Thursday, July 13 brings the Collegiate Rugby Shield back to Herriman, Utah as a pre-Major League Rugby draft event.

In fact, the Shield is touting the fact that it had more players than “any other MLR Redraft Event.” While technically true, there aren’t really a lot of these so being the biggest wouldn’t be hard.

Still, 11 players who suited up for the 2022 Collegiate Shield were drafted and that’s an impressive showing.

Returning this year are coaches Tui Osborne and Ray Barkwill. Osborne will run the Canyons team and Barkwill takes over the Peaks team. Rugby ATL player Kurt Coleman is Barkwill’s assistant and Chicago Hounds player Charlie Abel will assist Osborne.

Unlikely to be Drafted

This is a pre-draft event but not all of these players will enter the draft. Those who are underclassmen may well be testing their options or using the event as a learning experience. For example, Thomas More prop Hudson Montgomery played in the Shield in 2022 but returned for his final collegiate season and is playing for the Canyons this year. Meanwhile, Thomas More teammate Tomas Casares was drafted after the Shield, but delayed signing until he finished his final fall season with the Saints.

Five of the Canyons players are juniors and three are seniors. For the Peaks, four are juniors, one a sophomore, and two are freshmen. Being a junior doesn’t preclude a player from being in the draft—the rules say you have to have completed three years of college or be over 21—it’s much less likely that a player is drafted if he hasn’t completed college. 

And, a little advice from GRR, it would be a really bad idea for anyone to bail on getting a degree just to enter the collegiate draft early.

Five of the players who are not at least juniors are too young to be drafted: Campbell Robb (CWU), Chris Jensvold (Louisville), Sebastian Sheferman (UMW), Cale White (UMW), and Raymond Santiago (RPI). In addition, Ilia Tagidugu, a freshman, hasn’t listed his date of birth.

The other players who are not seniors may or may not want to be drafted.

Players to Watch

In terms of players to watch, however, we’ll note a few at different positions and also give you an idea of what year they’re in.

Peaks

Jason Uipi. A big, powerful hooker from Cal Poly Humboldt. At the national finals everyone was assuming Uipi would wilt in the heat, but he didn’t, and in fact finished very strong. A project? Maybe. Certainly this Shield game is a step up for him. But he has a ton of potential.

Dan Hanson. A tough, hard-nosed front-rower who loves to carry and mix it up. Coming from Louisville, he will have to show all the basics of a prop, but he has something special to give as well.

Isaiah Kruse. The Fresno State flyhalf was the only DIAA player to get much of a look for the Rudy Scholz Award. He is a game-changer, elusive, quick, and a good distributor. The worry for us here at GRR World Headquarters is that he won’t be tracked as a flyhalf but more like a wing or fullback. Maybe that’s the right thing because it opens up for the field for him. 

Hugh Johnston. Tapped as the interim coach at Notre Dame College while they await the return of Hanno van Vurren, Johnston is a very intelligent player and perhaps a bit more of a classic flyhalf.