Background & History

The Houston SaberCats were formed in 2017 from a local amateur club, the Houston Strikers, and are a founding member of Major League Rugby. The SaberCats have competed in every season of MLR to date (6 seasons through 2023). They were the first (and to date, only) MLR team to have their own purpose built venue, SaberCats Stadium, owned exclusively by the club (see more below in ‘Venue’ section). The team is owned by a consortium led by majority owner Miguel ‘Mike’ Loya, with one of his brothers, Javier, a minority owner.

The Houston SaberCats had a difficult time in the early years of MLR, finishing last in the inaugural season, and 7^th out of 9 in 2019. When the conference system was introduced in 2020, the SaberCats finished bottom of the Western Conference in back-to-back seasons between 2020-2021, winning a combined 3 games out of 21 (The 2020 season only lasted 5 rounds before it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Following the 2021 season, the tide began to turn for the SaberCats. Former Springboks head coach Heyneke Meyer was brought in as Director of Rugby, and Pote Human was hired as Head Coach. Houston began to bring in South African players which still make up a large contingent of the roster, and the wins started to come in. The club has won 19 of the 32 regular season games since Meyer & Human came in and qualified for the Championship Series in back-to-back seasons, the first post-season appearances in club history. The SaberCats qualified for the playoffs every season between 2022-2024, but are yet to record their first playoff victory. They were defeated by the Seattle Seawolves in both 2022 & 2023, and by the Dallas Jackals in a huge upset in 2024, after the SaberCats finished as the best team in the MLR regular season with a record of 14-2.

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Records & Record Holders

all time:

Top Scorer: Sam Windsor (432pts)
Top Try Scorer: Christian Dyer (19)
Top Playoff Scorer: Davy Coetzer (20)
Most Capped Player: Zach Pangelinan (56)
Most Starts: Sam Windsor (45)
Top Tackler: Cecil Garber (370)
Top Meter Eater: Davy Coetzer (2,296m)

Single Season

Top Scorer: Sam Windsor (160) – 2019
Top Try Scorer: Gideon van Wyk (11) – 2023
Top Tackler: Luke Beauchamp (189) – 2019
Top Meter Eater: Paula Balekana (1,232m) – 2021

Historical Performance

2018: 1-0-7 (-40) – 11pts: 7^th
2019: 6-0-10 (-151) – 30pts: 7^th
2020: 1-0-4 (-17) – 6pts: 6^th in Western Conference
2021: 2-0-14 (-276) – 13pts: 6^th in Western Conference
2022: 9-0-7 (+15) – 48pts: 3^rd in Western Conference (Western Conference Finalist)
2023: 10-0-6 (+71) – 53pts: 3^rd in Western Conference (Western Conference Eliminator)
2024: 14-0-2 (+131) – 67pts: 1st in Western Conference (Western Conference Semifinal)

Overall Regular Season Record: 43-0-50
Overall Championship Series Record: 0-3
Championship Series Appearances: 3 (2022-2023, 2024)

Head Coach & Captain

Head Coach

• Justin Fitzpatrick (2017-2019)
• Paul Emerick (2019)
• Paul Healy (2020-2021)
• Pote Human (2022-Present)

Captain

• Kyle Sumsion (2018)
• Matt Trouville (2019)
• De Wet Roos (2020-2021) (Co-Capt, 2021)
• Luke Beauchamp (2021) (Co-Capt)
• Dean Muir (2022-2023)
• Johan Momsen (2024)

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logo & Jersey

Like most teams in MLR, the SaberCats logo has barely changed since their founding in 2017. The logo depicts the yellow head of a SaberCat in profile, with the mouth open, forming a black rugby ball in the negative space. The SaberCats have played in black and yellow for their entire history. They play in black with yellow accents at home, and the reverse for away. In recent years the SaberCats have leant into the ‘big cat’ brand with some striking tiger-print jerseys.

In early November 2024, the SaberCats announced a subtle re-design of their wordmark logo. The team changed from bright yellow to ‘Regal Gold’ and appeared to make the new gold watermark their primary logo. The side-by-side wordmarks are shown below. While a warmer yellow (gold) is a good look, the change is so minor that people wondered why it was changed at all, saying that they would not have noticed the change if it wasn’t announced. There were even comments on the unveiling of the new look logo from people wondering what the announcement could be, not realising that they were looking at a new logo. The decision to make such a minor change looks even stranger when you remember that since the Dallas Jackals withdrew from MLR in 2024, the closest team to the SaberCats is the NOLA Gold, who already use royal (regal) imagery in their logos.

Venue

Shortly after the Houston SaberCats were founded in 2017, Houston City Council agreed to fund $3.2m towards a roughly $15.25m purpose-built rugby stadium to be completed in 2019. While this new stadium was under construction, the SaberCats played their home games out of Dyer Stadium for 2018, a 6,000 seater rugby/football/soccer/track arena that forms part of the Delmar-Tusa Sports Complex. The SaberCats had hoped to move into their new stadium ahead of their first home game, but due to construction delays the team had to play out of Constellation Field, a 7,500 seater baseball stadium where the Houston SaberCats played their exhibition season prior to the 2018 season.

Their new Stadium, a 4,000 seater grass pitch named AVEVA Stadium (thanks to a 3yr deal with software & tech company AVEVA) opened in April 2019 and has been the home of the Houston SaberCats ever since, making them the first (and so far, only) MLR team to own their own venue. Following the 3yr naming deal with AVEVA, the stadium became known as SaberCats Stadium in 2022.

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