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'He carries harder than anything I've seen in the Premiership' - two expats give an insight into Major League Rugby
The latest attempt to establish a professional competition in the United States will come to fruition next week with the dawn of Major League Rugby (MLR).
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Seven teams from across the country – Austin Elite, Glendale Raptors, Houston SaberCats, New Orleans Gold, San Diego Legion, Seattle Seawolves and Utah Warriors – will compete for the inaugural title and the attention of the sports-mad American public over the following three months.
The play-offs will culminate in a ‘Championship Game’ that will take place at the 6,000-capacity Torero Stadium in San Diego and among those hoping that the hosts grace that stage is the man leading the Legion’s charge – head coach Rob Hoadley.
The former Wasps and London Irish favourite was lured to the ‘land of opportunity’ for the one-season wonder that was PRO Rugby, and while that dream may have sadly died, Hoadley remains committed to growing the game in the USA – but in a different guise.
“Like many, I was intrigued by the potential of the American rugby landscape,” said Hoadley, reflecting on his original decision to switch to the States, “and having spoken to a few people in the game I felt the opportunity to expand my horizons could be something that would really pay dividends in the long term.”
A Premiership and European Cup winner during his playing career, Hoadley was also excited by the chance to build something from the very beginning with the Legion.
“The European rugby landscape is amazing, I love it,” said Hoadley, who began his coaching journey at Wasps under the guidance of Shaun Edwards and who remains a mentor. “I look back on some big Premiership games and European games which were incredible, but essentially you are doing the same thing over and over again.
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“Here it is a whole new landscape. You can pick and choose what you think are the best elements from around the world and create your own vision of how you want to do it and then apply that to the American sporting landscape that is completely unique in itself.”
Hoadley has just 15 full time professionals to work with along with 12 ‘associates’ who will juggle work or study with training. However, the team’s proximity to US Olympic training centre in Chula Vista brings with it an added bonus.
“We also have a deal with USA 7s and head coach Mike Friday where we have access to their players when they are not competing in the World Series,” he explained.
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Someone else who is no stranger to the Sevens Series is Legion forwards and breakdown coach – and former England 7s star – Chris Cracknell.
“It’s just like being in Fiji and trying to create a dream that a lot of people haven’t been able to build over here yet,” said Cracknell, who helped steer Fiji to Olympic gold in 2016 as an assistant to head coach Ben Ryan.
With league regulations stipulating a maximum five overseas players in a match day 23, the pressure is on to identify and develop home grown players.
“We want to stay true to our values in terms of developing American talent,” said Cracknell. “We are blessed to have eight US Eagles with us including the captain Nate Augspurger, Cam Dolan and Ben Cima, the guy who has been doing the rounds on social media recently with his flick kick.”
“We’ve also got young, up and coming talent like Gil Covey and a guy called Sione Tu’ihalamaka who has played Division 1 College Football.
“He’s transitioning from American Football into rugby and he’s an unbelievable athlete, talk about raw power, he carries harder than anything I have seen in the Premiership and Super Rugby.
10 minutes before kickoff. #mlr #rugby #utahwarriors pic.twitter.com/fw7jaW6JtT
— DAVEY WILSON (@daveywilson) April 10, 2018
“His angles and understanding and way of learning is something I don’t think rugby has quite caught up to yet, because he is coming from an American Football background. He is used to a play book five inches thick and so if I give him two or three lineouts to learn he’s like ‘cool’!
“We have got a real mix but again that is exciting for us as a coaching group and we are determined to get them all on the same page as quickly as possible and make this team successful,” concluded Cracknell.
The Legion also benefit from access to the EXOS ‘human performance centre’ in San Diego that Hoadley firmly believes is one of the best training facilities in the world.
“It’s cutting edge, they are training the best athletes in the world,” explained Hoadley. “They have got a depth of knowledge that isn’t available in Europe, it’s different, now we must just apply their knowledge to rugby.”
Hoadley is honest in his assessment of the likely standard of the competition but adamant as to where it will be in the near future.
“The start may be possibly equivalent to National League 1 in England and it is up to us to build it up. The biggest thing you will notice when you compare it to top flight rugby elsewhere is that the speed is not there at this stage.
“The real challenge for the players is to execute skills at a pace above what they are used to.
“For us at the moment in training, we are pushing and exceeding the limits of the players. Skill acquisition is only useful if you can execute under intense pressure.
“A big thing for us is to build that capability and it will take time but now the guys are in a full-time environment there is no excuse for not implementing that.”
But Hoadley knows that his side’s success is just one essential part of the bigger picture that includes the USA Eagles, USA 7s and every other MLR franchise.
“We need to create a great product and really to get eyes on it and engage the American public,” he explained. “At the Legion we need to grow and be competitive but we need the other teams to grow as well so that the product brings people in.
“Gary Gold has already had a great impact on the USA team, they just went back-to-back in the Americas Rugby Championship, and the same weekend Mike Friday’s USA 7s team won the Las Vegas title.
“It’s incredibly encouraging and we want to create a dream pathway for our players that they can play professional rugby and then go on and represent the USA.
“That vision is something that guys can get behind and we’ll start attracting more and more of the best athletes which should help create success for the Legion, success for American rugby a great product that people around the world want to be involved with.”
Watch episode one the RugbyPass Original: ‘Rugby Explorer’ with Jim Hamilton
Ex-Scotland international, Jim Hamilton, travels to Singapore to explore the city and find out more about the rugby scene in the Southeast Asian country. He meets up with the national team captain and several local players.
Comments on RugbyPass
Both nations missed a great opportunity to book a game that would have had a lot of interest from around the world. I understand these games can’t be organised in 5 minutes but they should have found a way to make it happen. I don’t think Wales are ducking anyone but it’s a bad look haha.
3 Go to commentsIt will be fascinating to see the effect that Jo Yapp has. If they can compete with Canada and give BFs a run for their money that will be progress
1 Go to commentsFollowing his dream and putting in the work. Go well young fella!
3 Go to commentsPerhaps filling Twickenham is one of Mitchell’s KPIs. I doubt whether both September matches will be at Twickenham on consecutive weekends. I would take the BF one to a large provincial stadium so as not to give them the advantage and experience of playing at Twickenham before a large crowd prior to the RWC.
1 Go to commentsvery unfortunate for Kitshoff, but big opportunity potentially for Nché to prove he is genuinely the best loosehead in the world, rather than just a specialist finisher. Presuming that if Kitshoff is out, it will also give Steenekamp a chance to come into the 23? Or are others likely to be ahead of him?
1 Go to commentsA long held question in popular culture asks if art imitates life or does the latter influence the former? Over this 6 nations I can ask the same question of the media influencing the thoughts of its audience or vice versa. Nobody wants to see cricket scores in rugby, as a spectacle it is not sustainable. With so many articles about England’s procession and lack of competition it feeds the epicaricacy of many looking for an opportunity to pounce. England are not the first team to dominate nor does it happen only in rugby, think Federer, Nadal, Red Bull or Mercedes, Manchester Utd, Australia in tests and World Cups. Instead of celebrating the achievements why find reasons to falsify it pointing towards larger playing pool, professional for a longer period or mitigate with the lack of growth in other nations. Can we not enjoy it while it is here and know that it won’t last for ever, others coveting what England have will soon take the crown, ask the aforementioned?
6 Go to commentsShame he won’t turn out for the Netherlands now they’re improving. U20s are Euro champs and in the U20 Trophy this year. The senior sides gets better every year too.
3 Go to commentsWill rugbypass tv be showing these games?
1 Go to commentsWell where do you start, the fact that England have a professional domestic league and Ireland’s is fully amatuer, that they have fully seperated professional squads at Fifteens and Sevens (7’s thinly disguised as GB), and Ireland have fully pro Sevens squad who loan some players back to the Semi-Professional Fifteens squad (moved from amateur for only a year or so) for a few games at 6N & RWC’s. The Women’s games is a shambles, and is at risk of killing itself by pushing for professionalism when the market isn’t really there to support it outside one or two countnries..
6 Go to commentsWayne Smith's input didn't have as much impact on the last final as Davison's red card for Thompson. England were 14 points up and flying when that happened.
6 Go to commentsBilly's been playing consistently well for 2 - 3 seasons now and deserves a look in at the top level. Ioane and ALB are still first choice but there needs to be injury cover and succession. His partnership with Jordie gives him first dibs you'd think. Go the Hurricanes.
3 Go to commentsIt’s not up to Wales to support Georgian Rugby. That’s up to International Rugby and Georgia. I sympathise with Georgia’s decent attempt to create this fixture. But for Wales the proposed match up is just a potential stick to beat them with and a potential big psychological blow that young Welsh team doesn’t need. (I’m Irish BTW.)
3 Go to commentsCale certainly looks great in space, but as you say, he has struggled in contact. At 23 years old, turning 24 this year, he should be close to full physical maturity and yet there exists a considerable gap in the power and physicality required for international rugby. Weight doesn’t automatically equate to power and physicality either. Can he go from a player who’s being physically dominated in Super rugby to physically dominating in international rugby in 1 or 2 years? That’s a big ask but he may end up being a late bloomer.
28 Go to commentsIf rugby wants to remain interesting in the AI era then it will need to work on changing the rules. AI will reduce the tactical advantage of smart game plans, will neutralize primary attacking weapons, and will move rugby from a being a game of inches to a game of millimetres. It will be about sheer athleticism and technique,about avoiding mistakes, and about referees. Many fans will find that boring. The answer is to add creative degrees of freedom to the game. The 50-22 is an example. But we can have fun inventing others, like the right to add more players for X minutes per game, or the equivalent of the 2-point conversion in American football, the ability to call a 12-player scrum, etc. Not saying these are great ideas, but making the point that the more of these alternatives you allow, the less AI will be able to lock down high-probability strategies. This is not because AI does not have the compute power, but because it has more choices and has less data, or less-specific data. That will take time and debate, but big, positive and immediate impact could be in the area of ref/TMO assistance. The technology is easily good enough today to detect forward passes, not-straight lineouts, offside at breakdown/scrum/lineout, obstruction, early/late tackles, and a lot of other things. WR should be ultra aggressive in doing this, as it will really help in an area in which the game is really struggling. In the long run there needs to be substantial creativity applied to the rules. Without that AI (along with all of the pro innovations) will turn rugby into a bash fest.
24 Go to commentsSouth Africa rarely play Ireland and France on these tours. Mostly, England, Scotland and Wales. I wonder why
2 Go to commentsIt was a let’s-see-what-you're-made-of type of a game. The Bulls do look good when the opposition allows them to, but Munster shut them down, and they could not find a way through. Jake should be very worried about their chances in the competition.
2 Go to commentsHats off to Fabian for a very impressive journey to date. Is it as ‘uniquely unlikely’ as Rugby Pass suggests, given Anton Segner’s journey at the Blues?
3 Go to commentsSad that this was not confirmed. When administrators talk about expanding the game they evidently don’t include pathways to the top tier of rugby for teams outside of the old boys club. Rugby deserves better, and certainly Georgia does.
3 Go to commentsLions might take him on if they move on Van Rooyen but I doubt he will want to go back, might consider it a step backwards for himself. Sharks would take him on but if Plumtree goes on to win the challenge cup they will keep him on. Also sharks showing some promising signs recently. Stormers and Bulls are stable and Springboks are already filled up. Quality coach though, interesting to see where he ends up
1 Go to commentsAnd the person responsible for creating a culture of accountability is?
3 Go to comments