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The collegiate-level wrestler who has become MLR's tackling machine

Cory Daniel #7 of the United States runs with the ball during the 2024 Pacific Nations Cup Pool B match between Canada and the United States at Dignity Health Sports Park on August 31, 2024 in Carson, California. (Photo by Alex Ho/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

Cory Daniel is a tackling machine. The USA Eagles flanker was the top tackler in Major League Rugby (MLR) in 2024 as Old Glory made the Eastern Conference semi-finals.

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The ability to consistently knock over opposition has earned the Fulton, Maryland native four international caps, including a rigorous display in the Eagles’ 28-18 win over Canada to open the Pacific Nations Cup in California on Sunday.

“Canda went pretty well. I got around the park and made a few tackles,” Daniel told RugbyPass.

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“We had a tough fortnight preparing in Chula Vista. Canada is a game we always want to win. It got a little scary when they came back in the last twenty minutes, but we’ve got some good players.

“It was awesome to see Luke Carty set up those tries and give our backs some ball.”

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Wrestling at the fabled University of North Carolina helped Daniel develop his appetite for tackling. Daniel was undefeated in his junior and senior years and won two state championships. He finished with a career record of 162-22.

“A good chop tackle in rugby is the same as a double leg takedown in wrestling. At the breakdown leverage and body control are key to winning the ball,” Daniel explained.

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“I was originally supposed to go to the University of Maryland but what a beautiful campus UNC is. The education is top tier and that made me change.

“I could have carried on with wrestling, but few do. When I first played rugby, I found it so exciting. I liked how you could be an offensive and defensive player. It was something different.”

Daniel first found rugby through his college wrestling coach who connected him with then USA Rugby High Performance Director, Dan Payne.

Presently USA Rugby CEO, Payne was an Eagles flanker at the 2007 Rugby World Cup and an accomplished wrestler.

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Daniel attended the North America Rugby Academy in Glendale, Colorado in the autumn of 2019 and signed with Old Glory in 2020. In 2022 he played in 15 MLR matches and was the league’s leading tackler with 255.

“The standard of MLR is definitely getting better. The international players have increased the quality and the American players are stepping up,” Daniel said.

“It was pretty surreal going against Ma’a Nonu. I tackled him a couple of times. His presence is just one example of the growing calibre of players the league is attracting.”

With the USA hosting the Rugby World Cup in 2031 there is pressure on the Eagles to build a more competitive side. Daniel debuted in November 2022 at the Rugby World Cup 2023 final qualification tournament in Dubai. The USA beat Keyna 68-14 and Hong Kong 49-7, but missed out on France after a 16-16 draw with Portugal.

“I wasn’t surprised to see Portugal do as well as they did at the World Cup. They’re a good side and they showed that when we played them again in Europe,” Daniel said.

“That campaign was a disappointment, but it’s very much in the past now. We don’t talk about it. We’ve got a whole lot of new and positive things going on.”

It’s unlikely Daniel would have gone to the 2023 Rugby World Cup anyway after suffering a shoulder injury.

The USA face Fiji in the Pacific Nations Cup semi-final this Saturday in Japan.

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J
JW 5 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.


He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.


The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).


The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.


The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).


It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.

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