Americas Rugby News Rugby news from across the Americas!
The New England Free Jacks celebrated a hard-fought victory against Old Glory DC in their home opener on the weekend. They also welcomed a record attendance to Fort Quincy, with 3,353 the official tally. That’s about capacity in terms of seating space at Veterans Memorial Stadium, though there is enough standing room to accommodate a couple thousand more.
Success comes at a cost, however, and Saturday proved very costly as captain Josh Larsen suffered a dislocated shoulder and is now set to miss several weeks of action. With Reegan O’Gorman also currently sidelined the Free Jacks are very thin at lock.
Jesse Parete received a red card late in the game but as it was a second yellow, there’s a chance he won’t have to sit out any games. Conor Keys and Semisi Paea are the only other second row options and the trio will have to hold down the fort until mid-season at least.
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Other injuries over the weekend included a scary-looking concussion suffered by Dallas flanker Jalen Tatum after a head-to-head collision with San Diego hooker Sama Malolo. Seattle flanker Nakai Penny exited early though it wasn’t immediately clear what the problem was, and Houston scrumhalf Dillon Smit lasted just 8 minutes before deciding that the leg injury that had seen him miss the first three games wasn’t completely healed.
The NOLA vs New York match was particularly brutal on the weekend. Jarred Adams, Malcolm May, and Harley Wheeler went off in the first half for the Gold. Wheeler’s knee injury looked the most serious of the three. The Ironworkers lost Nic Mayhew and Kara Pryor, the latter holding his shoulder gingerly when he exited at the same time as Wheeler.
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What hasn’t already been said about the marvelous performance from Sammy ‘The Boot’ Malcolm in Chicago? With two tries, one conversion, four penalty goals, and a match-winning drop goal, he accounted for all 27 of Toronto’s points. That is a club record and the second-highest individual tally in MLR history. The highest? Robbie Petzer scored 34 for the Glendale Raptors against Utah in May of 2019.
With one of each type of score, Malcolm also enters the history books as only the third player in MLR to achieve a ‘full house’. It hasn’t happened since the inaugural 2018 season, when Glendale’s Maximo de Achaval and NOLA’s JP Eloff both remarkably managed the feat just a week apart.
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Could a Major League Rugby team finally be heading for Vancouver? A new article from The Province sports writer Patrick Johnston outlines efforts by a local group to put together a compelling bid. Among those spearheading the renewed interest are realtor Pat O’Gorman, the father of Free Jacks lock Reegan, and entrepreneur Karl Harrison.
If the second name sounds familiar, it’s because Harrison was the leading man behind the original bid that was supposed to bring MLR to British Columbia in 2019. Current Seattle owner Adrian Balfour was also involved, but ultimately the parties fell out and the bid never came to fruition.
Others have since explored the idea of a Vancouver team, which to many fans is a no-brainer given BC’s long history of excellence in Canadian rugby. As for this new bid, at the moment it falls short in the only obstacle that really matters. As Tom Cruise famously quipped, “show me the money.”
