NOLA Gold Rugby Club has Eagle Cam Dolan returning for the 2022 Major League Rugby season. The 31-year-old No.8 (32 in March) is from Fort Myers, Florida, and is 6’6″ and 245 lbs.
Cam played 1046 minutes in 14 matches, starting 13, and scored 5 tries for NOLA Gold in 2021. He also played in 7 international tests in 2021, including matches against England, Ireland, Canada twice, Uruguay twice, and the New Zealand All Blacks.
Cam started all five matches during the Covid-19 shortened MLR season, playing 400 minutes and scoring four tries. He started against the Houston SaberCats during the 2021 preseason match.
Cam played 763 minutes in 10 starts during the 2019 MLR season and had three tries. He had 76 carries for 447 meters, made 113 tackles, had 38 lineout takes with 4 steals. In 2018 he played 480 in his six starts with San Diego Legion.
According to Stephen Sheehan of the Florida Rugby Union, Dolan comes from an athletic family and played roller hockey as an 8-year-old. While Dolan attended Palmetto Ridge High School he played freshman football and threw a 45-yard touchdown strike on his first play. After that season he never played football again and turned to rugby with the Naples Bears.
It took only six weeks of playing rugby with the Naples Bears before his talents were recognized and he was selected for the USA National Team Under-17s in 2007 and 2008 for the Under-18s.
He then went to Life University in 2009 and graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration. He was a four-time Collegiate All-American and went on rugby tours to South Africa, California, and Ireland. He also played rugby sevens in the Collegiate Rugby Championship in 2012 and 2013 and was named to the All-Tournament team. The team won the National Championship in 2013.
USA National Team
Dolan also played USA age-grade rugby for the Under-20s and played in the 2009 World Rugby Trophy competition as captain. He also represented the USA All-American in 2013 at the Pacific Nations Cup and in the 2012 Americas Rugby Championship in Ontario.
In 2011 he was selected to the National Men’s Sevens team and played that year in London and Edinburgh.
Dolan also has played a prominent role for the USA Rugby Men’s National 15s team and is Eagle 443. He has 58 caps, starting 48 times, and has scored 18 tries.
Dolan made his Eagles debut against Fiji at Nagoya, Jun 19, 2013. His last test was on October 23, 2021, at FedEx Field against the New Zealand All Blacks. He also played 8 matches, starting 4, at the 2015 and 2019 Rugby World Cups.
Professional Rugby
Dolan also played in a non-test match against the Maori All-Blacks in November 2013 in Chester, PA. The match was seen by Jim Mallinder, Head Coach of the Northampton Saints, and earned him a professional English Premier League contract, from January 2014-July 2015.
Dolan then switched teams and played PRO 12 Rugby with the Cardiff Blues from Oct. 2015-through the end of the season in 2017, before returning to the U.S. and joining Old Blue of New York for the American Rugby Premiership Fall season.
In 2018 Dolan moved to California to play with the inaugural 2018 Major League Rugby San Diego Legion and was dominant in the lineouts.
Following the MLR season, he signed a short-term contract with the Greene-King IPA Championship Nottingham Club and then in 2019 with NOLA Gold Rugby for the Major League Rugby 2019 season. Since then, he signed a contract extension through the 2022 season.
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