New Orleans Gold & Taylor Howden

The New Orleans Gold Rugby Club signed Taylor Howden for the inaugural 2018 Major League Rugby season. Taylor is from Auckland, New Zealand, is 6’0″ tall and weighs 221 pounds. He is a versatile player who plays fly-half or center.

Taylor Howden & Rugby

Taylor played rugby union at the Auckland Grammar School in New Zealand. He also played club rugby with Belmont Shore Rugby Club, the Denver Barbarians where he was a player/coach. for the Ohio Aviators in 2016 in the first professional rugby league in the U.S., as well as for the Columbus/Scioto Valley Rugby Club, where he was match secretary and nicknamed “The General.”

Taylor discusses playing professional rugby in the YouTube interview below.

Taylor also played for the Maccabi USA team at the 2013 and 2017 Maccabiah Games. The 2013 team won the Gold Medal in 7s and the bronze medal in 15s. In 2017 the team finished out of the medal round for the first time in rugby 7s but won the Gold Medal for the first time in 20 years in 15s.

Taylor played Rugby League from 2014-2016. In 2014 he played outside center for the Birmingham & Solihull Rugby Club. The Bees were a National League 2 Midlands side. In 2015 he played for the Midwest team, the “Stockyarders,” and was part of the Rugby League World Cup Qualifiers with the USA Hawks. In 2016 he played with Ohio Rugby USARL Hawks in the Colonial Cup Series. This was a three-game round robin tournament between the USA, Canada, and Jamaica. He then played in September 2016 in the Rugby League Americas Championship.

Taylor is also a rugby 7s players. He played for the Tiger Rugby 1823 sevens team as both a player and a player/coach.In 2014 the team participated in the Cancun 7s. He also played for Tiger Rugby at the Melrose 7s, Shanghai 7s, Central Coast 7s, and Safarican in Kenya.

Taylor has also been a coach with the Tiger Rugby Academy in Columbus, Ohio. Tiger Rugby is an Olympic Development Academy in the U.S. and has also collaborated with the Northeast Academy for coaching clinics and camps. Most recently this was done at the IMG Academy in Florida in June 2017.

Taylor also was an organizer of the Rugby Ohio Collegiate All-Stars vs. the Legacy Rugby Academy (Michigan) matches. This Is Ohio Rugby article indicated that “The purpose of the team is to create a pathway or players looking to represent their country,” said Taylor Howden, flyhalf for Columbus Rugby and primary scout during the trials.