Veteran's Memorial Stadium

2025 – RD 13: New England Free Jacks v Chicago Hounds

The Chicago Hounds return to Quincy for the first time since the 2024 Eastern Conference Final, looking to get revenge on the New England Free Jacks. The Free Jacks will defend Fort Quincy on the back of a 6-game win streak and have bulldozed their way to the top of the Eastern Conference, with the Chicago Hounds looking to retake the top spot, coming off of a hard earned victory over the Miami Sharks last week.

These teams have met 5 times in the past, splitting the regular season series 2-2 but the Free Jacks have the edge with a victory in their lone playoff match-up last season. The Hounds demolished the Free Jacks with a 36-7 victory in their most recent meeting back in Round 3 of the 2025 season though, so this one could be a cracker.

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2025 – RD 12: New England Free Jacks v Houston SaberCats

The top of the 2024 Eastern Conference host the top of the 2024 Western Conference in this cross-conference clash between the New England Free Jacks and the Houston SaberCats. The Free Jacks are on a 5-game win streak following a close victory over Rugby FC LA, and are aiming to go atop the Eastern Conference while wearing their City Jerseys honouring the City of Quincy’s 400th anniversary. On the other hand, the Houston SaberCats are on a streak of their own, with 2 wins on the trot following a big home victory over OId Glory DC.

These teams have met 3 times in the past, and the SaberCats are yet to defeat the Free Jacks. Can they do it on the road?

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2025 – RD 11: New England Free Jacks v Rugby FC LA

Rugby FC LA travel all the way to Massachusetts to face the New England Free Jacks in a cross-conference mid-week clash, before RFCLA fly back to California to host the San Diego Legion in 4 days time, playing 2 games in RD 11 of 2025 as the midweek mayhem of the 2025 season begins! Luckily for LA, they are coming off of a bye week while the Free Jacks are roaring back in the Eastern Conference, on a 4 game win streak following a victory over Anthem RC in Round 10.

These teams have met twice in the past with RFCLA yet to defeat the New England Free Jacks, who last defeated LA on the road in their first game of the 2025 season.

Despite an Early red card to John Poland, the first score of the game came from New England’s Dan Hollinshead, but it was the visitors who ran out to a 3-14 lead off of tries from Rory van Vugt and Nick Chan. As the 2nd half began however, the Free Jacks began to scrape their way back into the game, scoring through Captain Wian Conradie and the boot of Hollinshead, taking advantage of poor discipline from Rugby FC LA. A couple of penalties and a try from Kyle Steeves took the hosts to a 23-14 lead with 20 unanswered points, before LA’s Semi Kunatani scored with the clock in the red to secure a losing BP for the guests from California.

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WER 2025 – RD 5: Boston Banshees v New York Exiles

The Boston Banshees host the New York Exiles in Round 5 of the inaugural Women’s Elite Rugby season in 2025! This marks the first repeat fixture in WER history, with the two sides having met in the league’s first ever match, a 27-29 Banshees victory in New York.

The 2nd ever meeting between the Banshees and the Exiles proved almost as close. The Exiles managed to even up the head-to-head series with a 20-24 away victory in Quincy.

 

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2025 – RD 9: New England Free Jacks v San Diego Legion

The New England Free Jacks host the San Diego Legion in a cross-country clash that marks a repeat of the 2023 Championship Game, and the first time in MLR history that the Legion have visited Quincy. Despite starting their 2025 campaign with a 5-game win streak, the San Diego Legion are coming off two losses in a row and have fallen from 1st in the West. They will be looking to steady the ship but are up against a resurgent Free Jacks side on a 2-game win streak, including an impressive 43-6 victory over Miami.

These teams have met 5 teams in the past, and the Free Jacks hold a slender 3-2 series lead thanks to their victory in their 1 playoff matchup in the 2023 final. In the most recent meeting, the Free Jacks scraped a 23-24 victory in California. Can they manage a third 1pt win over the Legion?

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2025 – RD 8: New England Free Jacks v Miami Sharks

The New England Free Jacks host the Miami Sharks in an Eastern Conference clash at Veteran’s Memorial Stadium in Quincy, MA! The Free Jacks are coming off of a remarkable comeback victory on the road against the Utah Warriors in which they scored 28 unanswered points in the second half. The Sharks head into this game on a 3-game losing streak, but have had a bye week to rest and refocus. These teams have met twice in the past and split the series 1-1, with the Sharks taking the most recent meeting, a hard fought 15-13 victory in Florida.

With a spectacular comeback victory last week and a dominant victory here, are the reigning champs back? The Free Jacks secure a runaway 43-6 home victory thanks in part to Faletoi Peni’s excellent performance at fly-half, and a hat trick for Paula Balekana. This was Balekana’s first creer MLR hat trick, and the 50th hatty in league history! The Miami Sharks are yet to score a try in Quincy, after 2 games there.

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WER 2025 – RD 2: Boston Banshees v TC Gemini

The inaugural WER season continues as the Twin Cities Gemini travel to Quincy, MA to face the Banshees. Both of these sides picked up bonus point victories last week in the opening weekend of WER, and are looking to build on that momentum.

The Boston Banshees pick up a comfortable 36-10 victory over the Gemini, setting team records for both points (36) and tries (6) scored. Banshees No. 8 Yeja Dunn dotted down 3 times in this game to record the first hat trick in Banshees history, and the 2nd WER hat trick!

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2025 – RD 5: New England Free Jacks v NOLA Gold

The New England Free Jacks finally return to Quincy in their first game since securing back-to-back Shields in the 2024 Championship Game. They host the NOLA Gold who will look to spoil the party. The Gold are on the road but are fresh after a bye last week, while the struggling Free Jacks are coming off a heartbreaking Coffee Cup defeat in Seattle at the hands of the Seawolves. These Eastern Conference rivals have met 10 times in the past, with the Free Jacks holding a 6-4 series lead. The most recent meeting between these two sides was a 27-17 Gold victory in New Orleans in Round 17 of the 2024 season.

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2024 Eastern Conference Final – New England Free Jacks v Chicago Hounds

The New England Free Jacks host the Chicago Hounds in the 2024 Eastern Conference Final at Veteran’s Memorial stadium in Quincy, MA.

The Free Jacks defeated Old Glory DC 33-29 in a growing rivalry to advance to the ECF, while the Chicago Hounds defeated the NOLA Gold 21-45 on the road in Louisiana in both teams’ first ever playoff game.

The game started with both teams trying to gain field position and the upper hand and both sides gave away plenty of penalties early on, but neither chose to go for points. Free Jacks’ prop John-Roy Jenkinson lasted only 13 minutes before injury sidelined him so Cole Keith would have to play almost 70 minutes in the front row. The first score of the game came after 20 minutes as Paula Balekana received a floated pass over the top and managed to offload to Reece MacDonald before going into touch for an easy finish, and the hosts were on the board. Potroz could add the two but would get another chance soon enough as MacDonald scythed through the Hounds defence to bag his 2nd in 3 minutes, but Potroz failed to add the extras again, so the Free Jacks lead was 10-0 after 23 minutes. It looked as though the score would stay that way into the half as both sides settled back in to the back and forth that defined the early game, but Nate Augspurger was able to grab one for the visitors on the stroke of half time, and Luke Carty added the two to cut the deficit to only 3pts at the break.

Potroz must’ve found his kicking boots during half-time, because he added 3 early in the 2nd half to extend the Free Jacks’ lead, but they would go down to 14 men following a yellow card to Conor Keys and Luke Carty stepped up to cancel out Potroz’s kick. The Hounds were unable to capitalise on the man advantage however, and Potroz would slot another 3 just before the 60min break. With just under 15 minutes to go, Dylan Fawsitt grabbed the ball at the back of a Chicago maul, and his patented try-scoring method didn’t let them down. His 14th of the season brought the visitors within 1 before Carty added the two to give the Hounds their first lead of the game. This was short-lived however, as 5 minutes later the Free Jacks struck back through their own hooker, as Andrew Quattrin grabbed his 8th of the year to swing the lead back to the hosts before Potroz added the two.

The Chicago Hounds were unable to break the Free Jacks defence in the final 7 minutes and the 23-17 score was how things ended. The Chicago Hounds’ 2024 season comes to an end after a heroic performance against the reigning Champions, who head back to the MLR Final for the 2nd year in a row with a chance to win back-to-back shields.

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2024 Eastern Conference SF 1 – New England Free Jacks v Old Glory DC

Following the International break, the MLR Playoffs get underway with the reigning champion New England Free Jacks (#1) hosting Old Glory DC (#4) at Veteran’s Memorial Stadium for a spot in the Conference Final.

The hosts may have had their 2024 home record in the back of their heads as they entered this one, with 3 of their losses coming at the usually impenetrable Fort Quincy, including one to Old Glory DC early in the season. The Free Jacks however, opened the scoring through a Reece MacDonald score in open play to grab an early 7-0 lead, before Connor Buckley ran a great support line to level things up just minutes later. Jayson Potroz would add a penalty to give New England back the lead before Buckley would strike again to shift the lead over to the Flags, before the two sides traded penalty for try once more, with DC captain Jama Fa’anana-Schultz diving over the ruck to tocuh down for Old Glory’s 3rd of the game and give the visitors a 13-21 lead after Jason Robertson added the two. The two sides settled into a back and forth without shifting the scoreboard, and it looked as though DC would take that lead into the sheds for the half time break, but the Free Jacks had other ideas. A 36th minute try from Jed Melvin cut the gap, before Potroz added another 3 followed by Oscar Lennon scoring his first MLR try with the clock in the red for half-time, to give the hosts a 30-21 lead and shellshock Old Glory DC with 17pts scored in the final 5 or so minutes of the first half.

A high-scoring first half led to a low scoring second, with a real battle for the first 15minutes of the half was finally broken by Connor Buckley’s 3rd try of the game, to cut the gap to 4pts after a missed conversion. With this score, Buckley becomes the first player in MLR history to record a hat trick in a Playoff game! Minutes later, Potroz added another 3pts to extend the lead to 7pts, before a 66th minute penalty to DC where they opted for the posts rather than the corner, taking the score to 33-29 with just under 15minutes to play. These final 15 minutes proved a defensive masterclass from the Free Jacks, pinning DC deep in their own end and giving them no real opportunity to gain ground and get into scoring range. Another nail-biting game in this growing rivalry ends 33-29 in favour of the reigning champion New England Free Jacks.

The Free Jacks advance to the Eastern Conference Final where they will face the winner of NOLA Gold v Chicago Hounds, while DC’s season comes to an end in Quincy once again, and they head to the off-season.

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