEO of a team that has withdrawn that same year. No-one looks good with the Sharks pulling out so soon after this award was given.

Source: @usmlr via Instagram

Despite being owned by Marcos Galperin, Argentina’s richest man with astronomical personal wealth, financial strain and lack of control were given as reasons for the withdrawal. NARDB understands that expansion teams had in the past needed to commit to at least 3 seasons of competition, the Miami Sharks withdraw from Major League Rugby after only 2 seasons in Florida and MLR is down 3 teams for the 2026 season. The Sharks qualified for the playoffs in the 2025 season but rumours of their withdrawal began to circulate even before the regular season finished.

At the 2025 Championship Game, Miami’s ownership had been calmed and they were back in the fold for the 2026 season. However, news of other the California merger and NOLA Gold’s withdrawal in late July likely spooked the Sharks ownership who might’ve seen MLR as a sinking ship and pulled the plug. NARDB understands that Miami Sharks players were informed of the team’s withdrawal on 6th August 2025 with an announcement coming shortly afterwards. With such a heavy South American presence, it is likely that many Sharks players will be seen in Super Rugby Americas next season, and MLR will be worse for it.

What does the 2026 Season look like?

As of the publication of this article, Major League Rugby has contracted from 11 teams in 2025, to just 8 teams in 2025. The last time the League consisted of single-digit teams was in their sophomore season way back in 2019. This was before the introduction of the conference system, where each team played every other team both home and away to make up a 16 game season. It’s possible that this season structure is what the league returns to for the 2026 campaign with a move away from the conference system, resulting in a 14 game regular season . Should MLR do away with the conference system, the top 4/6 teams qualifying for the postseason would still make sense.

The playoff structure is almost guaranteed to change as well. There are now only 4 teams in each Conference and under the 2025 playoff structure, 4 teams from each conference qualify. This means that every team is already guaranteed to make it. It’s possible that this is changed to the top 3 or even two from each conference will make it. A 6-team playoff isn’t unheard of, and was the norm for the 2022-2023 season with the Top seed earning a bye to the Conference Finals, and the 2 & 3 seeds playing an ‘Eliminator’ game. Even a 4-team playoff was the norm from 2018-2021, although both of these options would reduce the number of playoff games and with it, the all important gate revenue.

As of right now, the 2025 MLR Collegiate Draft is set to be the smallest draft in League history assuming it follows the same structure of all previous years. With only 8 teams in the competition, this would mean 24 picks over 3 rounds. This may increase to 26 picks due to picks already traded by the NOLA Gold and San Diego Legion, however. Does Major League Rugby choose to add a 4th round to this years’ draft? This would mean 32/34 picks across 4 rounds but, with minutes hard to come by for rookies, does this just add to the log jam? Maybe. MLR might consider reducing the foreign player slots per team from 10 to 7-8, adding 15-25 more opportunities for domestic talent across the league each week. Have they thought of this? Probably. Will they go for it? Who knows.

A Silver Lining

Losing teams is never a good thing, and the MLR fanbase is unfortunately all too used to that in it’s short history. However, Major League Rugby is down but not out. AS difficult as it may be to picture right now, the League could come back from this stronger.

It seems that MLR may have expanded too much too fast, and falling back into single-digit teams could serve as a ‘soft reset’ for the league. NARDB understands that the League is already planning to do away with undeclared ancillary benefits going forward (additional player benefits other than base salary) in order to better control costs and League spending in a failed attempt to keep the Miami Sharks in the competition. If MLR chooses to expand the draft and reduce international slots, this may also help with costs as a domestic player, especially a rookie, is generally cheaper than importing international talent. Major League Rugby can use the 2026 season to consolidate around a strong core of owners, stabilise, and look to grow slowly and surely with plenty of time left until the 2031 World Cup.

Although it might be hard to see right now, this is an opportunity to strengthen rugby in the United States. The comparisons to the early years of the MLS are always made, with teams joining and leaving regularly, but as Major League Rugby’s 10th season begins to come into sight on the horizon, will they take this opportunity? As with many things in this article, only time will tell.

Thank you very much for reading. With a few huge pieces of news to cover this article is longer than most others on the site and as you may be able to tell, this is my first foray into writing so I hope you found it interesting, informative, and entertaining. NARDB continues to strive to keep fans informed and aware of the goings on both for each team, and around both the League. You can stay up to date with all the MLR news by following NARDB and/or James on social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, @JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky! Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site.

Finally, if you’re looking to jump into the End of Season sales, visit shopmlr.com and use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off of your order!

MLR Player Moves Summary: Season End – July 13, 2025

NARDatabase

James Deeley

With the New England Free Jacks crowned as MLR Champions for the third year in a row following the 2025 Major League Rugby Championship at Centreville Bank Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Welcome to the 2025/26 offseason!

NARDB’s Midweek Milestones series is done for the year, but this article marks the first of what will be a weekly series of articles summarising all of the roster moves from the previous week. Welcome to the first of NARDB’s player move summaries! These articles will be released most Mondays depending on the number of moves each week, and will contain information on all the retirements, signings, re-signings, and departures of players to & from Major League Rugby teams for the 2026 season. For the first few weeks/months, there will be a high number of departures as players return home and find a club for the MLR offseason, or retirements and veterans decide to hang up the boots after this latest campaign.

The aim of this series, just with everything about NARugbyDB.com, is to keep fans informed of all the latest info from their favourite teams and around MLR. These articles will provide extra context to all new signings, and give a bit of background to them, as well recognise the achievements of players who may be moving on. For this first article, let’s kick it off by recognising players that have come to the ends of their career.

Retirements

As with the end of any season, the end of the 2025 MLR season means the end of the careers of some of the league’s most veteran stalwarts. Although the conclusion of this year’s season was only a week or two old there’s already been a handful of retirement announcements, with more likely to go public over the next few weeks. Let’s start with a pair of San Diego Legionnaires.

On June 16th, 2025, the San Diego Legion announced the retirement of California born, South African raised USA Eagle, Marcel Brache. Eagle #503 entered MLR in 2022 with the Austin Gilgronis, before moving to the Legion for 3 seasons between 2023-2025. The utility back scored 5 tries and 33pts in 53 MLR games across 4 seasons, starting 44 times and running for close to 2,500m gained while completing 325 tackles on defence. The former Western Force man helped the San Diego Legion finish as MLR Runners-Up in 2023, and still earned 12 appearances for the Legion in his final season in 2025.

Two weeks later on June 27th, 2025, the San Diego Legion announced a 2nd retiree in the form of another capped USA Eagle, Tevita Tameilau. Eagle #475 Tameilau was a 7 year veteran of Major League Rugby, representing the Utah Warriors in 2018 before joining the Legion from 2020-2025. He scored 10 tries in 78 games (starting 55), and was the 50th player in MLR history to reach 50 games player in the competition. The hard-running back row gained well over 3,000m in possession including a high of 1,075m in 2022, while completing 483 tackles on defence.

Best of luck in retirement, Marcel and Tevita!

Source: @sdlegion via Instagram

Moving over to the Eastern Conference and a player who represented the San Diego Legion back in the League’s inaugural season in 2018. On 9th July, 2025 the NOLA Gold announced the retirement of Irish hooker Pat O’Toole. The former Connacht hooker started his MLR career with the Legion before moving to the Houston SaberCats for 2019 where he started all 16 games during that year’s regular season and completed a career high 172 tackles. O’Toole would join the Glasgow Warriors on short-term loan in 2020, before returning to MLR with the NOLA Gold for a standout 2021, scoring 7 tries in 15 games and gaining just over 500m in possession, both career highs. He represented the Gold from 2021-2025, earning 51 appearances and 39 starts, scoring 17 tries. In his MLR career, he scored 20 tries in 71 games across 7 seasons.

A week prior to the retirement of Pat O’Toole, the Gold announced on 2nd July, 2025 that another USA Eagle had hung up his boots, Cam Dolan. A true MLR Stalwart, Eagle #443 played in every season of Major League Rugby between 2018-2025, also representing the San Diego Legion in 2018, before moving to New Orleans and representing the Gold for 7 seasons from 2019-2025. For the Gold alone, Dolan earned 80 appearances, starting 75. In total, Dolan scored 15 tries in 86 MLR games, starting 81 times and completing just under 700 tackles while gaining just over 2,500m in possession. He was also capped 67 times for the USA, representing the Eagles at two Rugby World Cups in 2015 (England) and 2019 (Japan). Prior to his MLR career, Dolan represented the Northampton Saints in the English Premiership, as well as Cardiff in the Pro12 (now the URC), and Nottingham in the English Championship.

All the best in retirement to you both, Cam and Pat!

Source: @nolagoldrugby via Instagram

Departures

Moving on from retirements to departures. Players who are leaving their 2025 MLR teams to pursue other playing opportunities, starting with a pair of Ex-Dallas Jackals who finished as 2025 Runners-Up with the Houston SaberCats. On 2nd July 2025, KHAOS Sports Consultancy announced that their client, 23yo Juan-Dee Oliver, had signed with Rovigo in the Italian domestic Serie A Élite competition. Oliver was a standout scrumhalf with the Dallas Jackals in 2024, scoring 5 tries and 55 points in 13 games during Dallas’ magical season, including a try to help defeat the Houston SaberCats in the Western Conference Semifinal. When Dallas withdrew from MLR, the SaberCats picked up Oliver in the dispersal draft, and played largely as a winger during 2025, scoring 4 tries and 26pts starting 6 of his 10 appearances. In total, Juan-Dee Oliver scored 9 tries and 81pts in 23 games (19 starts) across 2 seasons in Major League Rugby.

Best of luck in Italy, Juan-Dee!

A teammate of Oliver’s both in Dallas in 2024, and in Houston this year is also on the move. Hard running back row Sam Tuifua joined the Jackals for their 2024 campaign, scoring 6 tries in 10 games and gaining just over 950m in possession while also completing over 100 tackles on defence. Like Oliver, Tuifua was picked up by the Houston SaberCats in the Dallas dispersal draft, and scored another 3 tries in 11 games for the ‘Cats this season. In his MLR career, Sam Tuifua gained over 1,500m, scoring 9 tries in 21 games (starting 20) and completing 202 tackles on defence. On 13th June 2025, French Pro D2 side Stade Montois announced the signing of Tuifua for the 2025/26 season.

Tuifua wasn’t the only player picked up by Stade Montois this off-season, though! Former San Diego Legion and NOLA Gold loose forward Jay Tuivaiti was announced by the French Pro D2 side a few weeks after Sam Tuifua, on 2nd July 2025. The Kiwi represented the San Diego Legion in 2024, starting all 8 of his appearances and scoring 2 tries. Although he was included on the Legion roster for 2025, part-way through the season the NOLA Gold announced that they had signed Tuivaiti for the remainder of the season. It is still not clear if this was a trade (and if so, what the return was) or a free agent signing, or what happened in San Diego. He added another try and started 5 of his 9 games for NOLA in a disappointing season, finishing with 3 tries in 17 games (13 starts) across 2 seasons in Major League Rugby and 1m shy of 250m gained in possession.

Best of luck in France to Sam & Jay!

Source: @stademontoisrugby via Instagram

Finally for the Departures section of this edition of NARDB’s Player Moves Summary for MLR, a pair of San Diego Legionnaires bid farewell to the Golden State. The first is one that was announced before the 2025 MLR season even began, the return of Ethan Grayson to Newcastle Falcons in the English Premiership on a permanent basis. Grayson represented San Diego in 23 games across 2 seasons from 2024-2025, starting 20 times and scoring 3 tries and 41pts total. He completed 116 tackles and gained over 1,200m in possession including 840m in 2025, and played fly-half, center, and fullback for the Legion in 2025 alone. A teammate of Grayson’s for his entire tenure at the Legion is also headed back to the UK: Harris Rutherford. A US-eligible Scottish fly-half, Rutherford earned 5 total appearances for San Diego, playing in a pair of games in 2025 including his first MLR start. He scored 20pts in total, all from the tee. Rutherford will be playing in the English National League 1 (3rd tier), for Rams RFC.

Good luck in England, Ethan and Harris!

Temporary Departures

In Major league Rugby, players are only under contract to teams during training camp through to the end of the season (roughly January-June). As a result, players often sign for other teams elsewhere to continue playing professional rugby year-round. One of the most common examples of this is New Zealand’s National Provincial Championship (NPC), where players regularly spend the MLR off-season. There is such a large MLR presence in the NPC, that NARDB will have a devoted post for all 2025 MLR players that will be playing in the 2025 NPC season. But for this section of this article, the focus is on South Africa.

On 8th July 2025, the South African Currie Cup side the Suzuki Griquas announced the addition of Seattle Seawolves lock Malembe Mpofu for their 2025 season. The following day the Seattle Seawolves congratulated Mpofu and confirmed that this move was a 3-month contract, keeping him open to return to the Seawolves for the 2026 season. Mpofu, a South African who has previously played for both the Leopards and Pumas in the Currie Cup, scored 3 tries in 10 games for Seattle in 2025, completing almost as many tackles (81) as metres gained in possession (88m). Best of luck in South Africa, Malembe!

Source: @griquas_rugby via Instagram

Wrapping Up

That does it for the first MLR Player Move Summary article of the 2025/26 Major League Rugby Off-season! Some early player departures and a handful of MLR vets hang up their boots. MLR teams are pivoting to the 2025 Draft in August, and it’ll be a good few weeks before we start to hear about new signings or re-signings for the 2026 season, but they will come!

Although this article covered roughly a month, as player announcements pick up pace these articles will as well. Player Move Summaries will come out every week or two (depending on the number of moves) on this site, and will be posted on NARDB social channels shortly after publication.

Thank you for reading! NARDB continues to strive to keep fans informed and aware of the goings on around both the league and around each team. You can stay up to date with all the MLR news by following NARDB and/or James on social media: @MLRStats on Instagram/Threads, @JamDelay & @NARugbyDB on Twitter/X, and @JamDelay & @NARDB on Bluesky! Alternatively, you can reach out to NARDB via the ‘Contact’ tab on this site.

Finally, if you’re looking to jump into the End of Season sales, visit shopmlr.com and use code ‘MLRSTATS’ at checkout for 15% off of your order!

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 14 of MLR2025!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

The 2025 Major League Rugby regular season rumbles on and has definitely arrived at the business end of the 17-week season! With 1 team already eliminated from playoff contention and 1 team already clinching a playoff spot, every point in the standings is crucial as teams hunt for post-season spots and home field advantage.

Welcome back to Midweek Milestones, the weekly article that highlights and examines the standout stats from each round of MLR action! The purpose of these articles is to recognise achievements by players and/or teams that may have gone unnoticed or flown under the radar otherwise, providing fans with some extra insight and context every week! Although almost every game has playoff implications at this point of the season it was a quiet week for big stats, with one huge exception that you’ll see as you keep reading. As always, the now-regular Appearance Achievements section is up first!

Appearance Achievements

In what is very unusual for the Appearance Achievements section of NARDB’s Midweek Milestones articles, there is only the one MLR Appearance milestone to discuss this week! This week’s lone appearance milestone came in the latest chapter of MLR’s most storied rivalry, the Western Conference clash between the Seattle Seawolves and the San Diego Legion up at Starfire Stadium in Tukwila.

Although the Legion posted about Ryan James, Tomas Aoake, Hugh Roach, and Marcel Brache all reaching 50 MLR appearances, 3 of these are in fact late. Ryan James is on 51 appearances after the Legion’s nailbiting defeat to the Legion in Round 14, as are Marcel Brache and Hugh Roach. Tomas Aoake, however, did celebrate his 50th MLR appearance on Saturday! Of the four players mentioned, the New Zealander is the only one to have earned all of his first 50 MLR appearances with the San Diego Legion. Aoake is a rare case in that he has started every single one of his 50 appearances for the Legion, and has proved a deadly attacking threat since his debut in 2022. He has recorded 23 tries across 4 seasons to date, including a high of 11 in 2023 when he and the Legion finished as MLR Runners-up. Aoake is currently has 5 tries in 2025 already, putting him tied for 13th with the likes of Andrew Coe in LA and Ed Fidow for the Gold, and is just shy of 3,000m gained in his career. Congratulations, Tomas!

Source: @sdlegion via Instagram

Monday Night Madness!

In a Monday night thriller up at Seatgeek Stadium in Chicago, the Hounds couldn’t hold off Rugby FC LA who scored with the clock in the red to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat yet again. This is now the FIFTH game in a row where Rugby FC LA have scored in the 77th minute or later, a run that includes salvaging a draw against Seattle and now this victory over the Hounds, as well as two losing bonus points to help RFCLA’s push to secure their first post-season appearance.

For the Hounds, they will be bitterly disappointed to miss out on the opportunity to close the game to the Free Jacks for the top spot in the Eastern Conference. Chicago recorded 249 tackles in this game, the highest of any team in the 2025 MLR season so far and the 3rd highest tackle total in league history behind the Seattle Seawolves and Rugby ATL, who both recorded 280 tackles in 2018 & 2021 respectively. Unlike Seattle and Atlanta however, the Chicago Hounds did not emerge victorious. The Hounds’ 249 tackles is the new highest losing tackle total in MLR history and although it may indicate that possession was skewed in favour if RFCLA, it was. But only just. LA enjoyed 54 of the possession and were forced to make 202 tackles of their own, showing that the match was far from one-way traffic!

Source: @HoundsChicago via Twitter/X

Of the Chicago Hounds’ 249 tackles, 27 were completed by James Scott, setting a new franchise record and surpassing the previous record of 23 tackles set by Lucas Rumball back in Round 8 of this season. This takes Scott’s 2025 total to 152. This is just 1 tackle behind his career high of 153 set last season, in five fewer games. Congratulations, James!

Lucas Rumball: Tackle Machine!

Staying on the topic of tackling and as already mentioned above, the Chicago Hounds were forced to make an incredible amount of tackles in Round 14 and they almost came away with the victory, but not quite. However, the Hounds do get to celebrate an incredible achievement earned by their 2025 Captain, Lucas Rumball.

Rumball completed 15 tackles in Round 14, taking his season total to 129 (and counting) and becoming the first player in Major League Rugby history to pass ONE THOUSAND tackles completed in his career! Rumball now sits on 1,009 tackles, having recorded over 100 in each of his last five MLR seasons!

Lucas Rumball becomes the first player in MLR history to pass 1,000 tackles completed!

The Captain of the Canadian national team, Rumball represented the Toronto Arrows for 5 seasons from 2019 to their withdrawal in 2023, completing 770 tackles as an Arrow. He finished 2nd in MLR tackling in the shortened 2020 season with 73 in just 5 games, and finished as MLR’s top tackler the following year with a career high 228! A native of Scarborough, Ontario, Lucas Rumball has averaged 144 tackles per season and just over 13 tackles per game in his 77 game MLR career so far, and isn’t showing any signs of slowing down just yet. Congratulations, Lucas!

Wrapping Up

A short and sweet Midweek Milestones this week as the stats gods have their eyes fixed on the 2025 Playoff picture, with nearly every game having serious implications for multiple teams. Despite this, there was still a new member of the half-century club, a new season high for tackles made, and an extraordinary MLR first from one of Canada’s most well-known players!

Thank you for reading this edition of NARDB’s Midweek Milestones article! If you like this series, please get in touch on social media or 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 can also be found on YouTube, at NARStats!

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

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 13 of MLR2025!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

The business end of the 2025 Major League Rugby season is here, so much so that the first team has already been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention! Round 13 of the season is a strange one in that there was a game earlier this week on Monday night, but Round 14 started almost immediately after with a Tuesday night match up. It may have made more sense for the Tuesday night game to be included in Round 13 and Round 14 start on Friday, but there must have been a reason for it…

Welcome back to Midweek Milestones! The weekly article that explores and highlights all of the standout stats from the latest round of MLR action. This article will cover the entirety of Round 13, as well as the first game of Round 14. The purpose of this article series is to highlight some of the milestones or achievements from around the league that might not otherwise get the coverage or recognition they deserve. If you’re a fan of these articles, please go back and read the past editions (if you haven’t already!) and share them with your friends. As is tradition, first up are the appearance achievements!

Appearance Achievements

For the first time in a number of weeks, no players earned their Major League Rugby debuts during Round 13. This is likely because teams are getting the hang of their squad rotation as the midweek games continue to test the depth of every squad. The players earning debuts a few weeks ago are now entering their 2nd, 3rd, or 4th MLR game, giving them valuable exposure to top-level competition and letting coaches know what they’re capable of. However, just because there were no debutants this week doesn’t mean the Appearance Achievements section of Midweek Milestones is empty. Four players entered the half-century club in Round 13, all earning their 50th MLR appearances in the same game: the Western Conference clash between the San Diego Legion and Houston SaberCats.

Starting with the hosting San Diego Legion who had a pair of players celebrating their 50th MLR appearances, both of whom started their MLR careers in Austin with the Gilgronis. First up is Australian hooker Hugh Roach, who joined the AGs ahead of the 2021 MLR season. A former Australia U20 man, Roach started 19 of his 23 games with the Gilgronis from 2021 until their disqualification at the end of the 2022 regular season. He scored 14 tries in black & orange before moving to the Chicago Hounds following the 2022 dispersal draft. Roach scored another 3 tries in 6 games (5 starts) for the Hounds in their inaugural season, before heading to California and signing with the San Diego Legion for 2024. Since then, he’s scored 7 tries in 21 games (all starts) for the Legion, taking his MLR try total to 24. Hugh Roach has started 45 of his 50 MLR appearances since 2021, with just over 1,200m gained and 549 tackles completed including 4 seasons of 100+ tackles including 2025. Congratulations, Hugh!

Joining the 50-club alongside Hugh Roach is Eagle #503, Marcel Brache. Raised in South Africa, Brache represented the USA at the Rugby World Cup in Japan in 2019, before joining the Austin Gilgronis in 2022 from the Western Force. Brache recorded a career high 911m gained in his 13 games with the AGs in 2022, playing alongside Hugh Roach. He joined the San Diego Legion following the disqualification of the Gilgronis and has started 32 of his 37 games for the Legion in his 3 seasons there. Brache has started 44 of his 50 career MLR games, scoring 5 tries in total and running for 2,435m gained. Congratulations on your 50th MLR appearance, Marcel!

Moving over to the Legion’s opposition, the Houston SaberCats, who also celebrated a pair of 50th appearances! Starting in the front row with Pono Davis! The Hawaiian prop began his MLR career with the ‘Cats back in 2022, and has earned all 50 of his MLR appearances with Houston. A crossover athlete from the XFL, Davis played with the American Raptors before entering MLR and earned just the 1 start through his first 2 seasons and 23 games in MLR. Since then however, he has worked his way into the starting lineup more and more often, starting 4 of 17 games last year, and 9 of 10 in 2025 so far. To date, Pono Davis has started 14 of his 50 appearance for the SaberCats, completing 297 tackles but is yet to score a try. Perhaps 2025 is the year? Congratulations, Pono!

Source: @houstonsabercats via Instagram.

The final player joining the half-century club in Round 13, playing for the Houston SaberCats alongside Pono Davis for his entire MLR career to date is South African fly-half/fullback Davy Coetzer! Like Davis, Coetzer started his MLR career back in 2022, exploding onto the scene with 3 tries and 79pts scored in his debut season. Since then, Coetzer has scored another 15 tries to take his total to 18, along with an impressive 349pts scored in total for the SaberCats. Coetzer has started 49 of his 50 MLR appearances to date and is a 2-time All-MLR selection (2nd XV in 2023, Honourable Mention XV in 2024). He is currently MLR’s 8th highest scorer of all time, and the 4th highest among active players. Coetzer earns his 50th MLR appearance after missing a few weeks due to injury, but doesn’t look like he’s lost a step. Congratulations, Davy!

Joe Johnston: New England’s most Capped Player!

On Saturday Joe Johnston, the 2025 Captain of the New England Free Jacks, featured in his 59th match for the franchise, becoming the most capped player in team history! The New Zealand flanker has appeared in 67.82% of all Free Jacks MLR games ever played, starting 47 times and completing 733 tackles to date. Johnston scored his 10th try this weekend while donning New England’s 2025 City Edition jersey, celebrating the 400th birthday of the City of Quincy!

Joe Johnston becomes the most capped Free Jack!

What makes Joe Johnston’s achievement that much more impressive is that he wasn’t with the team for the 2024 season, instead completing his studies in his native New Zealand! Johnston overtook Free Jacks legend John Poland for sole possession of first place. Poland, who would be way out in front if not for injury, is now level with Club Captain Josh Larsen who earned his 58th Free Jacks appearance in the same game. Congratulations, Joe!

Damm Reaches Double-Figures with LA!

Rugby FC LA battled back into the win column to keep their playoff hopes alive, recording a 45-17 victory over Anthem RC. The score line doesn’t tell the true story of the game, as the USA’s rising stars had kept it close for the majority of the match. Anthem pulled the score back to 26-17 with 10 minutes to go, but 19pts in the final 7 minutes from three RFCLA scores including a pair from Captain Jason Damm gave the impression of a blowout.

Damm’s brace in this game took his career total to 19 tries in 59 games, including 10 in 26 games for Rugby FC LA. He becomes just the 3rd player in RFCLA team history (not including Rugby ATL) to score double-figure tries! A capped USA Eagle, Jason Damm joins another pair of internationally capped RFCLA players with double-figure try counts for the team: Canadian Andrew Coe and Fijian Semi Kunatani, both currently on 11 tries for LA. Congratulations, Jason!

Wet Conditions in NOLA make for a record-setting slugfest!

After rain delays forced kickoff back, Friday night’s NOLA Gold v Miami Sharks game finally got underway, but the wet conditions severely affected play and resulted in a close range, grinding affair with plenty of handling errors. The two teams combined for only 387m gained, a total that has been regular eclipsed by single team totals during this season, even though meters total are generally lower in 2025 than in previous years. The Miami Sharks recorded 219m made in their 19-25 road victory, which is the 4th lowest total ever and sets a new MLR record for the lowest ever winning meters gained total! The previous record was the 243m set by the San Diego Legion in Round 3 of the 2025 season.

The NOLA Gold & Miami Sharks set two of the lowest Meters Made totals of all time!

Although the Miami Sharks’ 219m gained is one of the lowest totals of all time, their opponents set an even lower total. The NOLA Gold amassed only 168m gained in this game, becoming the first team in MLR history to record under 200m in a game, and setting a new lowest ever MLR total! Although their 40.51% possession can’t have helped matters, the lion’s share of the blame for these low totals can be attributed to the miserable conditions. But it just goes to show, even the messy games can result in some standout stats!

It is worth re-iterating that meters gained totals are down across the board in MLR’s 2025 season. Four of the 5 lowest team totals ever have already been recorded this season, including both the lowest winning total, and lowest overall total. Even individual player totals are down. The top Meter Eater heading into Round 14 of the 2025 season is Utah’s Jordan Trainor on an even 800m made. That same total would put Trainor 3rd at the same stage of the 2024 season. There were 9 players over 700m gained at this point of the 2024 season, this year, there are only 5. Some of this may be due to MLR switching analytics partner from Mobii to Oval Insights but no matter the cause, meters are harder to come by this year!

No Negatives in the Western Conference

In what seems like a rarity in a two-conference, 11 team league, there are no teams in Major League Rugby’s Western Conference that have a negative points differential after Round 13! The Utah Warriors and Houston SaberCats are both on +68 points on the season in first and second, respectively, then come the San Diego Legion with a solid +24 in third. The 5th placed Seattle Seawolves actually have the 4th best points differential in the West with +11 and finally, 4th placed Rugby FC LA improve to a +/- of 0 following their victory over Anthem RC!

When adding this to the two teams in the Eastern Conference that have positive points differentials (the New England Free Jacks on a league-best +87, and the Chicago Hounds on +33), SEVEN of Major League Rugby’s 11 teams have a positive (or neutral) points difference! All 4 teams with negative points difference are in the Eastern Conference, including a struggling Anthem RC team on a painful -219. Is this the first time in MLR history where no team in a conference has a negative differential!?

Seattle Seawolves pass 200 First XV selections!

With an impressive road victory over the Western Conference leaders the Utah Warriors, the Seattle Seawolves kept their playoff hopes alive! The 2-time Champs earned three First XV selections in Round 13 as Malembe Mpofu and Lauina Futi earned Team of the Week nods for their efforts, along with Nick Boyer on his Seawolves debut! This took Seattle to 16 selections on the 2025 season (tied for 8th) but more importantly, took them over 200 First XV selections all-time!

The Seattle Seawolves pass 200 First XV selections (all-time)

Now on 201 First XV selections in their history, the Seattle Seawolves are just the 2nd team ever to pass the 200 mark behind their old rivals the San Diego Legion, currently on 209. Unsurprisingly, the Top 5 consists entirely of MLR founding members as these teams have played the most games. The Utah Warriors sit 3rd way back on 164, ahead of the NOLA Gold on 159 and the Houston SaberCats on 148. It will be some time before a 3rd team passes the 200 mark, likely not until 2027. Congratulations, Seawolves!

Wrapping Up

That does it for the Midweek Milestones from a busy Round 13 in Major League Rugby! Four new members of the 50-cap club, some new all-time lows, and everyone is keeping positive in the Western Conference! With Round 14 having already kicked off on Tuesday night, what other standout stats will it treat us to over the weekend? You’ll have to wait and see in next week’s edition of Midweek Milestones!

Thank you for reading this edition of NARDB’s Midweek Milestones article! If you like this series, please get in touch on social media or 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 can also be found on YouTube, at NARStats!

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


Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 11 of MLR2025!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

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

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

Appearance Achievements – Utah’s First Centurion!

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

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

Major League Rugby

SeasonTeamGPGSTCPACDGMGTacklesKS/KAPts
MLR 2018Warriors99100003156105
MLR 2019Warriors16162000024396010
MLR 2020Warriors55000001083200
MLR 2021Warriors1713000003329200
MLR 2022Warriors155000002057600
MLR 2023Warriors164000002117200
MLR 2024Warriors146000001347500
MLR 2025Warriors14100000277900
Total-10659300001575583015

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

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

Source: @Miasharksrugby via Instagram

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

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

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

Victory Milestones

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

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

Individual Scoring Milestones

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

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

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

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

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

Alatimu sets new 2025 record with 17pt game for Houston

Miscellaneous Milestones!

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

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

Source: @chicagohoundsrugby via instagram

Wrapping Up

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

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

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

Midweek Milestones: Standout Stats from Round 10 of MLR2025!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

It’s hard to believe that we’re already 10 rounds in to the 2025 Major League Rugby season, and no closer to knowing where this season is going. Both conferences are still incredibly tight, with early season juggernauts reeling, and shaky starts evening out and starting to compete for the top spots! Let’s explore some of the standout stats from Round 10 of the 2025 MLR season.

Welcome back to Midweek Milestones! This weekly article highlights the big, and sometimes the small milestones that teams and players reached during the latest round of Major league Rugby action. The purpose of this is to highlight achievements that deserve recognition, that may have gone unnoticed otherwise. This week begins with the now-regular segment for Appearance Achievements, because there was a big one!

Appearance Achievements – MLR’s Second Centurion!

On Friday April 18th, the Seattle Seawolves defeated the Chicago Hounds in front of a home crowd. Seawolves scrum-half JP Smith started his 90th MLR game for the team, appearing in the 100th MLR game of his career to become just the 2nd player to feature in 100 matches in the competition. JP Smith is MLR’s Second Centurion!

JP Smith becomes MLR’s 2nd Centurion, and the first player to reach 100 appearances with a single team.

The South African joins fellow capped USA Eagle Dylan Fawsitt in MLR’s 100 Club, with Fawsitt having earned the achievement earlier this season with the Chicago Hounds (Seattle and Smith’s opponent for his 100th game, but Fawsitt did not feature). Although JP Smith is the second player to 100 MLR appearances, he is the first player in MLR history to play in 100 games for a single team, having played all 100 matches with the Seattle Seawolves since his debut in 2019. Smith is a 2019 MLR Champion and has finished as a Runner-Up twice, in 2022 & 2024. He was and All-MLR First XV selection in 2022, and has been included on the All-MLR Honorable Mention XV twice (2023, 2024). Congratulations, JP!
Smith’s stats can be found below:

JP Smith – MLR Stats

Major League Rugby

SeasonTeamGPGSTCPACDGMGTacklesKS/KAPts
MLR 2019Seawolves181160000264117030
MLR 2020Seawolves55200009943010
MLR 2021Seawolves1414100102388907
MLR 2022Seawolves1919432103621525/634
MLR 2023Seawolves171740010364131022
MLR 2024Seawolves191630000255110015
MLR 2025Seawolves14142000013669010
Total-1069622323017187115/6128

Although JP Smith’s achievement is probably the biggest highlight from Round 10, it’s not the only appearance milestone around the league. On the opposing side of Smith’s Seawolves were the Chicago Hounds and MLR Draftee Jake Kinneeveauk on the bench. The big Alaskan was selected in the 2nd Round, 22nd overall in the 2024 MLR Draft out of the University of Utah, and came on for the final 7 minutes to earn his MLR debut, completing two tackles as the Hounds comeback fell just short. Congratulations, Jake!

Speaking of Draftees, Major League Rugby’s first ever draft pick made his 50th MLR appearance on Friday as Conner Mooneyham and Anthem RC faced the New England Free Jacks. Mooneyham was selected 1st overall by the Dallas Jackals in MLR’s first draft back in 2020 and represented the Austin Gilgronis from 2021-2022, scoring 8 tries in 23 games before signing with the Seattle Seawolves. The Life University alum played with the Seawolves from 2023-2024, finishing as an MLR runner-up in 2024. A capped USA Eagle, Mooneyham was then traded (at his request) to Anthem RC for the 2025 season, where he earned his 50th MLR appearance in Round 10! He is the 3rd MLR Draftee to reach 50 appearances after Emmanuel Albert and Tavite Lopeti. Congratulations, Conner!

Lining up opposite Mooneyham in Friday night’s clash was New England Free Jacks center and Namibian international Le Roux Malan. Born in Namibia and raised in South Africa, Malan also earned his 50th MLR appearance in Round 10, playing all 50 games with the Free Jacks and starting 46 times since his debut in 2022. Malan has scored in the past two MLR Championship games, bagging the Shield-Winning score for New England in 2023. He suffered a nasty injury in between while representing his country at the Rugby World Cup in 2023, but came back in time for a try in the 2024 Final as well. Malan has 16 tries in his MLR career to date and over 3,100 meters made. Congratulations, Le Roux!

Source: @NEFreeJacks via Instagram

The final new member of the half-century club is San Diego Legion’s Tiaan Loots! The South African back started his MLR journey with the Houston SaberCats in 2020, playing 5 games before that season was cancelled due to COVID. He returned in 2021, signing with the San Diego Legion and representing them from 2021 onwards. He has started 40 of his 50 games in the competition, scoring 14 tries including a career high 6 last season! A MLR runner-up with the Legion in 2023, Loots has over 3,300m made in his career to date and was named in the All-MLR 2nd XV for the 2024 season. Congratulations on reaching 50 MLR appearances, Tiaan!

Team Milestones

Over the last few weeks, two of the 2024 expansion sides have passed the 500pt mark in Rugby FC LA and the Miami Sharks. After Round 10, the final team has also crept over this milestone! Although Anthem RC are still hunting for their elusive first win as a club, their point scoring isn’t too far off that of the Sharks or RFCLA. Thanks to 6 points from the boot of USA Eagle Mitch Wilson, the Rising Stars now sit on 502pts scored as a franchise. They were on the brink of that first victory earlier in the season but seem to have dropped off a bit. Can they get over the hump with 7 games remaining this season?

Before Anthem RC, the Miami Sharks were the latest team to hit the 500pt mark. The Sharks have garnered a bit of a reputation of nail-biting finishes this season, and that reputation won’t be helped by their 35-37 victory over Old Glory DC! In what was almost a repeat of their Round 1 clash, the Sharks raced out to a healthy 7-31 lead before DC battled back, and it was only two second half penalties from Shane O’Leary that spared the Sharks’ blushes in this one. At a combined 72pts scored, this is the highest scoring game in Miami Sharks history, eclipsing the 71pt total from a 50-21 victory over Anthem RC in Round 4 of the 2024 season. Congratulations, Sharks!

DC’s Run of Alternating Results Comes to an End!

On May 11th 2024, Old Glory DC recorded a 21-22 road victory over the Chicago Hounds to move to 2 wins in a row. Since then, the Flags had alternated between wins and losses for 16 games, before the Miami Sharks handed them a 35-37 defeat and 2nd loss in a row in Round 10 of the 2025 season!

Old Glory DC’s run of 16 alternating games ends

This streak (if you want to call it a streak) lasted for 16 games and went through the end of the 2024 regular season, continued through the 2024 playoffs, and made it half way through the 2025 regular season. Old Glory DC had not been on a streak of any kind in almost a calendar year!

Wrapping Up

A second MLR Centurion, a MLR debut, and Old Glory DC‘s strange streak comes to an end, all in this week’s edition of Midweek Milestones! With midweek games starting in Round 11 and running for the next few weeks, there’s bound to be some more standout stats. These articles will still be posted weekly and cover the latest round of MLR action, so next week’s article will cover the SEVEN matches from Round 11 of the 2025 Major League Rugby season!

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 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 3 of MLR2025!

NARDatabase

James Deeley

The 2025 Major League Rugby Season is flying, and we’re already three rounds into the new season with plenty to discuss! This article will highlight milestones and achievements from Round 3 that may have otherwise gone unnoticed, while also covering some of the larger milestones from the latest round of MLR action.

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.

7th Time’s the Charm!

The Utah Warriors continued their early season form with a convincing 55-21 victory over the NOLA Gold in a cross-conference clash to celebrate their 2025 home opener at Zion’s Bank Stadium on Saturday, marking the Warriors’ first ever victory over the Gold on the 7th attempt!

Entering this game with a 0-6 record against NOLA and a -49 Points Difference, the game remained close until around the 50 minute mark when the Warriors stepped on the gas, scoring 5 second half tries and 8 in total to blow the visitors away. Their 55pts from this game, added to the 45pts scored by Utah in their first game in Round 2, put them on 100pts scored in 2025 in just two games. This equals a MLR record for the fastest team to reach 100pts scored in a season, first achieved by the Austin Gilgronis in 2022 (43-7 & 57-12, also 100pts in their first two games)!

To put the icing on the cake, three of the Utah Warriors’ tries were scored by Joe Mano, earning his 2nd career MLR hat trick to become just the 4th player in League history to score multiple hat tricks in the competition, and the first Utah Warrior! This takes Mano’s career try total to 30, becoming just the 7th player in history to reach 30 tries scored in Major League Rugby! Congratulations, Joe!

Miami Reach 50 Meat Pies!

The Miami Sharks secured back to back wins (just!) to put them atop the Eastern Conference following a bruising game against Anthem RC on Friday night, with the USA’s Rising Stars coming closer than ever to their first win. Despite efforts to make it interesting at the end in classic Sharks fashion, Miami edged a 31-32 victory on the road, picking up 4 tries and a bonus point for their considerable efforts.

Of these four Miami tries, the third was scored by Ben Bonasso which on it’s own is simply a try in a close game. However, this try marked the 50th in Franchise history for the Sharks! They proceeded to add a 51st try from Tomas Bekerman to secure the Try Bonus Point late in the game, but the milestone try belongs to Ben Bonasso and the Sharks franchise, congratulations!

‘The Mechanic’ Hits a Half-Century

A strong runner and a formidable tackler, Joe ‘The Mechanic’ Johnston is playing in his 4th Major League Rugby Campaign in 2025 and, on Sunday reached 50 games played in the competition! Johnston has represented the New England Free Jacks for his entire MLR career, joining ahead of the 2021 season and playing with New England through their first Championship victory in 2023. He returned to his native New Zealand for 2024 in order to finish his studies but returned to Quincy this season, much to the delight of fans.

In each of his MLR seasons so far (not including 2025), Johnston has made over 500m in possession and completed well over 150 tackles, finishing in the Top 10 MLR tacklers twice (2021 & 2022), and achieving personal bests in both categories in 2022 (592m and 220 tackles). As of this article he has 1,739m made and 622 tackles completed (#24 all time). Johnston has started 39 of his 50 appearances in MLR (78%) and scored 8 MLR tries to date, and has been serving as the New England Captain for their 2025 season, where he was named as the Free Jacks’ Player of the Match on his 50th appearance. Congratulations, Joe!

Source: @NEFreeJacks via Instagram

The Legion pass 3,000!

The San Diego Legion continued their impressive start to the season with a bonus point victory on the road against Old Glory DC, with the 10-26 storyline perhaps flattering the visitors, as a frigid Maryland Saturday made for a low scoring, stop-start game. The San Diego Legion only managed 243m gained in total (compared to Old Glory’s 396m), setting a new MLR record for the lowest meters gained total in a winning effort, surpassing the previous record of 274m set by the Houston SaberCats in Round 4 of 2021!

Christian Poidevin’s 2nd try of the 2025 season secured the try bonus point for the Legion in the final few minutes, marking his 12th career MLR try. This try also pushed the San Diego Legion over the 3,000pts scored milestone as a franchise, becoming just the 2nd MLR team to pass the 3k mark after the Seattle Seawolves back in Round 1 (read more on that here)! The Legion now sit on 3,004 points scored, just behind their rivals the Seawolves, on 3,037.

Struggles in Seattle

On the topic of the Seattle Seawolves, their uncharacteristic start to the 2025 season looks to have gone from bad to worse following a narrow 21-24 defeat to the Houston SaberCats, falling to 0-2 on the season. As mentioned in a previous NARDB Article analyzing the increase in cards in recent MLR seasons, the Seattle Seawolves had never received a red card coming into the 2025 season. Unfortunately, that changed in dramatic fashion on Saturday evening.

In the 71st minute, while still holding a 17-21 lead, Pago Haini was showed a straight red card, becoming the first Seawolves player to ever receive a red card. An unenviable record that I’m sure Haini would rather forget. Houston would score to take the lead shortly after, before Juice Gumede was also shown a second straight red card in the 76th minute to reduce Seattle to 13 men for the final few minutes! The Seawolves had gone over 100 MLR games without seeing a red card, and suddenly two come along at once! Seattle will likely be without Haini or Gumede for the next few weeks, depending on their suspensions.

Sadly for Seawolves fans, that wasn’t quite all the bad news. They only managed 213m made in this game compared to Houston’s 387m made. This is the 2nd lowest carrying meters total in MLR history, only just ahead of the 202m made (also by the Seattle Seawolves) in Round 13 of the 2022 season against the Austin Gilgronis.

Source: @SeawolvesRugby via Twitter/X

It wasn’t quite entirely doom and gloom for the Seattle Seawolves, however. If any fans are looking for something to celebrate from this game, they did take a losing bonus point from this game and prevent the Houston SaberCats (their Western Conference rivals) from taking a try bonus point from this game.
On top of this, Seawolves’ South African hooker Kerron van Vuuren made his MLR debut for Seattle, becoming the 150th player to represent the team in an MLR game. van Vuuren scored a try on debut to cap off a milestone game for both him and the team, even if the result didn’t go the way they hoped.

In Conclusion

A first for the Utah Warriors, the San Diego Legion reach 3k, the Miami Sharks pass 50 tries scored, and more! That’s all for the 3rd edition of Midweek Milestones from Round 3 of Major League Rugby’s 2025 season.

If you like this series, please let me know on social media and share this article to help highlight 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!

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!