Unlike the chaotic mess of the 2025 off-season, when the league lost team after team unexpectedly, the one departure for the league this year - Anthem Rugby Carolina - was rather more expected. The side had been a three-year investment between World Rugby, the USA Eagles, and MLR, and once its third year ran out, the team simply wasn’t continued. It’s unclear if there are going to be five teams in 2027 or a much less awkward six (there are reportedly interested parties, but no concrete timetable I am aware of), but given that the US is hosting the Men’s Rugby World Cup in 2031 and the Women’s Rugby World Cup in 2033, the league is likely to continue on in some form until at least the former date.

The Seattle Seawolves will be competing next year, however that is structured, and so will the New England Free Jacks, Chicago Hounds, California Legion, and Old Glory DC. All five of these teams drafted outgoing college players in the 2026 MLR draft on Thursday, with a draft order based first on how deep the team made it in the 2026 playoffs (teams that bounced in the semifinals drafting before teams that made the MLR final) and secondly based on 2026 regular season record.

Because Anthem, who finished last, was out - and because New England had forfeited their first round pick of 2026 to Anthem in Oct. 2025 - the Seawolves drafted second in the first round behind only Old Glory. Seattle drafted third in the other two rounds, giving them slate consisting of the no. 2, no. 7, and no. 12 overall picks.

Pick 1.2: Solomon Williams - Scrumhalf - University of California, Berkeley - 5-8, 180 pounds.

The Seawolves are no strangers to recent draftees from the Golden Bears, with their 2025 second round pick going to tighthead prop Charlie Walsh from that university.

Solomon Williams, who some projected to go first overall but who fell to second as the Flags drafted flanker Logan Ballinger, has quite the pedrigree of stellar play in college. He is incredibly fond of taps and fast, heads-up play while also having accuracy with his boot and with his passes and possessing a level of explosiveness that can stun unsuspecting opponents. When it comes to his underlying physical abilities, he is incredibly quick: this means fast breaks through lines in the center of the pitch, evading would-be tacklers, and split-second offloads and chips to his teammates.

TUKWILA, Wash. - A week prior, it had been the California Legion who regularly tried one offload too many, who had suffered a few too many penalties, and who had generally gotten in their own way. 

The shoe was on the other foot on Sunday night, however, and the Seawolves’ season ended with a loss to the California Legion in the playoff semifinal. The MLR Shield, though it will be ultimately decided in Chicago on June 21, will not be coming to Seattle at the end of the year. 

“It’s exit interviews and mop-ups from here on in,” Seawolves head coach Allen Clarke told Emerald City Spectrum. “There’s a feeling of emptiness because we weren’t quite ready for the season to end yet.”

Seattle fought valiantly to the end, taking a brief lead in the second half and getting plenty of chances to pull the score closer or return to that lead as the match continued, but in the end, the Legion triumphed by the palindromic score of 43-34.

“I think the fight was there up until 79 minutes, 40 seconds in, you know,” said blindside flanker Marno Redelinghuys. “Doesn’t matter what the time says on the clock, we always wanted to fight and just get a last try in. It doesn’t matter if the scoreboard says we’re not going to be able to win.”

TUKWILA, Wash. - In the end, the 10-game MLR season was just long enough for the Seawolves to get into second place in the league and secure a home playoff spot. It will be déjà vu for both teams who played on Sunday night, as they will face off in the same venue and see who will go up against either the Chicago Hounds or Old Glory DC (but probably the Hounds).

Going into the match, the Seawolves trailed the Legion by three points in the standings, needing to either tie the team in the standings (and win the tiebreaker through having more wins) or move ahead of their West Coast rival.

No tiebreakers were needed. Despite a few vigorous bursts of energy from the visiting Legion, Seattle took advantage of plenty of mistakes from their opponent and showed some of the best defending they had all season, and when time ran out for the visitors, the Seawolves’ 33-19 victory was more than enough to leapfrog the Legion and secure hosting rights for next week’s semifinal.

TUKWILA, Wash. - There was no doubt who would be hoisting the Coffee Cup when 80 minutes expired on Sunday. The visitors may have been the defending MLR champions three times over, but their down year combined with a late Seawolves surge led to Seattle sweeping the trophy.

It was a game that didn’t necessarily look great for either side; in the end, it was a determination of which team would get in their own way less than the other. But the Seawolves emerged victorious in their 36-28 battle against the New England Free Jacks and put themselves in a winner-gets-home-field game against the California Legion.

With the Legion having won their penultimate game against Anthem 55-26, the Seawolves needed a win to keep open the possibility of getting the second seed and a home playoff match. And with the five-point showing they put together on Sunday night, there are a lot of winning scenarios against California that put Seattle into that seed. 

Despite being the three-time defending MLR champions, the Free Jacks came into Sunday night’s game in quite a beatable shape. New England had just 16 points with a 5-3-0 record, fifth in the table ahead of only Anthem Rugby Carolina. But the middle of the table remained tight going into the second-to-last week; New England could tie things up with Seattle by getting all five points and keeping the Seawolves to none.

Seattle’s lineup was almost identical to their match in Chicago the previous week, though with Charlie Walsh and Michael Hand in the reserves instead of Dewald Donald and Nolan Tuamoheloa. 

With the Seawolves taking on the undefeated Chicago Hounds on Sunday, there were only two ways the game was going to go. Either the Seawolves would hand the best team in the MLR a complete stunner on their own turf, or the Hounds would take care of business in front of their own fans and go to 8-0 on the 10-game season.

The clearly more likely outcome was the one that wound up happening. Although the Seawolves put in admirable effort and relatively limited their mistakes (especially in the first half), the same energy deficit that sunk them quickly at home against the Hounds sunk them on the road against that same team, only a little slower, steadier, and without a red card on Seattle.

When Seattle had the ball, things looked a little bit more even. Progress was slow but clear, but they pushed forward slowly and grinded out the occasional holes. The backfield especially had moments of electricity, while Ezekiel Lindenmuth’s return from red card suspension went well in the front row.

TUKWILA, Wash. - Despite all the injuries and the early season losses, the Seawolves currently sit in a home playoff spot with three games remaining in the 2026 MLR season. Perhaps it goes to show that, even in a 10-match season, an early slump isn’t the be-all, end-all; perhaps it also shows that the five teams not named the Chicago Hounds have quite the dogfight to see who gets the second place home playoff game, who gets the other two playoff spots, and which two teams are left out in the cold.

Seattle’s 57-21 victory against Anthem Rugby Carolina was their most emphatic yet, building on a season-saving win against the Free Jacks and a second half comeback against Old Glory, both badly needed road wins before their triumphant (yet incomplete) homecoming.

Sunday afternoon marked the return of Davy Coetzer and Marno Redelinghuys to the starting XV, with André Warner playing at scrumhalf and JP Smith originally slated to play on the wing before being scratched late. Dorian Jones also returned from injury, ending up coming off the bench in the final quarter of the game.

The magnitude of the Seawolves’ 30-25 win on Mother’s Day afternoon might not have been immediately obvious. A three-game rut against Anthem, the Legion, and the Hounds early in the 10-game season meant that the team, just as in 2025, needed to put together a massive run to get back in the hunt. 

Now, the situations weren’t identical. While Seattle needed to go on a big run just to make it back into a playoff spot by the end of the season in last year’s powerhouse Western Conference, the league’s contractions have resulted in a six-team MLR with four teams bound for the playoffs.’

The big prize, then - though a playoff spot can never be taken for granted - is the guarantee of a home playoff game. The Chicago Hounds, who won their sixth game of six on Sunday, are virtually guaranteed to be the top seed in the MLR, with 30 points in the table.

California is in second with 18 points. And after the Seawolves’ windy, rainy win against Old Glory DC on Sunday afternoon, they have 16. A home semifinal is well within reach.

Sometimes, as it turns out, the fifth time is the charm. While the Seawolves had gotten a grand total of six points over their first four games, a Coffee Cup match against the Free Jacks in New England. But despite being down 11-5 at half, Seattle roared back for 22 unanswered points in the final 40 minutes to take a 27-11 victory and get back into the playoff hunt. And with the 73rd win in franchise history, they officially passed the San Diego Legion with the most in the history of the MLR.

While the Seawolves went into Quincy, Massachusetts off a brutal defeat to the MLR-leading Chicago Hounds, the need for a bounce back game was shared by a set of opponents who also entered the match in a rough rut of early form. Both teams were 1-3 over their first four games. Though New England had a worse -52 point differential as opposed to Seattle’s -36, the Free Jacks had managed one extra bonus point, though both sides sat in the cellar.

Seattle had to mix and match their lineup going into the game, with flyhalf Davy Coetzer out of commission, loosehead prop Ezekiel Lindenmuth suspended following a red card against the Hounds, and injuries in the forwards meant that plenty of the pack would have to go deep into the game while André Warner took up the flyhalf duties on the field and Divan Rossouw took the conversions.

TUKWILA, Wash. - The Chicago Hounds came to Starfire on Friday night and did to the Seawolves what they have done to every team they have faced so far in 2026: chew them up like an old toy, this time racking up a 59-22 score. It hasn’t mattered whether the MLR favorites have been at home, on the road, or at a neutral site in Nashville, they have won their games against Anthem, the Legion, the Free Jacks, and now the Seawolves by wide tallies.

The game got away from the Seawolves quickly. Unlike the team’s two previous losses, there weren’t specific inflection points late in the second half where the game went the wrong way or a particular mistake the Seawolves made that was the dividing line between a win and a loss. Instead, it was a grueling barrage of overpowering Chicago force, with the biggest inflection point being starting Seattle loosehead Ezekiel Lindenmuth’s red card - though it may have only marked the line between a respectable loss and a blowout.

While many of the Hounds’ 59 points came courtesy of their backfield, it was in truth the forward pack that did the bulk of the job. When Chicago had the ball - especially when they had the ball in Seattle territory - their advances were something close to the platonic ideal of death by a thousand cuts. Some of the names stood out, such as Brock Webster with his hat trick and Mason Flesch with his brace, but like all massive margins in professional rugby, it was due to the efforts of all 23 rostered players that the Hounds racked up as big of a win as they did.

And the Seawolves, for their part, did not make things easy on themselves, getting dinged for 14 penalties that gave the Hounds plenty of possession and lots more meters. Some of the teams in this league wouldn’t have had the wherewithal to take those 14 penalties and turn them into a nailed and buried coffin, but the Hounds are the league’s best for a reason.