New Orleans Gold Rugby Club & Melvin Desouza
The New Orleans Gold Rugby Club have added Metropolis RFC wing Melvin Desouza for the 2018 Major league Rugby season. He is from Accra, Ghana and then moved to Minnesota. He is 25 years old, 5’10”, and weighs 215 pounds.
Desouza is a 2012 graduate of Eden Prairie High School in Minnesota, where he played football as a defensive end and was also was a standout wrestler. He also played with the Faribault Boxspring Rugby Football Club in 2010. After high school he went to North Dakota State University from 2012-2014 and then transferred to Minnesota State University – Mankato from 2014 to his graduation in 2016, earning a Bachelor’s Degree in Corrections / Sociology.
Desouza joined the Metropolis Rugby Football Club and played with the team in both 2016 and 2017. Since the New Orleans Gold pre-season has begun, he has appeared in all three pre-season matches against the Capital Rugby Union Selects, the Houston SaberCats, and the Glendale Raptors, as a replacement.
New Orleans Gold
- Tim Falcon – Owner
- Ryan Fitzgerald – General Manager
- Nate Osborne – Head Coach
- Todd Fitzgerald – Assistant Head Coach and Assistant General Manager
- Sebastián Kalm – Backrow
- Moni Tongauiha – Center
- Hubert Buydens – Loosehead prop
- Eric Howard – Hooker
- Ratu Peceli Rinakama – Flyhalf, Scrum-half, Wing, Fullback
- Bobby Johns – Center, Flyhalf, Scrumhalf
- Matt Hughston – Center, Flanker
- Jojo Tikoisuva – Wing
- JP Eloff – Flyhalf, Center, Fullback
- Holden Youngert – Scrum-half
- Michael Baska – Fullback
- Derrek Van Klein – Loosehead Prop
- Myles McQuone – Lock
- William Waguespack – Lock
- Zach Stryffeler – Center
- Vincent Jobo – Flanker
- Cam Falcon – Hooker
- Ben Tarr – Tighthead Prop
- John Sullivan – Back-row & Utility Back
- Nikola Bursic – Lock, Backrow
- Taylor Howden – Fly-half, Center
- Matt Wirken – Lock
- John Stapleton – Fullback
- Joey Sok – Wing
- Melvin Desouza – Wing
- Todd Dupre – Flanker
- Will Crawford – Backrow
- Alex Janotka – Hooker, Prop
- Tim Maupin – Wing
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