Seawolves Offseason Tracker: Keep Up to Date with Arrivals and Departures for 2026 MLR Season
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Seawolves center Divan Rossouw dives forward during a match against the Houston SaberCats on May 23, 2025. After Houston folded in the offseason, many former SaberCats are joining Seattle for the 2026 season. Credit: Punkus Arnett/Seattle Seawolves. [/caption]
Despite an offseason to be forgotten around Major League Rugby, with the league shrinking from 11 teams to six, there is still a 10-game season ahead of the Seattle Seawolves and the five other remaining sides for 2026. Domestic talent has consolidated around MLR from the contractions as well as a new seven-player gameday limit for international players, though the decision - controversial, to put it mildly - to exclude Canadian players from domestic status has decreased that pool of players.
Seattle has a total of 31 confirmed signings for the 2026 season, 11 international and 20 domestic, a complete list with the finalization of the roster on March 2. 12 are returning players from last year’s Seawolves team while 19 are new additions, mostly from now-defunct MLR clubs. The following chart is color-coded to differentiate returning players and new additions as well as between international and domestic status. If a player’s previous side is italicized, that means it no longer exists (as a club) or that the athletic program has been shuttered (for collegiate programs). Each player is listed in order of when his signing was announced.
Do note that it is unclear which players around the league are rostered as on domestic pathway, but the Seawolves have informed Emerald City Spectrum that Dan Kriel and Davy Coetzer are among the pathway players, as they are on track to be eligible to make the USA Eagles team for the 2027 Rugby World Cup. The exact criteria for domestic pathway players are not fully known, but the designation is for foreign players who are nearing full domestic qualification - and means that the player won’t count for one of the seven available gameday international slots given to each team.
According to Seawolves head coach Allen Clarke, Seattle officially signed two of the team’s three draftees, Tia’i Vavao and Charlie Walsh. Clarke also informed Emerald City Spectrum in correspondence that the team will have 31 or 32 players on the full 2026 roster, and this was confirmed with the Seawolves’ final roster being released on March 2.
Additionally, eight players are leaving Seattle to some kind of known future status, either by retirement or by signing with another team whose season overlaps with MLR. A further 18 players have unclear destinations going forward, but given that the Seawolves have confirmed the roster, all of these players will either be retiring or playing elsewhere once the 2026 season gets underway. Once again, the cells are color-coded to differentiate international and domestic status, but the colors also distinguish retirements from signings with other clubs. Also once more, each player with a known reason for departure is listed in order of when his announcement was made, while those with unclear futures are listen in alphabetical order.
