Tag: Utah Warriors

Player Movement around MLR: September 30 – October 6, 2024

NAR Database

James Deeley

Another week deeper into the Major League Rugby off-season, and still no word on the Dallas Jackals dispersal draft. Player moves are still few and far between, with only 1 move confirmed last week. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to talk about however, with plenty of action taking place off the pitch. Here’s everything you may have missed last week:

Kruse heads to the PNW

Last week, the Utah Warriors announced the departure of 17 players that would not be returning in 2025. NARDB understands that this was the choice of the team and these players were let go, rather than leaving of their own volition. One of these former Warriors found a new home almost immediately, with the Seattle Seawolves announcing the addition of USA Eagle #538 Mika Kruse for their 2025 season.

Kruse was the 10th player in MLR history to reach 50 caps in the competition on April 23rd, 2022, and has earned 80 MLR appearances as of the conclusion of the 2024 season including 51 for the Utah Warriors since 2021. Adding his 8 tries in 29 games for the Glendale/Colorado Raptors to his 18 for the Warriors, Kruse has scored 26 tries in MLR. This puts him 8th on MLR’s All-Time leading try scorer list, and he’s the 6th highest MLR Meter Eater, on 4,218m. Still only 26, Kruse is a great addition for the Seawolves and he’ll fill the gap left by Conner Mooneyham on the wing.

Source: Seattle Seawolves
Chicago add Coaching Pair

Moving to the sidelines, newly appointed Chicago Hounds Head Coach Chris Latham announced a pair of Assistant Coaches for their 2025 campaign.

Latham announced fellow Australian Todd Dammers as Forwards Coach, after the pair previously worked together with the South’s Rugby Club in Australia. Dammers has previously served as an Assistant coach for the Samoan National Team in 2019 (also alongside Latham), as well as the Director of Rugby at Sydney University and Forwards Coach with the Tokyo Black Rams in Japan’s Top League. Dammers joined the Hounds from Brisbane Boys College where he was serving as Director of Rugby.

As well as adding Dammers, the Hounds bring in former Leinster centurion and Toronto Arrows center Noel Reid as Backs Coach. Reid, who is capped for the Irish national team and played at Leinster with former Hounds player Dave Kearney, a minority owner of the Hounds with his brother Rob. As well as earning over 100 appearances with Leinster, Reid represented the Leicester Tigers and London Irish in the English Premiership, as well as Agen in France. He finished his playing career with the Toronto Arrows for the 2023 MLR season, where he earned 7 appearances and scored 1 try. Signed to play with the Arrows for the 2024 MLR season, when the Arrows withdrew from Major League Rugby Reid moved to a coaching role with the Arrows Academy, now known as The Rugby Academy. Reid also served as the Head Coach for the Markham Irish in the Greater Toronto Area in 2024.

Hoiles Returns to LA

Moving further from the pitch still, from the sidelines to the offices. Rugby FC LA announced the hiring of former Wallabies international Stephen Hoiles as Director of Rugby for the 2025 & 2026 MLR seasons. The former Waratahs & Brumbies man is no stranger to MLR or even to LA, having served as Forwards & Defence Coach of the LA Giltinis in their Shield-winning inaugural season in 2021. He was appointed as the Head Coach of the Giltinis for the 2022 season, prior to the disqualification and subsequent folding of both the Giltinis and the Austin Gilgronis during the ‘Gilly-Gate’ fiasco. Hoiles returned to his native Australia and took up a position as Head Coach of his former club team, the Randwick Galloping Greens. Hoiles coached Randwick to the Shute Shield title in 2023, the club’s first title since 2004 when Hoiles was a player. He followed his 2023 up by being named as the Shute Shield Coach of the Year in 2024, and now returns to LA.

Hoiles’ appointment with RFCLA is as Director of Rugby, his first such role. It is unclear if he will also be taking on coaching duties while in this role, similar to Seattle‘s Allan Clarke, who serves as both DoR and Head Coach of the Seawolves, or if RFCLA will be announcing a Head Coach in the near future.

Source: @rugbyfcla on Instagram

There’s your round-up for last week around Major League Rugby. These summaries are released every Monday to ensure you stay up to date on all the big news around MLR with NARDB!

Warriors Announce an Exodus in Utah

NAR Database

James Deeley

The Utah Warriors yesterday announced the departure of a whopping 17 players who will not be returning to the club for the 2025 MLR season. In the post, the Warriors organization thanked the group of departing players, and wished them good luck in the future. So who were the departing players, and what does this mean for the Warriors’ season in 2025?

Source: @utwarriorsrugby on twitter

Let’s start with who is leaving the Warriors. A good number of these will be household names to Utah fans, players like Caleb Makene (part of the leadership group), Mika Kruse, Franco van den Berg, Thomas Tu’avao, Onehunga Havili, and Paul Mullen. Others are newer arrivals to the Warriors, such as Kieran McClea, Nic Souchon, Lopeti Aisea, Robbie Povey (although he was a Warrior in 2020), and Louis Conradie, and others still may be perhaps less well known among fans due to playing fewer minutes but are no less part of the team, such as Mika’s brother Isaia Kruse, Noah Bain, Alesana Pohla, Jonah Dietenberger, Jesse Hamilton, and John DuPree.

There is no arguing that this is a huge amount of turnover for the Warriors, and it has got some fans wondering what is going on. I have seen some people online taking this announcement to ask whether money is an issue for the Warriors. This is likely a side effect of the Dallas Jackals pulling out last week, and doesn’t carry much weight. The Warriors announced a brand new HQ towards the end of last season, which they simply wouldn’t have done if money was a concern, and they hosted ‘WarriorsFest’ at America First Field for their final game of the season in front of over 10,000 fans. The team is strong, and isn’t going anywhere.

Source: @utahwarriorsrugby on Instagram

So why all the departures? For a rather unsatisfying answer, it could be any number of reasons. Let’s first be clear that just because they are leaving the Utah Warriors doesn’t mean they are leaving MLR entirely. It could of course have been the team’s choice to say farewell to these players in order to free up cap space, for example. If that’s the case I hope they all land on their feet, and we see them back around MLR before long. It’s also possible that foreign players want to return home after spending a year or two playing in the US (Makene, Souchon, McClea, Havili, etc.), or that the more fringe players may feel they can earn more game time elsewhere (Hamilton, DuPree, Bain, I. Kruse). This latter point is not even limited to fringe players: Franco van den Berg will be 28 at the end of the month, Mika Kruse is still only 26, and Paul Mullen is 32, the prime age for a front row! Could USA Eagles Kruse & Mullen be on Anthem‘s radar? It wouldn’t surprise me to see many of these names return to MLR on different rosters, but we must accept that at least some will likely be stepping back from playing professionally, and thank them for their time in MLR.

Whatever the reasons behind it, 17 players departing is a high number for any team. After missing out on the MLR playoffs by inches in 2023 however, the Warriors will have been disappointed with their season in 2024. This overhaul of the roster may be the ‘rebuild’ that Utah needs to return to the playoffs for the first time since 2021. It’s not like the roster is barren as is, fans will be delighted that the likes of Joel Hodgson, Paul Lasike, Frank Lochore, Phil Bradford, Dylan Nel, and superstar Michael Manson were not included on the graphic (of these, only Lasike is US eligible, and he’s 34). We’ll have to wait and see who the Warriors add as the off-season trundles on, and Head Coach Greg Cooper & Warriors CEO Kimball Kjar now have a huge chunk of salary cap space to play with, let’s see how they use it. It’ll be a very different looking Utah Warriors side in 2025, but there’s a strong core, and underestimate them at your peril.

Edit: Hours after this article was posted, the Seattle Seawolves announced the signing of Mika Kruse for the 2025 season, so we already know the fate of one of the Warriors’ departures!