Friday Night Rugby — Bonnies vs Queens!
💥 St. Bonaventure vs Queens
📅 Friday, November 7, 7PM ET
📺 Watch it here

LIT7s Sevens
📍 Bradenton, FL
📅 Saturday, November 29
📥 Sign up here.

🎥Brothers on Three — Movie release today!
📍Check out which theaters are showing it. (Scroll down for theater list)

⏱️High School 15s countdown
SoCal — December
North Carolina — December
Texas—December/January
NorCal—December

The Eagles were thrashed 85–0 by Scotland on Saturday.

Let’s not sugarcoat it — that’s embarrassing.
Scotland was always going to be a tough matchup, but 85–0 reeks of complete ineptitude.

🤦‍♂️ Missed tackles: Scotland 5 | USA 40.
Gents, you’re not winning anything missing forty tackles.

Is this a selection problem? A coaching problem?
A symptom of a broken pathways system? Or something else entirely?

Far be it from me to pin this on the players alone. Somewhere along the line, we’ve failed these lads—and they’re trending in the wrong direction at the worst possible time, with 2027 and 2031 on the horizon.

👎 Another one bites the dust

The MLR is having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year.
The latest chapter: The Utah Warriors are pulling the plug on 2026.

We don’t have updated news on this—just the fact that the league is down to 6 teams total. At what point does this cease to be a “league” and turn into a collection of oddball men’s clubs with slightly more resources than your average beer league?

Sound harsh? Prolly. But it’s time to take a hard look at the purpose of MLR—and whether it can actually achieve it with such a tiny footprint.

Ok enough gloom and doom—let’s get to some good news.

☀️ Sevens in the Sunshine State

Thanksgiving weekend, LIT 7s brings the action to Bradenton, Florida for a sevens blast.

They’re still looking for high school boys’ and girls’ teams — so if you’re itching to escape the cold for a weekend of rugby and sunshine, this is your shot.

Click below to check it out and sign up 👇

🏆 La Salle takes PA HS Sevens
Final Score: La Salle 29 — 5 Berks

La Salle opened strong with two tries for a 10-0 lead, then capitalized when Berks went a man down after a yellow card for what looked suspiciously like a knuckle-sandwich.

With the advantage, La Salle stretched the field and dotted down two more.
Berks answered late, but La Salle slammed the door with a long-range try as the clock hit zero.

Congrats to La Salle — PA Fall Sevens State Champs!

👌 Some good MLR news (for a change)

Just announced: Will Hooley—former SD Legion stud—will be hosting Sunday Night Rugby on ESPN this upcoming MLR season.

Hooley’s star is rising fast in the commentary world. He’s articulate, insightful, and was outstanding behind the mic during the West Coast Sevens this fall.

We caught up with him in San Diego — awesome dude.
Bottom line: this move is a win for him and for American rugby.

The news even made it on Forbes—you can check out the article here.

Casanovas Rugby is the brainchild of Nick Boyer—a former USA Eagle—and his old Cal teammate Thomas Robles. The two built the project on a simple premise: American-born players can compete with anyone when they’re given the right opportunities.

Both founders have seen how bias creeps into the sport. For years, American programs have brought in foreign coaches—and fair enough, they bring valuable experience—but the result is a lingering preference for foreign talent. Even American coaches fall into it, assuming the kid with the accent must understand the game better.

You see it all the time: two players competing for fly half, and the coach picks the Australian on a gap year while the American kid rides the bench.

Boyer and Robles wanted to challenge that.

Casanovas fields American-born players only and enters one of the toughest tournaments on U.S. soil: RugbyTown Sevens in Denver. It’s the highest-level sevens competition in the country, with national selectors and top coaches watching. It’s the perfect proving ground.

In their 2022 debut, Casanovas made a statement. They beat Team Germany in their first match, then defeated the Tel Aviv Heat in overtime to finish fifth overall. “That was massive for us,” Boyer said. “It proved we could do this.”

RugbyTown also carries special meaning for the group. Each year, Casanovas visits Craig Hospital and includes Robert Paylor—their former Cal teammate who sustained a life-changing neck injury in the 2017 national championship match and later did his rehab at Craig—in the jersey presentation. The team fundraises for Craig and draws inspiration from Paylor’s story of perseverance. “It ties rugby to something greater,” Boyer said.

The rugby side of the operation is led by Director of Rugby Ryan Matyas, another former Eagle who sets the culture and selects the roster. Matyas and Boyer deliberately mix three types of players:

Boyer said that mentorship piece is critical: “You can’t just go all young. Those guys need someone to guide them. We’re pairing experienced players with younger ones so they learn through osmosis.”

Players like Garrett Bender and Gavan D'Amore have stepped into that mentoring role—offering both on-field experience and life perspective to younger teammates.

For now, Casanovas focuses exclusively on Sevens, though the long-term vision is broader.

At its core, Casanovas Rugby is about dismantling the idea that American players are inherently a step behind. Give them structure, mentorship, and a chance to perform. They’ll show what they’re capable of.

👊To keep up with the Casanovas journey, give them a follow on Instagram. And soon they’ll have a full website up where you can get involved. We’ll update you when that happens.

🏉Riot take: We’re all about this. There’s so much talent here in the USA. We need more people thinking like Casanovas. Massive kudos to Nick, Thomas, and their whole team.

I don’t usually throw my own mug in the newsletter, but meeting one of the greatest American sevens players ever felt worth it. Had to share the moment. Cheers!
- Zach

Overtime Lunchbox does these wild crossover debates—athletes from different sports arguing about which one’s better.

Naturally, they tackled Rugby vs. American Football.

Not gonna lie: it’s not exactly a masterclass in analysis. But it’s entertaining if you’ve got a few minutes to burn.

Monate Akuei—most recently a Seawolves flanker—held it down for rugby against a lineup of loud football bros.

Best moment: Monate talks about the rich tradition of singing by rugby fans… and one football dude proudly counters that NFL fans get blackout drunk during games.
My guy—that’s not impressive.

No hate, I love football too. But Monate absolutely won the round.

Here’s the clip 👇

That one caught our ears. It’s something we’ve been saying for a while now: we need more short-form highlight clips of high school and college rugby players out there. Not the overproduced stuff—just raw sideline angles on a phone.

Simple, shareable footage. We’ve gotta flood the socials with this stuff and get rugby in front of more eyeballs.

So send us your rugby clips—email, Instagram, paper airplane, whatever works.

Not a comprehensive list—but a good start for your weekend.

An NCR clash of epic proportions.
⌚️7pm EST — Friday, Nov 7 (Tonight)
📺 Watch it here

These D1A powerhouses have hovered near the top of the Coaches Poll all season. Now it’s for the Atlantic crown.

⌚️6pm EST — Friday, Nov 7 (Tonight)
📺 Livestream

Penn State looked sharp last week, taking down St. Bonaventure in a high-scoring thriller. Army, as usual, hasn’t slowed down—fresh off a convincing win over Air Force.

Fun fact: Porter Kuebler, last year’s Charlotte Cardinals maestro at scrum-half, is now suiting up for Army as a freshman. Kid’s an animal—if he plays, keep an eye on him.

⚪️ Tennessee vs Kentucky — Conference Championship
📍 Tennessee Rugby Park
🗓️ November 8 — 1PM ET
Kentucky’s chasing a three-peat, while the Vols just edged LSU in a thriller to punch their ticket.

⚪️ Louisville vs Bowling Green — MAC Final
📍 Hayes Kennedy Park
🗓️ November 8 — 1PM ET
A rematch of the 2024 final, where Bowling Green took the title. New year, new champ—or another Falcon repeat?

⚪️ Slippery Rock vs Franciscan — ARU Conference Final
📍 Butler, PA
🗓️ November 8 — 11:30AM ET
A rematch. A grudge match. A lot on the line. Franciscan edged Slippery Rock a few weeks back in a bruiser; expect Rock to come out swinging.

Oddball musings, thanks to the cold tub.

🏉 I’ve been told real men don’t drink with a straw. Fine. But my Stanley is clutch on road trips, and I’ll gladly endure the shame of straw sipping. Haters gonna hate.

🏉 My 8-year-old daughter has asked me about forty times this year, “Daddy, why do you watch so much cricket?”
And here I was thinking we were a rugby family… smh.

🏉 Just me, sitting here, still waiting for an update on the Pathways program. What’s gonna be different this time? That’s the 2031-dollar question.