Major League Rugby MLR
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Isaac Ross has accepted his playing days in Japan are over, and will instead head to the USA to take up a player/coach role with Austin Gilgronis next year. The Ta$man Mako lock will team up with fellow former All Black Jamie Mackintosh for the Texas-based Major League Rugby side, splitting their time between playing and coaching the forwards. -
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@daffy-jaffy he's got some wheels for a fatty!
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Junior Sa'u makes code switch with a twist
Leigh’s former New Zealand international Junior Sa’u is to switch codes at the age of 34 after joining Washington Old Glory.
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The Recruitment to the MLR has been very strong. The old dogs will do so much for the development over their. Very similar to early japan but with proper development.
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Scanning through the team websites I saw this:
Wiki says Abel is only 32, so not old.
https://www.warriorsrugby.com/news/utah-warriors-add-robbie-abel-as-forwards-coach/
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Interesting viewing this - a number of familiar faces are trying to convert American athletes from their traditional sports over to the great game we call rugby.
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The MLR starts this weekend (5-6 Feb 2022).
From the official website:
International fans can stream all matches live and for free on The Rugby Network. Fans are encouraged to visit https://www.majorleague.rugby/ for additional information and https://www.majorleague.rugby/schedules/ for the full season schedule and more information on how to tune in.
It looks like the schedule on that webpage shows the kick-off times in our own time:
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I've always struggled to settle on a team to support in this comp. I've been to a number of the cities represented, of which Austin was probably my favourite and they don't have any major league teams so I want a team to support from there but fucked if I can get behind a team named after a cocktail.
Texas is well represented in MLR and as such this leaves Houston - boring city and also a dumb team name and crap colours - and the new team from Dallas which I could add to the Rangers and Cowboys as teams I loosely follow.
New York? Nah, too obvious. New Orleans? Loved the food and the drinks and that's how I'd like to leave my association with NOLA.
So I come back to Dallas.
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Just looking at the full MLR site and getting reacquainted with the teams and something I quite like is how many of them have chosen colours which speak to those of prominent teams also from those cities. Austin for example includes orange ala Texas Longhorns, RNY is blue and orange like the Knicks and Mets, Washington red and blue like the Wizards, New England the blue and red of the Pats, Seattle has the same colours as the Seahawks and Toronto the Maple Leafs. I guess an argument could be made that Dallas' teal and black is somewhere in between the Stars' green, Mavs' blue and green and Cowboy's blue and silver. I haven't looked into it but maybe there is some ownership crossover, but either way I like that some of these teams are trying to strengthen regional identities through colours. It's something that's always niggled me about the major leagues in that it's rare for teams from the same city/state to wear the same colours. I think the only city/state to have multiple major league teams who all wear the same are those from Pittsburgh.
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Wonder how often this has happened for these 2
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@taniwharugby I could only find two other times.
2013 Auckland v Northland
https://www.espn.com/rugby/lineups?gameId=181120&league=2705632016 Blues v Highlanders
https://www.espn.com/rugby/lineups?gameId=276385&league=242041 -
