NOLA Gold opens the 2020 Major League Rugby season on Saturday, February 8 at the Shrine on Airline. Kickoff is at 4 pm ET and May be viewed on NBCSW and streamed on ESPN+.
Last season NOLA Gold was among the MLR team leaders, but after a late season-ending injury to Ben Tarr, the team finished in fifth place in the league and missed the playoffs.
Major League Rugby has since added three new teams for the 2020 season. The New England Free Jacks, Old Glory DC, and Rugby ATL are in the newly former Eastern Conference along with Rugby United New York, NOLA Gold, and the Toronto Arrows.
The Eastern and Western Conference teams will face each other in-home and away matches during the season and play the other Conference teams once, with three home and three away matches. The Austin Gilgronis, Colorado Raptors, Houston SaberCats, San Deigo Legion, Seattle Seawolves, and the Utah Warriors are in the Western Conference.
Following the regular sixteen match season which includes one bye week, the top three teams will advance to the playoffs in both the Western and Eastern Conferences. The playoffs will have the second and third seeds facing each other with the number one seed having a bye the first week. The following week the one seed will face the winner of the previous week’s match. The Conference champions will then play for the MLR shield.
NOLA Gold has added a late addition in Lindsey Stevens at hooker, who will likely play at some point against his stepbrother Jake Turnbull from Old Glory DC.
Get to know the players from both teams by clicking on the player links below.
Squads With Player Article Links
NOLA Gold: 1 Matt Harmon 2 Eric Howard 3 Dino Waldren 4 Ignacio Dotti 5 Kyle Baillie (C) 6 Moni Tongauiha 7 Malcolm May 8 Cam Dolan 9 Holden Yungert 10 Scott Gale 11 Julian Dominguez Widmer 12 Con Foley (VC) 13 Carl Meyer 14 Tim Maupin 15 Robbie Coleman16 Lindsey Stevens 17 Kevin Sullivan 18 Ben Tarr 19 Nikola Bursic 20 Billy Stewart 21 Kevin O’Connor 22 Ross Depperschmidt 23 Shawn Riley
Old Glory DC: 1 Jake Turnbull 2 Max Lum 3 Gordon Fullerton 4 Tevita Naqali 5 Api Naikatini 6 Travis Larsen 7 Mungo Mason (CC) 8 Jamason Fa’anana-Schultz 9 Danny Tusitala 10 Jason Robertson 11 Renata Roberts TeNana 12 Ciaran Hearn 13 Thretton Palamo (CC) 14 Doug Fraser 15 Dylan Taikato-Simpson16 Dante Lopresti17 Khalid Williams 18 Will Vakalahi 19 Jack McLean20 Nic Mirhashem 21 Michael Reid 22 Mike Dubulas 23 Dylan Pieterse
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