MLR Draft to Allow Teams to Tag Homegrown Players

06.02.2022

The Major League Rugby collegiate draft will have a new wrinkle this year that is about to be officially announced.

Teams will be able to tag players that they have invested in developing. We don't have all the details about the new rule but the basic concept is this: if a collegiate player is local to an MLR and that MLR team has invested in the player, such as putting him on their academy team, then that player can be set aside by said MLR team.

This is a way to encourage the MLR academy teams and reward teams for developing locally.

However, there remain lots of issues within this arena when it comes to eligibility. For example: a college rugby player could make it know that he doesn't want to move to play professional rugby (family, job, quality of life all go into this equation), and then, as has happened before, remote teams back off. But what happens when a player goes into more details with a team—when is it negotiation? Because entering in negotiations with a team can affect your eligibility.

What this plan does appear to do is take a player out of the draft process. He would be deemed as having gone through the draft process through this homegrown exemption.

More to come on this new feature of the draft, and exactly how many players a team can tag as homegrown talent.

MLR Draft to Allow Teams to Tag Homegrown Players

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