Sunday sees the starts of a week-long camp for Major League Rugby hopefuls as MLR Rising kicks off at the campus of the University of Mary Washington.
This camp is a new-look plan for the pre-draft training camp and all-star bowl game, with D1A being much more involved.
The players will train together and then find out they have been split into Red and Blue teams. Lindenwood University Head Coach Josh Macy will team up with DC Young Glory Head Coach Ben Cima to coach one team, while former St. Bonaventure Head Coach and current Miami Sharks Coach Tui Osborne will team up with Saint Mary's Assistant Coach Andrew Cooke to coach the other team.
Fifty players will be in the camp from 34 different college teams. Of those 50 players, eight are from Canada, one is from NCR's D2, two are from NCR's Small College (now D3), two are from NCR's D1AA, three are from CRAA D1AA, six are from NCR's D1, and 28 are from CRAA's D1A.
Eleven players were listed as unavailable and thus presumably in the mix.
The camp itself really gets going on Monday. Coaches arrive on Sunday, as will GRR as we will be embedded at camp all week. The camp will include a media day and combine, position-specific sessions, and meetings throughout. The teams will be split on Wednesday for team sessions—there will be three of those over Wednesday and Thursday followed by a Captain's Run.
The idea is to replicate an international prep week. Also on the dockets will be talks with USA Men's 15s Head Coach Scott Lawrence, former Eagle and now media personality Will Hooley, and others. In addition, the players will have some slightly less-serious competitions to test each other in, going from egg toss and something to do with Oreo cookies to trying to put on a frozen T-shirt.
The week culminated with a match on Friday morning, July 12, and then a trip to see the USA play Scotland at Audi Field in Washington DC.
