Two Jobs Ahead for American-Heavy Anthem MLR Team
Two Jobs Ahead for American-Heavy Anthem MLR Team
We’re about six weeks away from the beginning of the Major League Rugby season, and the second season for a new experiment.
Anthem Rugby Carolina is the USA Rugby-supported team that was added on late notice last year to ensure a good, even number of teams. With funding from USA Rugby, World Rugby, and MLR, the team was created to provide a USA-heavy playing environment within the league. It’s no secret that this is a foreigner-heavy league—Major League Rugby has a very high maximum of non-North American players allowed on a team, and teams can actually trade foreigner spots. As a result, as pointed out here, it’s very tough even for highly-drafted domestic players to get minutes, and at certainly positions it becomes near impossible.
That’s where Anthem came in. And while they had to use some overseas players for a little veteran continuity, the goal has definitely been to make this an all-USA-eligible side.
The first season wasn’t so easy, as Anthem went 0-16. But given the fact that the squad was put together really late, it’s not a terrible thing. They gave up a lot of points—200 more than the next highest number—but they also scored points, averaging about three tries a game.
But they had no shortage of players wanting to play for this team. Why? Minutes. As Anthem Head Coach Alama Ieremia said in his interview with GRR, “meaningful minutes.” Anthem had a commodity they didn’t need—foreigner spots—and a commodity US-eligible players wanted more than extra money (such as it is in the MLR)—game time.
So Anthem traded up for draft options, taking the #1 pick in all three rounds (which they had already) and trading for the #2 overall, the #5 overall, and the #24 overall. The result was a six-player haul: Saint Mary’s center/fullback Erich Storti, Queen’s University Ontario hooker Neil Trainor, Life University fullback/flyhalf Jeron Pantor, Arizona center EJ Freeman, Lindenwood lock LeDonn Mathis, and Notre Dame College wing Ashawnty Staples.
That’s six new players. No other team drafted more than four.
And getting American players time on the field is a major part of the Anthem’s mission; a major part, but not the entire part.
“There is a big development component to our campaign,” Ieremia told GRR. “But make no mistake, I’m actually coaching to make sure we actually get some wins. I I believe we can do both, and I believe in some cases that actually winning is a good tool for development. Certainly I’m going to bring that into our campaign and we’ve actually started that way. I think we'll still we'll still have a big development focus to the, but then I certainly think we'll aim to try and win games as well.”
Anthem is in preseason training and, for sure, they have some work to do to establish the right combinations and who plays where. Most of the players who were not USA eligible who were on Anthem last year have moved on. A couple have stayed as sort of player-mentors. The team also makes dispensations for players who will be USA eligible via residency soon.
But, yes, this is a very different team.
“The compass for this team is changed to make sure that we align with the Eagles,” said Ieremia. “I think that's that's really a true North now, and having the ability to bring players in and also bring Eagles, in, which I think is really important, is paramount. You'll hear us talk a lot about meaningful minutes and wee actually get quality time for the Eagles and for the American players to to compete at this level. That's one of the most important components to actually get a national team, right? The more you have them playing together, the more competitions and the higher the level that they play, the better.”
So there’s a balance of players new to the professional world, and some experienced internationals, as well. Sam Golla has joined the program and he will, along with prop Jake Turnbull, serve in a captaincy role.
More leaders have been emerging as the preseason progresses. And as far as positions go, GRR tried to get Ieremia something along the lines of “we need more US-trained flyhalves” but he instead said the plan is to produce more US-trained everything.
“I’d like to get a fullback out of there. I'd like to get some midfielders out of there. We need to get some more competitive loose forwards, different types of loose forwards. We need to get a layer of hookers that can be competitive at the next level. Props … locks. Greg Peterson just retired. So my role is really to give players that are in contention for those sports the opportunity to develop for it.”
And to do that, “ we need to put out a team each Saturday than can play in the MLR,” he added. “We have a vast array of very skillful and potentially talented players to manage. We’ve got young kids that probably won’t feature in the Eagles program for a few years. We’ve got Eagles that need to peak. We’ve got Eagles that are looking for minutes. And we have a lot of young players that haven’t had a lot of time to put their best foot forward.
“So when you have an environment like that, your skill acquisition program or your development program has to be very spot-on and tailored to that. We have a real big focus on on the skill development and skill execution, and we have a lot of individual programs that are tailored to the player to make sure that he actually is working on the real skill that we need him to work on rather than making it a blanket sort of campaign where it just falls back to everyone working on the same thing. I think it's important that we get the right results and the right timing for these players, because everyone's different. Everyone has should have individual programs. And then my role really is to is to bring all that together.
