MLR Round 3 saw 23 Canadian players in the rosters, 10 starting and 13 in the reserves. Lucas Rumball made the MLR Team of the Week. San Diego is the only team at 3-0 and Utah are the only other undefeated team at 2-0. Canadian referees have an important role in MLR as well, below is a list of Canadian referees participating in the MLR this season.
MLR Week 2 wrapped up with only 12 Canadian players in action (8 starting, 4 reserves) as New England, Seattle and Old Glory had byes. Cooper Coats and Spencer Jones made the MLR team of the week. San Diego is the only 2-0 team going into Round 3.
There were 21 Canadian players in action (out of 46) in MLR Round One, 11 starting, 10 in reserves and 25 not in action. Looking through the match stats for impact players, Mason Flesch has the high tackle count (12) for Chicago in their win over Houston. Andrew Coe was 3rd in metres made in the LA match with 62, Piers von Dadelszen was 4th in tackles made with 19 for New England. Cooper Coats was 4th in defenders beaten (2) in his match with New Orleans. Jesse Mackail made a big impact coming in as reserve hooker for Seattle and scoring 2 tries.
A couple of MLR preseason news items that impact Canadian rugby fans. The LA franchise is in Fiji to play the Drua this evening, the team includes 6 Canadian players. Also the Seattle Seawolves match vs Canada Selects, scheduled for Feb. 7th has been called off, the Seawolves will play the local Seattle club side instead.
The MLR have announced their 2025 schedule that runs from the weekend of Feb 15/16 to June 7/8 with the playoffs to follow. The league now has 11 teams with Dallas Jackals dropping out this season. There will be 5 Western Conference teams, Seattle, San Diego, LA, Utah and Houston and 6 Eastern Conference teams, New England, DC, Miami, New Orleans, Chicago and Charlotte in the East.
Seattle is closer to BC and the Seawolves were initially seeded with Canadian talent by Curry Hitchborn when MLR first started in 2018, and Seattle won the first two titles in 2018 and 2019. But now Seattle have lost that Canadian connection, only Reid Davis appeared sporadically in the roster this season, and he wasn’t in the match day 23 for Seattle this weekend. The Free Jacks however boasted 9 Canadians in the roster in the Championship match, so who which team were we pulling for… O Canada.
Seattle and New England will meet in the MLR final. Seattle won the first two years of MLR championships after the league started, 2018 and 2019. New England are defending champions, 2023. The other two title winners are no longer in the league, LA Giltinis 2021, and Rugby New York 2022. The 2020 season was cancelled due to Covid.
There were four conference semi-finals taking place over the weekend, 5 of the 8 teams have Canadian players in the roster with 20 players participating. New England Free Jacks have the largest number of Canadian players dressed with 9 representing, Dallas have 4, DC have 3, Chicago have 3 and NOLA has 1.
The regular season has wrapped up, the playoff picture is set but won’t start for a few weeks to allow for the international test window. The playoffs start on July 20th with New England hosting Old Glory, Houston hosting Dallas, New Orleans hosting Chicago and Seattle hosting San Diego.
There’s one week left in the regular season. The West playoff picture is clear, Houston will host Dallas and Seattle will host San Diego. In the East the top four playoff spots are known but the order can still be changed based on next weekend’s results, currently it would be New England hosting DC and NOLA hosting Chicago.