The New England Free Jacks host rivals Old Glory DC in their 2026 Home Opener at Veteran’s Memorial Stadium in Quincy. This game marks the first leg of the 2026 Red, White, & Blue Bowl!

The defending champions enter their home opener off the back of a record defeat at the hands of the California Legion. A 43-5 hiding that the Free Jacks will be determined to avenge in front of a home crowd. Old Glory DC also kicked off their 2026 season on the road, facing a strong Seattle Seawolves side at the formidable Starfire Stadium, where they fell 33-16 last Friday. Both teams are eager to get into the win column early in this shortened 2026 season, and have plenty of history with one another. This game had all the makings of a classic!

Despite being under pressure early, the New England Free Jacks opened the scoring 10 minutes in with Kaleb Geiger dotting down at the back of a rolling maul from a linout, and Joel Hodgson made no mistakes with the conversion to give the hosts a 7-0 lead early on. It would take 15 more minutes for the visitors to answer, with Cory Daniel rumbling over for his first of the season and despite a team challenge from New England, the try stood. Jason Robertson added the extras to tie things up at 7, but Old Glory DC didn’t take their foot off the gas and kept up the pressure on the hosts, before a break out wide presented an opportunity, and Cory Daniel (of all people) finished in the corner for his 2nd of the game and to give DC their first lead of the game, 7-14 to the guests. There were no changes to the score before half-time, but there would be very shortly after the game restarted.

Whatever Head Coach Ryan Martin said to his Free Jacks squad during the half-time break clearly worked, because straight off of the 2nd half kick-off, Oscar Lennon finished a superb team try under the posts to make the game level once again, this time at 14pts a piece. The first 10 minutes of the second half were a flurry of scores, with John LeFevre finishing a DC score in the 46th minutes to restore their 7pt lead in just his 2nd career start in MLR, before Nathan Salmon hit back a couple of minutes later in the corner. Joel Hodgson was given two attempts at the conversion thanks to a failed DC team challenge, but was unable to add the extras from out wide, and the score held at 19-21 to the guests. This would be the final score of the game. Despite the Free Jacks having the lion’s share of possession in the final 30 minutes, the Old Glory DC defence held firm with extraordinary discipline. The Free Jacks discipline, which was highlighted as an issue in their thumping last week, was good for most of the game, conceding just 4 penalties through the first 50 minutes of this game, began to let them down in the final quarter. The defending champions conceded 7 penalties in the final 30mins alone, and they came at critical times. Every break that Old Glory DC got, they made the most of, and defended every phase as if they were on their try line. Their 2pt lead held, and the Flags claimed their first win of the 2026 season and their 3rd straight victory over their New England rivals.

The Free Jacks fall to 0-2 for the first time in their history and while they have definitely improved from last week, the shortened 2026 season means that they are going to start running out of runway quickly. They travel to Nashville to face the Chicago Hounds in MLR’s Music City Showdown next weekend.