Houston SaberCats & Jake Turnbull

The Houston SaberCats re-signed Jake Turnbull, a prop and the SaberCats Academy Youth Development Coach, for the 2019 Major League Rugby season. The 25-year-old is 6’2″ and weighs 252 pounds.

Turnbull is from Sydney, Australia and went to Waverly College from 2006-2011 and played rugby, and then for Eastern Suburbs in the Shute Shield from 2012-2017.

In 2015 he moved to Denver, Colorado where he played for the Glendale Raptors in the Pacific Rugby Premiership before returning to New South Wales and Eastern Suburbs. In 2016 he played for the Denver Stampede and then for New York Athletic Club in the American Rugby Premiership. He also was selected that year for the USA Rugby Selects in the Americas Pacific Challenge.

In 2017 he returned to Australia to play with Eastern Suburbs and is attending the Australian College of Physical Education since 2017 as a distance education student pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree of Sports Business, Sport and Exercise.

During Fall, 2017 he signed with the Houston SaberCats as a player and as an Academy and Youth Development Coach. The Academy has several areas of focus: U20 Men, U19 Varsity HS, U17 Junior Varsity, and U15 HS.

As a player for the SaberCats, Jake played in seven of the eight regular-season matches and scored one try. During week 3 of the MLR season, he was selected to the first team of the week at loosehead prop.

A broken foot during the pre-season for the SaberCats impacted his early 2018 regular season playing time. This season he is healthy and is ready to contribute to the team as they seek to contend to the MLR title.