The season kicks off on April 21!

7 teams total.

Each team will play the others once in regular season play, then the top 4 will earn their spots to the playoffs.

The first official game will be New Orleans Gold @ Houston Sabercats.

Let's talk season predictions and pick our teams!!!

My projection:
1- Glendale
2- Utah
3- Houston
4- NOLA
5- San Diego
6- Austin
7- Seattle (because of the Visa issues with their coach)

Analysis: Glendale is obviously amazing, until last week, I would have made the argument that their back line was starting to age and that depth would be an issue, but Mika Kruse blew that assessment out of the water last weekend. The 19 year old is my new favorite young player and it will be an absolute crime if he is not starting for the USA U20s this year. Glendale is fine. I hope the other teams can catch up.

I'm not as sold on Houston anymore. You're only as good as your last performance and heir last performance (the draw with NOLA) was good but not particularly impressive. I saw a lot of good athleticism and the ability to punish the other team when they screwed up, but in attack, they were very vanilla (lots of ruck crashes and reliance upon Osea's incredible creative ability).
I think NOLA has turned it on recently. He addition of Tim Maupin to he centers and Bobby Johns to the wing have showed up the back line a good bit and they're trusting their forwards in attack a lot more. Worked well against Austin. Depth is going to be something to watch throughout the season.

I don't know what to think about Austin. Hopefully the addition of Roland Suniula will create some chemistry in the Centers (btw how COOL is it to see the Suniula brothers mixing it up is a pro setup TOGETHER?!). I'm assuming they'll be better in the scrum when Paddy Ryan and Peter Malcolm return.

SD has no Tight 5. From the sounds of it, they want to play 7s with 15 people. Could be interesting.

Utah is going to be a real dark horse for the #1 spot. They showed some INCREDIBLE athleticism last week and they didn't even include 2 of their internationals in the backline!! PLUS they add David Tamilau in the near future. I CANNOT WAIT to see those guys at full strength!!! Side note: there's a little rumor that Kurt Morath (Tongan Flyhalf and former FH for SD Breakers of PRO) may be joining the Warriors. If that happens, I think they'll become my favorites to win it all.

Don't know what to think about Seattle. Ready to see them in action. However, given the visa issues they just had with their head coach and the shear number of Canadians on their team, they could have even more roster shakeups before kickoff!

Thanks for the updates.

Scores from the exhibition games this weekend:

Glendale 35-22 NYAC (Glendale played with 14 for the entire 2nd half - starting prop got a red just before half)

Houston 33-17 USA Eagles (I mean San Diego Legion)
- pretty cool to see Zee Ngwenya back on an American pitch
- check out SD Instagram for a bit of game action

NOLA 38-10 Austin
- starting to get concerned with the meager crowds Austin is pulling in Round Rock.

Ontario 24-20 Utah
- very fun game to watch. Tail of 2 halves. Only game hat was streamed. Utah has some INCREDIBLE athletes. Ontario has a very good pack and Canadian International front row. Confirmed that Kurt Morath (Tongan International FH and former FH for SD Breakers in PRO) will be joining Utah. When he and Davis Tameilau join the camp in the next few weeks, Utah will be very dangerous. Possibility that Siaosi Mahoni (kid was a starter for SD Breakers in PRO at 18 and is like 6'8" 275#) could follow his cousin Tameilau to Utah.

Really happy with the result last night from the Cats. If they get their kicking together they'll be a really tough side. Glendale gonna Glendale.

For sure! I don't know why they've switched between Windsor and Pangelinan so much - maybe to see which one is on their game in a given night. But Windsor's boot is outstanding; it must be to make a 55m penalty (against NYAC).

Much better result than their last game (Draw with NOLA). 5/15 of that SD starting lineup are current or former Eagles and they didn't even include Ryan Matyas nor Mike Te'o in the match day 23; that's a good team. Some on r/MLRugby are saying SD may add a couple more heavy hitters before kickoff. I reallly really really want to see Langilangi Haupeakui in this iteration of professionalism; if you don't know who he is, look up his highlights from PRO - he was unstoppable at 8 for Sacramento.

Did other teams loan out some of there reserve players out to local clubs? My club got some Cats (who probably would of played for us anyways). I think if this attitude exist across the competition it will work wonders for the league and the sport as a whole.

Take away's from this weekend:
HOU needs their forwards to actually get past the gain line.
SD can't scrum, like at all.
SEA might be the new favorite to win 2nd in the competition, depending on what UT does this weekend.
GLN is scary good.
AER is scary bad. They were up 3 men. THREE MEN!

Yeah. The guys that had originally played with Houston club sides and/or are on the periphery of the team are CIPPed with Houston clubs. When they don't make he squad, they're encouraged to play with their club side.

Which club are you playing with?

CBS Sports is televising MLR game tonight at 930, and showed D1A college semis this afternoon.

That Seattle v Glendale game was a level of quality play (even in the pouring rain) that I didn't expect this season.

Houston v Austin was just a damn score-fest. Really fun to watch

I play for the Woodlands RFC.
Didn't get to watch at all this weekend except for the Texas Derby. I've read good stuff.

Jesus, the Texas Derby was AWESOME. So much skill on display. Same can be said of the other 2 games.

Glendale v Seattle lived up to the billing, IMO. Very intense.
Utah v SD exciting.

Handling errors still abound

I didn't watch much PRO but followed it loosely. How is MLR doing so much better? What can they learn from PRO for next season?

Attendances are beating PRO at this stage.

I think competitiveness is higher across the league, which a lot thought was impossible with the increase in teams.

Anyone going to Austin's home opener tonight?

Think I'll be there with another former Austin player.

rugger74 said:

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Think I'll be there with another former Austin player.

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I'll be watching at our BR watch party! Have fun!

Crowd looks small. Are there more folks on the camera side? Sounds like it

Maybe 750-1000 at the match. Hard to tell with folks walking around and the ones in the try zone bldg. Good match and several great runs by the Austin side. Beautiful weather and field. RR does a superb job with their parks and other facilities.

Austin surprised me after how their D looked last week. Here's hoping the Cats can take care of business!

You're the second person to say ~1000 I never would have believed it from the broadcast. Can't wait to make it to one of their games at the end of May.

The Sabercats game was probably the best game of the season. I only got the see the end but wow. I can't wait to watch the replay

Marketing will help Austin and getting folks out to Round Rock is the key. Works for Baseball if done correctly. The RR facility is tops and is a grass pitch. Downer, do not charge $8 for a 16 oz beer.

There was a great crowd for the USA v Canada game at the RRE stadium.

Official attendance for Austin was 698 last Thursday

Pretty good estimate from my seat at midfield. I will be in Houston for the match v Scotland. Looking forward to the match and catching up with some of my former teammates.

Can someone explain the rift between the Huns and the Elite? I've never been sober while hearing an explanation.

I believe some of the better Huns players decided to play professional and the amateur side was affected.

The owners were pretty ****ty to everybody and don't want to play nice with the already existing rugby community