Major League Rugby

[DumbAmerican]

You wont gets kids that`s for sure. Football is and will always be the american contact sport of choose but you do have literally hundred of undrafted 23/24 y/o. All those MLB/OLB/CB/SS/FS that dont make the cut they are in almost good weight and speed for rugby(not the stamina sure).

Oh yeah. There will be plenty of athletes here who can learn to play rugby at a 2nd tier professional league level if money starts to show up. That won't be an issue at all. The question is where do you build an initial fanbase. The MLS started out playing in front of 10-20K crowds, and a bit more in some markets. That's why I suggested the teams get involved with marketing beer leagues regionally to get men into playing the sport.

In the least surprising news of the season New York announced the signing of Foden last week.
Be interesting to see whether MLR goes the MLS route of signing a bunch of older ex-internationals. Would definitely get more eyeballs on the league, but I don't know whether the money is there

Maybe more eyeballs internationally, but I can't see it being worth overpaying like it is for MLS. Premier league soccer stars are well known to general sports fans in the US. Signing Wayne Rooney in DC makes people who attend local sporting events regularly, but not necessarily DC United, take notice. Only hardcore rugby fans, who I'm assuming are already supporting MLR, know random guys who played for Ireland or Australia. Athletes it might make sense to slightly overpay beyond their talent level for pure marketing purposes would be a local college football star who didn't make it in the NFL.

 

[higgik]

With NY, LA and Ontario slated to start next year, 10 teams would be a nice number for a couple of years.
Nice east west split of 5 teams each.
Play home and away in group, 8 matches, and home or away v other 5, giving a total of 13 matches add maybe another against other group to make 14 match regular season, followed by 6 team play offs.

 

[AmericanRugbyFan]

Atlanta and Boston on the horizon.

 

[higgik]

See NY are the only official team for 2019, so 8 teams, followed by
New England FreeJacks, LA Coast and Atlanta in 2020.
This would give 11 teams for 2020, although D.C. are also on course for 2020.
Maybe Ontario will miss out due to issues between Canada Rugby and MLR.
12 teams would give a good size league.
3 groups of 4
East NY, NE, DC, Atlanta
Central NOLA, Houston, Austin, Glendale
West LA, Seattle, San Diego, Utah

Home and Away in division 6 matches
Home or Away v rest 8 matches
14 matches is a good number of matches as it gives enough to create good interest, without making it too many and losing interest.

Play offs division winners plus next best.

 

[snoopy snoopy dog dog]

Great to see the league expanding but I hope the talent pool isn't diluted too much by such rapid growth.

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

So Ontario has been confirmed for 2019.

According to reddit 15 Uruguayans will be coming to the league next year and apparently we are negotiating to bring other players from South America to the league.

How great would it be if all players in the ARC were pro? Either in MLR, Europe, or super rugby.

 

[Welshdragon2000]

Apparently the top players from Chile and Brazil will receive pro contacts in MLR too.

This is how Uruguay's pro system currently works:
They have 15 players under professional contracts who train every week or whatever it is. The point of this is of course to improve the players and their understanding with each other. The plan is for these 15 to go up to MLR and then this leaves room for the URU to employ another 15 players under pro contracts to train together. It is more than 15 players that will benefit here and this is good news for Uruguay. Things are looking a lot more promising for Uruguay at the World Cup now. It'll be a tall ask for them to beat either of Georgia or Fiji (let alone Wales and Australia). However the schedule is terrible with the Fiji and Georgia games 4 days apart.

Great to see the league expanding but I hope the talent pool isn't diluted too much by such rapid growth.

I don't think it will be diluted personally as it seems that the limit of foreign players for each team will be increased from 5 to 10 players. Thus allowing more South Americans to play in the league, and also Latin Americans. I read recently that the prospect of having a side based in Mexico City has been looked at and isn't a 'remote' idea. Exciting indeed and I am very much looking forward to MLR starting back in January and the season after that with Atlanta and Boston.

In other MLR news, Michalak (ex France) is being strongly linked with RUNY and RUNY tweeted an hour or so ago that a player incoming is set to be announced...

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

What's this then? Some positive Tier2 news!? Praise be for the Americas. Great for Canada to have a chance to come off life support and a huge win-win if South American players play. Improves the South American players while providing squad depth through the early years of expansion.

Sounds like the organisers are taking a heavy dose of common sense. They can gradually dial back overseas player numbers if they get to the stage of producing youth players (as per the Romanian Superliga).

 

[Welshdragon2000]

What's this then? Some positive Tier2 news!? Praise be for the Americas. Great for Canada to have a chance to come off life support and a huge win-win if South American players play. Improves the South American players while providing squad depth through the early years of expansion.

Sounds like the organisers are taking a heavy dose of common sense. They can gradually dial back overseas player numbers if they get to the stage of producing youth players (as per the Romanian Superliga).

There's plenty of good news for tier 2 Bruce! I'm not so involved these days on this site as I find that about 1% of the users care about tier 2. I've found my haven elsewhere the positivity is that the gap between tier 1 and tier 2 is closing! Almost all the good news comes from the Americas and MLR has been wonderful for the continent. Colombia are a growing force in the South amongst others. The LAR (South American equivalent of MLR) will begin in 2020 so there will be professional sides in Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay not to mention Argentina. In Europe, the 12th best side are in with a shout of qualifying for the World Cup. The fact that Germany aren't being ruled out straight away shows that the standards are improving fast. Kenya have recently given the go ahead to build a new rugby purpose built stadium and signs are very encouraging from that end. Namibia are looking much more competitive than usual also. Plenty to shout about believe me

 

[Groundhog]

So MLR is crossing borders now which I thought was a natural if unexpectedly early step for the competition as someone who hasn't really been paying attention. They're definitely adding teams fast that's for sure.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

View attachment 6907

So MLR is crossing borders now which I thought was a natural if unexpectedly early step for the competition as someone who hasn't really been paying attention. They're definitely adding teams fast that's for sure.

This is officially a 'big feckin deal' for Tier2. Canadian rugby has been on the slide for years and only a professional club (in whatever tournament) can reverse that.

It'll have to compete with rugby league's Toronto Wolfpack, but apparently they just failed to get promoted - so that may help the MLR market in the city in that little battle for hearts and minds.

As stated above, rapid expansion is achievable if you get decent professionals from elsewhere in the Americas. I've no idea about the financials of the MLR, but nothing I've read so far sounds remotely hair brained.

 

[pagliaccio_euforico]

This is officially a 'big feckin deal' for Tier2. Canadian rugby has been on the slide for years and only a professional club (in whatever tournament) can reverse that.

It'll have to compete with rugby league's Toronto Wolfpack, but apparently they just failed to get promoted - so that may help the MLR market in the city in that little battle for hearts and minds.

As stated above, rapid expansion is achievable if you get decent professionals from elsewhere in the Americas. I've no idea about the financials of the MLR, but nothing I've read so far sounds remotely hair brained.

there are rumours of financial difficulties in Utah but everything else is looking good

 

[Groundhog]

Here's another weird one
https://www.the42.ie/provincial-a-teams-competition-usa-4332238-Nov2018/

IRFU are definitely looking to be the early bird to the US market. Bit of a two fingers to the AIL, but it's still an interesting move.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

A nice little piece on the combine for MLR from World Rugby.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

New York appoint Tiffany Faaee as forwards coach. Possibly the first woman to coach in a professional setup. Which is kind of a big deal.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.sm...-professional-men-s-team-20181130-p50jc5.html

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

"The fact I played for the Eagles, the players know I scrum the same, tackle the same, what I've been through as a rugby athlete is what they've been through," she told ESPNW.
"The game is exactly the same. We use the same ball, the same field, the rules are the same. Only, in my case, there aren't many players in Major League Rugby who have reached the international level. For most of them, MLR is the highest level they've played, so there is already that respect that I've played a higher level of rugby."


Not to sound like a prick but they really are not the same.
Wish her all the best though, hope it works out.

Personally I don't think Gender should be an issue with coaching rugby,

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

She apparently split her playing time between forwards and backs too, so it's not like she was a dedicated front rower or anything. Still, its an interesting development and one I'll keep half an eye on.

 

[snoopy snoopy dog dog]

I know nothing about Tiffany Faaee but hope she's a massive success as coach and it breaks down a barrier in coaching of men's sport. It would be great to get to a point where we aren't noting somebody's gender and merely referred to them as the best coaches regardless.

As a more general point, using Irish rugby as an example, the most successful recent coaches here have been Eddie O'Sullivan (loathe as I am to admit it), Declan Kidney, Joe Schmidt and Stuart Lancaster. All have a background in teaching. I don't have stats to hand but I'd guess that more than 50% of school teachers are women. If the best coaches come from teaching backgrounds surely there are a hell of a lot of women in that profession who could be of value to coaching in rugby.

 

[LeinsterMan (NotTigsMan)]

When Lancaster is deemed a successful coach in Irish rugby but Cullen isn't...

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Not to put Mole out of business with his lovely tables, but the official standings seem nice and cleanly laid out.

https://www.usmlr.com/stats-standings/

I've not been following the league this year so much (in part due to highlights being only 1min long, which doesn't give me much of a flavour of a match), but a few things stand out or interest me.

- the relative parity seems to be continuing if you look at the points difference column. No team cruising and no team getting totally smashed each week.
- some teams have played 5 games, others 3. This doesn't seem to be related NY and Toronto being in winter.
- how are they handling the scheduling of NY and Toronto games in winter?
- NY making a solid start (2-1) despite having a female forwards coach *gasps sarcastically*