2021 Major League Rugby season explained

2021 Major League Rugby season
Countries:	United States (11 teams) Canada (1 team)
Date:	March 20 – August 1
Champions:	LA Giltinis (1st title)
Runnersup:	Rugby ATL
Matches:	99
Highest Attendance:	7,389 LA Giltinis vs Rugby ATL (August 1, 2021)
Tries:	679
Top Point Scorer:	Dan Hollinshead (111)
Top Try Scorer:	D. T. H. van der Merwe (11)
Website:	majorleague.rugby
Prevseason:	2020
Nextseason:	2022

The 2021 Major League Rugby season was the fourth season of Major League Rugby, the professional rugby union competition sanctioned by USA Rugby. The regular season began on March 20, 2021.^[1]

One team made their debut in 2021: the LA Giltinis. The season also marks the first team departure in the league's history, with the Colorado Raptors. MLR history was made when United States Rugby referee Kat Roche became the first woman in a lead officiating role in a match (Seattle Seawolves vs Houston SaberCats on July 15).

Teams and format

Conference	Club	Metro area	Stadium	Capacity	Coach	Captain
Western Conference	Austin Gilgronis	Austin, Texas	Bold Stadium	5,000	Sam Harris	Bryce Campbell
	Houston SaberCats	Houston, Texas	Aveva Stadium	4,000	Paul Healy	Luke Beauchamp De Wet Roos
	LA Giltinis	Los Angeles, California	Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum	77,500	Darren Coleman	Dave Dennis
	San Diego Legion	San Diego, California Las Vegas, Nevada Los Angeles, California Chula Vista, California		6,000	Scott Murray Zack Test	Joe Pietersen
	Seattle Seawolves	Seattle, Washington	Starfire Stadium	4,500	Kees Lensing (to April 23, 2021) Pate Tuilevuka (from April 23, 2021, to May 27, 2021) Allen Clarke (from May 27, 2021)	Riekert Hattingh
	Utah Warriors	Salt Lake City, Utah	Zions Bank Stadium	5,000	Shawn Pittman	Bailey Wilson
Eastern Conference	New England Free Jacks	Boston, Massachusetts	Union Point Sports Complex Veterans Memorial Stadium	2,000 5,000	Ryan Martin	Josh Larsen
	New Orleans Gold	New Orleans, Louisiana	Gold Mine	10,000	Nate Osborne	Kyle Baillie
	Old Glory DC	Washington, D.C.	Segra Field	5,000	Andrew Douglas	Mungo Mason Thretton Palamo
	Rugby United New York	New York, New York Jersey City, New Jersey	MCU Park Cochrane Stadium	7,000 4,000	Marty Veale	Dylan Fawsitt
	Rugby ATL	Atlanta, Georgia	Lupo Family Field	2,500	Scott Lawrence	Matt Heaton Ryan Nell
	Toronto Arrows	Toronto, Ontario Atlanta, Georgia	Lupo Family Field	2,500	Chris Silverthorn	Ben LeSage Lucas Rumball

Trial laws

Several new rules were introduced for the 2021 season, some of which are not practiced in other rugby leagues:^[2]

Kick Clock: Kickers will now have sixty seconds as opposed to ninety seconds for both conversions and penalties.
Seven points will be automatically awarded for any try scored directly under the posts and kicking a conversion will no longer be necessary.
Referees will work with stricter protocols that will limit the number of scrums to two per incident – the original plus one reset for a collapse, penalty, or freekick.
The offside line will be the feed line/channel of the scrum to allow for unimpeded access to the ball at the back of the scrum for the attacking team.
No longer will a red card mean a team plays a man down for the remainder of the match. Under the new law a red card would lead to a player being sent off and the team goes down to 14 players for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, the player can be replaced with another player on the bench.

Regular season

The regular season consists of eighteen weeks, with each team playing 16 matches, beginning on March 20, 2021.^[3]

Standings

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Season Standings

Western Conference

Team

LA Giltinis (CH)

545

305

+240

Utah Warriors (SF)

506

464

+42

Austin Gilgronis

389

317

+72

San Diego Legion

430

464

-34

Seattle Seawolves

343

461

-118

Houston SaberCats

274

550

-276

Eastern Conference

Team

Rugby ATL (RU)

420

321

+99

Rugby United New York (SF)

448

419

+29

New Orleans Gold

375

378

-3

New England Free Jacks

382

351

+31

Old Glory DC

409

490

-81

Toronto Arrows

411

412

-1

If teams are level at any stage, tiebreaker criteria are as follows (coin tosses or draw of lots will be used if those below fail):

number of matches won
the difference between points for and points against
the number of tries scored
the most points scored
the difference between tries for and tries against
the fewest red cards received
the fewest yellow cards received

Green background indicates teams in position for the Playoffs
(CH) Champions. (RU) Runners-up. (SF) Losing semi-finalists.
Last Updated: July 18, 2021

Matches

	AUS	HOU	LA	NE	NO	DC	ATL	NY	SD	SEA	TOR	UTA
Austin Gilgronis		26–0	3–17				17–15	16–9	11–14	42–15	47–21	28–30
Houston SaberCats	9–28		35–48	0–32		13–21			34–32	30–24	10–19	5–24
LA Giltinis	31–17	52–5		42–27	20–21	47–17			45–17	57–26		38–27
NE Free Jacks	22–18				9–17	38–34	22-19	22–6		25–21	14–12	22–21
New Orleans Gold	15–18	28–26		30–29		26–26	7–8	51–28			22–14	29–24
Old Glory DC	29–25			35–22	21–25		30–23	10–46	38–29	22–18	19–40
Rugby ATL		33–15	17–12	33–18	38–28	32–12		17–27	41–22		21–14
Rugby United NY		54–19	18–16	29–19	32–35	38–34	31–24				12–53	28–29
San Diego Legion	14–33	39–11	13–19	17–33	43–17			29–36		34–21		31–29
Seattle Seawolves	31–36	40–21	14–29		30–6		6–25	21–23	21–15			28–29
Toronto Arrows			16–43	17–28	12–18	34–28	29–33	24–31	30–40	52–7
Utah Warriors	45–24	50–43	34–29			34–33	31–41		45–41	15–20	39–24

Updated to match(es) played on July 17, 2021
Colors: Blue: home team win; Yellow: draw; Red: away team win.

Scheduled matches

Week 1 (March 20–21)

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Week 2 (March 27–28)

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Week 3 (April 3)

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Week 4 (April 10–11)

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Week 5 (April 17–18)

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Week 6 (April 24–25)

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Week 7 (May 1–2)

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Week 8 (May 8–9)

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Week 9 (May 15–16)

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Week 10 (May 19–23)

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Week 11 (May 29–30)

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Week 12 (June 5–6)

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Week 13 (June 12–13)

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Week 14 (June 19–20)

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Week 15 (June 26–27)

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Week 16 (July 3–4)

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Week 17 (July 10–11)

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Week 18 (July 15–18)

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Playoffs

Final

See main article: 2021 Major League Rugby final.

Player statistics

Top scorers

The top ten try and point scorers during the 2021 Major League Rugby season were:

Last updated: August 2, 2021

Most tries
No	Player	Team	Tries<	-- Pos	Player	Team	Tries-->
1			11
2			10
3			9

		Rugby United NY
		New England Free Jacks
		LA Giltinis
		Utah Warriors
	John Ryberg
		Utah Warriors
11	Harry Barlow		8
		Rugby ATL
		Seattle Seawolves
		Seattle Seawolves

Most points
No	Player	Team	Pts<	-- Pos	Player	Team	Points-->
1		RUNY	111
2			110
3			108
4			105
5		Toronto Arrows	104
6		LA Giltinis	96
6		Austin Gilgronis	96
8			87
9		San Diego Legion	78
10			66

Sanctions

Player	Red	Yellow
	1	1
John Poland	1	0
Josh Whippy	1	0
	1	0
Luke White	1	0
	0	3
Ronan McCusker	0	2
	0	2
Travis Larsen	0	2
	0	2
	0	2
	0	2
	0	2
Jérémy Lenaerts	0	2
	0	2
	0	2
Michael de Waal	0	2
	0	2
James Rochford	0	1
Christian Poidevin	0	1
Aleki Morris-Lome	0	1
Mitch Wilson	0	1
	0	1
Lance Williams	0	1
Joeli Tikoisuva	0	1
Moni Tonga’uiha	0	1
Nikola Bursic	0	1
	0	1
Charlie Connolly	0	1
Harrison Boyle	0	1
	0	1
Kyle Ciquera	0	1
Joseph Mano	0	1
	0	1
Mahe Vailanu	0	1
	0	1
	0	1
Nicolás Solveyra	0	1
Zachary Short	0	1
	0	1
Cecil Afrika	0	1
	0	1
	0	1
Bautista Ezcurra	0	1
	0	1
Benjamín Bonasso	0	1
	0	1
Save Totovosau	0	1
	0	1
	0	1
Quentin Newcomer	0	1
Conner Mooneyham	0	1
	0	1

Player	Team	Red	Yellow
		0	1
		0	1
		0	1
		0	1
Faka'osi Pifeleti		0	1
		0	1
		0	1
		0	1
Mark O'Keeffe		0	1
Jackson Thiebes		0	1
Will Leonard		0	1
James Vaifale		0	1
		0	1
Ross Deacon		0	1
		0	1
		0	1
		0	1
Harry Bennett		0	1
Dominic Akina		0	1
		0	1
Tiaan Loots		0	1
		0	1
		0	1
Brian Nault		0	1
Carlo de Nysschen		0	1
		0	1
		0	1
Luke Carty		0	1
		0	1
Devin Short		0	1
Michael Baska		0	1
Jeremy Misailegalu		0	1
		0	1
		0	1
		0	1
		0	1
		0	1
Lauina Futi		0	1
		0	1
		0	1
		0	1
		0	1
		0	1
Kyle Rogers		0	1
		0	1
		0	1
Victor Comptat		0	1
		0	1
David Still		0	1
Wian Conradie		0	1
Tuidraki Samusamuvodre		0	1

End of Season Awards

All-MLR First Team

The top 30 players throughout the season were selected to make up the first and second All-MLR teams. The selections were voted on by a group made up of MLR media, referees, and stats specialists.^[4]

The 2021 All-MLR First XV Team is:^[5]

Pos		Team
FB	15	Utah Warriors
RW	14	NOLA Gold
OC	13	Toronto Arrows
IC	12	LA Giltinis
LW	11	LA Giltinis
FH	10	LA Giltinis
SH	9	LA Giltinis
N8	8
OF	7	Toronto Arrows
BF	6	LA Giltinis
RL	5
LL	4	Rugby ATL
TP	3	NOLA Gold
HK	2	Utah Warriors
LP	1	Rugby ATL

All-MLR Second Team

The All-MLR Second XV Team is:

Pos		Player	Team
FB	15
RW	14		Houston SaberCats
OC	13		LA Giltinis
IC	12	Mark O'Keeffe	Rugby ATL
LW	11		San Diego Legion
FH	10
SH	9		Rugby United New York
N8	8	Jason Damm
OF	7
BF	6		Toronto Arrows
RL	5		LA Giltinis
LL	4		Utah Warriors
TP	3		LA Giltinis
HK	2		Rugby United New York
LP	1		Utah Warriors

Honorable Mention

For the first time in MLR history, an additional 15 players were also named "Honorable Mention" because of the 'surplus of excellent nominees'.

	Player	Team
1		Austin Gilgronis
2		Old Glory DC
3		LA Giltinis
4		Seattle Seawolves
5		LA Giltinis
6	Benjamín Bonasso
7	Bailey Wilson	Utah Warriors
8
9		Utah Warriors
10		Rugby United New York
11
12		NOLA Gold
13		Austin Gilgronis
14	Jeremy Misailegalu	Rugby ATL
15

Notes and References

News: September 22, 2020 . MAJOR LEAGUE RUGBY RELEASES 2021 SEASON LAUNCH, CHAMPIONSHIP DATE . Major League Rugby . September 22, 2020.
Web site: League to Trial New Laws Aimed to Increase Action. Major League Rugby. March 18, 2021. March 20, 2021.
Web site: Major League Rugby Announces Updated 2021 Season Schedule. February 4, 2021. Major League Rugby. en-US.
Web site: Major League Rugby Announces First and Second All-MLR Teams, and Honorable Mention.
Web site: GET TO KNOW THE ALL-MLR FIRST TEAM . Major League Rugby . August 11, 2021.