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How the big-name signings really went in Major League Rugby

(Photos by Getty Images)

Major League Rugby recently kicked off its third professional season in the United States, and this year is set to be bigger than ever. The league has been aggressive in its expansion, introducing three new additional franchises this season based out of Atlanta, Washington D.C., and New England. Major League Rugby has also brought along star power in the form of recognizable international players to bolster the competition.

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These signings bring a wealth of experience and professionalism which is crucial for teams in their infancy. However, not all stars shine equally as bright, and this has certainly been the case in the early stages of the competition. Let’s take a look at how each ‘import’ has fared over the first two rounds.

Ma’a Nonu

A quick glance at the legendary All Black’s birth certificate may have led to the assumption that Nonu is over the hill at this stage of his career.

However, the 37-year-old has arguably been the best player over the first two rounds of play, leading an utterly dominant San Diego outfit to two convincing wins. It should come as no surprise since Nonu was stringing together quality performances in Super Rugby last season, just missing out on an unlikely All Blacks recall.

Following a shaky start in the championship rematch versus the Seattle Seawolves, Nonu flipped the tenor of the game with some sumptuous passes that unleashed the San Diego backline into the wide channels. The inside centre took control of the match and orchestrated two beautiful tries to blow the game wide open in the second half.

Nonu followed up on this performance up with an outstanding maiden try in Las Vegas, busting out his patented side-step to blow by fellow former All Black, Rene Ranger. The San Diego Legion have clearly been the cream of Major League Rugby so far, and Nonu is at the heart of it all.

Mathieu Bastareaud

Although it has only been two games, Bastareaud’s performances for New York have been an unmitigated disaster. The former French captain lined up at inside centre in his debut and was anonymous for most of the match, his team getting thoroughly out-classed by New England. While the newly introduced Free Jacks came out firing, New York followed the lead of their big-name star and were a step slow all game.

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Bastareaud has never possessed the typical figure of an international centre, but more concerning was his disinterest in asserting his trademark physicality. In an attempt to rekindle that combative flame New York moved Basteraud to eight-man for their second match, a position he frequented while at Lyon. It took all of sixty seconds for the big man to be on the receiving end of a highlight reel hit.

Outside of a few rampaging runs from the back of the scrum, Bastareaud was once again an afterthought in the game. The New York back-line also looked far sharper without Bastareaud in the midfield, albeit against a weaker opponent. Despite the convincing win, it will be crucial for Bastareaud to be his usual destructive self in contact and at the breakdown against the best teams. If New York hopes to return to the playoffs they will need to find the right position to unlock their star’s quality.

Tendai Mtarawira

Mtawirara’s introduction to the Major League Rugby couldn’t have gone much better. In front of a sold-out crowd in their first-ever home game, ‘the Beast’ helped Old Glory record an impressive win over the defending champion Seattle Seawolves on debut. The World Cup winning prop was quite the attraction after the game as well!

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The Beast was very popular post win against Seattle. Lost of autographs signed.
byu/Sailorcuff inMLRugby

Mtawirara helped anchor a scrum that was pulverized the week prior. Although their set-piece was still under immense pressure, the Beast’s presence made a drastic difference that kept his team afloat against what has been the best scrummaging team in the competition. Mtawirara threw himself across the park in open play for 70 minutes and injected life into his new team.

Rene Ranger

Another former All Black in the competition, Ranger has had a quieter start to the season than his mid-field counterpart Nonu. The destructive ball runner missed a large portion of the Super Rugby competition last year with the Sunwolves after rupturing his ACL in the opening round, so it is justifiable that he will slowly find his feet.

Ranger made his debut off of the bench in the opening round, being utilized as an outside centre for the Colorado Raptors rather than on the wing in an upset loss in Houston. In his second game Ranger looked far more threatening in attack against San Diego, setting up a try with a quality miss pass. Ranger may have been stepped out of his boots by Nonu early in the first half, but he regained his footing and will likely be the main source of line breaks for Colorado in the back-line.

The Raptors’ other notable signing, Digby Ioane, is yet to suit up for them yet but could be a major boon for a team that is looking for a spark.

WATCH: England head coach Eddie Jones was forced to apologise after making a bizarre remark about racism that has invited renewed scrutiny of his England regime.

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T
Tom 2 hours ago
What is the future of rugby in 2025?

Briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiistol! Briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiistol! Briiiiiiiiiiiiiiiistol!


It's incredible to see the boys playing like this. Back to the form that saw them finish on top of the regular season and beat Toulon to win the challenge cup. Ibitoye and Ravouvou doing a cracking Piutau/Radradra impression.


It's abundantly clear that Borthwick and Wigglesworth need to transform the England attack and incorporate some of the Bears way. Unfortunately until the Bears are competing in Europe, the old criticisms will still be used.. we failed to fire any punches against La Rochelle and Leinster which goes to show there is still work to do but both those sides are packed full of elite players so it's not the fairest comparison to expect Bristol to compete with them. I feel Bristol are on the way up though and the best is yet to come. Tom Jordan next year is going to be obscene.


Test rugby is obviously a different beast and does Borthwick have enough time with the players to develop the level of skill the Bears plays have? Even if he wanted to? We should definitely be able to see some progress, Scotland have certainly managed it. England aren't going to start throwing the ball around like that but England's attack looks prehistoric by comparison, I hope they take some inspiration from the clarity and freedom of expression shown by the Bears (and Scotland - who keep beating us, by the way!). Bristol have the best attack in the premiership, it'd be mad for England to ignore it because it doesn't fit with the Borthwick and Wigglesworth idea of how test rugby should be played. You gotta use what is available to you. Sadly I think England will try reluctantly to incorporate some of these ideas and end up even more confused and lacking identity than ever. At the moment England have two teams, they have 14 players and Marcus Smith. Marcus sticks out as a sore thumb in a team coached to play in a manner ideologically opposed to the way he plays rugby, does the Bears factor confuse matters further? I just have no confidence in Borthers and Wiggles.


Crazy to see the Prem with more ball in play than SR!

1 Go to comments
J
JW 6 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

In another recent article I tried to argue for a few key concept changes for EPCR which I think could light the game up in the North.


First, I can't remember who pointed out the obvious elephant in the room (a SA'n poster?), it's a terrible time to play rugby in the NH, and especially your pinnacle tournament. It's been terrible watching with seemingly all the games I wanted to watch being in the dark, hardly able to see what was going on. The Aviva was the only stadium I saw that had lights that could handle the miserable rain. If the global appeal is there, they could do a lot better having day games.


They other primary idea I thuoght would benefit EPCR most, was more content. The Prem could do with it and the Top14 could do with something more important than their own league, so they aren't under so much pressure to sell games. The quality over quantity approach.


Trim it down to two 16 team EPCR competitions, and introduce a third for playing amongst the T2 sides, or the bottom clubs in each league should simply be working on being better during the EPCR.


Champions Cup is made up of league best 15 teams, + 1, the Challenge Cup winner. Without a reason not to, I'd distribute it evenly based on each leauge, dividing into thirds and rounded up, 6 URC 5 Top14 4 English. Each winner (all four) is #1 rank and I'd have a seeding round or two for the other 12 to determine their own brackets for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. I'd then hold a 6 game pool, home and away, with consecutive of each for those games that involve SA'n teams. Preferrably I'd have a regional thing were all SA'n teams were in the same pool but that's a bit complex for this simple idea.


That pool round further finalises the seeding for knockout round of 16. So #1 pool has essentially duked it out for finals seeding already (better venue planning), and to see who they go up against 16, 15,etc etc. Actually I think I might prefer a single pool round for seeding, and introduce the home and away for Ro16, quarters, and semis (stuffs up venue hire). General idea to produce the most competitive matches possible until the random knockout phase, and fix the random lottery of which two teams get ranked higher after pool play, and also keep the system identical for the Challenge Cup so everthing is succinct. Top T2 side promoted from last year to make 16 in Challenge Cup

207 Go to comments
J
JW 11 hours ago
Does South Africa have a future in European competition?

I had a look at the wiki article again, it's all terribly old data (not that I'd see reason for much change in the case of SA).

Number Of Clubs:

1526

Registered+Unregistered Players:

651146

Number of Referees:

3460

Pre-teen Male Players:

320842

Pre-teen Female Player:

4522

Teen Male Player:

199213

Teen Female Player:

4906

Senior Male Player:

113174

Senior Female Player:

8489

Total Male Player:

633229

Total Female Player:

17917


So looking for something new as were more concerned with adults specifically, so I had a look at their EOY Financial Review.

The total number of clubs remains consistent, with a marginal increase of 1% from 1,161 to 1,167. 8.1.

A comparative analysis of verified data for 2022 and 2023 highlights a marginal decline of 1% in the number of female players, declining from 6,801 to 6,723. Additionally, the total number of players demonstrates an 8% decrease, dropping from 96,172 to 88,828.

So 80k+ adult males (down from 113k), but I'm not really sure when youth are involved with SAn clubs, or if that data is for some reason not being referenced/included. 300k male students however (200k in old wiki data).


https://resources.world.rugby/worldrugby/document/2020/07/28/212ed9cf-cd61-4fa3-b9d4-9f0d5fb61116/P56-57-Participation-Map_v3.pdf has France at 250k registered but https://presse-europe1-fr.translate.goog/exclu-europe-1-le-top-10-des-sports-les-plus-pratiques-en-france-en-2022/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp has them back up at 300k registered.


The French number likely Students + Club, but everyone collects data different I reckon. In that WR pdf for instance a lot of the major nations have a heavily registered setup, were as a nation like England can penetrate into a lot more schools to run camps and include them in the reach of rugby. For instance the SARU release says only 29% of schools are reached by proper rugby programs, where as the 2million English number would be through a much much higer penetration I'd imagine. Which is thanks to schools having the ability to involve themselves in programs more than anything.


In any case, I don't think you need to be concerned with the numbers, whether they are 300 or 88k, there is obviously a big enough following for their pro scenes already to have enough quality players for a 10/12 team competition. They appear ibgger than France but I don't really by the lower English numbers going around.

207 Go to comments
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