MAJOR LEAGUE RUGBY (MLR) has announced that Rugby United New York (RUNY) will join the league from the beginning of 2019, with Irishmen Eddie O’Sullivan and Shane Horgan involved in an advisory capacity.
The inaugural season of the MLR gets underway with seven teams in April. New York will play an exhibition schedule in 2018 before they enter the league next year.
RUNY will join Austin Elite, Glendale Raptors, Houston SaberCats, NOLA Gold, San Diego Legion, Seattle Seawolves and Utah Warriors in the newly-founded professional rugby league.
“It is incredibly exciting to see a professional rugby club launching in the greater New York area,” said former Ireland and USA Eagles head coach O’Sullivan.
“It is a rugby region with immense potential and it is hugely encouraging the vision involves building a franchise from the grassroots upwards engaging age-grade, university and club rugby. I have no doubt it will play a key role in bringing USA Rugby to the next level.”
They’ll be led by former USA Eagles head coach Mike Tolkin, who’ll be joined by assistant coaches Bruce McLane, Andrew Britt and Vili Vakasisikakala in his backroom team.
“This is a particularly historic moment for rugby in New York,” said Tolkin.
“This will be the first domestic professional endeavor in the city and it provides an opportunity for the wealth of talented players and coaches found in our great local clubs to come together as a formidable team.”
RUNY will play an exhibition game against the Boston Mystics on 24 March at Gaelic Park in the Bronx.
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The Houston SaberCats will be hard bet
Had to google what a sea wolf was… Bit anticlimactic to be honest https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarhichadidae
@Rudiger McMonihan: ” They are bottom-feeders..” Doesn’t sound good for their league prospects.
@Rudiger McMonihan: It’s actually a nickname for the orca, aka killer whale.
I wont hold my breath. The 2016 attempt at Pro Rugby in USA only lasted 8 months. And they had got some decent players like Bergamasco, Muliainia, Wannenberg in to boost the profile.
@Donal Treacy: This is different to PRO rugby in many shapes and form. PRO had one guy own everything an create new teams from scratch. While 5 of the 7 teams in MLR are arising from D1 clubs who have already got infrastructure and player pool. MLR is also asking the teams to build high school and community programs as well as delevop an Academy to sustain some sort of future. But the biggest difference here is, CBS sports have agreed to broadcast MLR. PRO was literally streamed online. Im quietly hopeful
@Henry Suva: it has got TV broadcasting as well on NBC I believe which is pretty big, the previous iteration didn’t
@Cillian Gowan: The guy who ran the US Pro rugby from 2 or 3 years back was an absolute nutcase, you should check out their facebook page. He was attacking anyone in the comments about anything negative. It was bizarre. Going on to other pages, team pages, and players pages calling them all sorts while logged in as the page. Etc.
@Henry Suva: No worries. Irish man living in Virginia (not Cavan) so I’m keeping tabs on it.
Doomed if EOS is their adviser.
@Chris Mc: Why?
Some of these names are bloody awful. Hope it takes off for them as it’s a game that should fit the American psyche. Would imagine there are a lot of young American Footballers not quite making the grade that would relish a viable alternative.
Interesting development. Could well benefit irish rugby given that a lot of moves appear to be lifted from American football anyway (and this appears to be ok as ‘runners’ who, a few years ago, would have been considered to be obstructing play have come to be an accepted feature of the current game).
Also, given that in the professional era, players’ nationalities no longer matter we could well end up importing quality players from the USA.
The Crusaders have bought a share (albeit a 1% one) in the Seattle team which is an interesting development. Though I’m surprised the Seattle Saracens aren’t involved given how Saracens have been pushing hard to break the US market. I hope this works out. It’d be great to have some decent rugby on my doorstep. Can’t stand the names.
@Eddie Hekenui: I think they’re part of the same umbrella organization.
@Ian Williams: That would certainly make more sense.
Bunson Burner