By Canadian Press

New England Free Jacks go into MLR championship game with distinctive Canada flavour

Aug 2, 2024 | 10:55 AM

The Toronto Arrows are no more but there will still be a distinctive Canadian flavour to Sunday’s Major League Rugby championship game in San Diego.

The defending champion New England Free Jacks, who take on the Seattle Seawolves for the title at Snapdragon Stadium, have a dozen Canadians on their roster.

“Our teammates sometimes joke that they’re sick of hearing about it,” centre Ben LeSage, a Calgary native, said of the Canadian fraternity on the Free Jacks.

“I think every team in the league does have a flavour, whether it’s South African, whether it’s Australian, whether it’s Kiwi,” he added. “There’s obviously Americans everywhere but to have such a Canadian flavour here is kind of cool and unique.

“Especially this year with the Arrows obviously, the unfortunate situation of them not being in the league, I’ve seen just a ton of support from north of the border from all across the country, people driving down from the East Coast, from Toronto, from Montreal, catching games, trying to get behind the closest thing to a Canadian MLR team at the moment. So I’ve definitely embraced that aspect.”

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Other Canadians on the Free Jacks roster are forward Cole Keith, Foster Dewitt, Andrew Quattrin, Josh Larsen, Kyle Baillie, Conor Keys, Piers von Dadelszen and Ethan Fryer (a U.S.-Canadian dual citizen) and backs Gabe Casey, Isaac Olson and Cameron Nordli-Kelemeti (who was born in Fiji but also qualifies for Canada).

Baillie, Keith, Quattrin and LeSage all played for the Arrows, who folded last November following the death of Bill Webb, the club’s president and general partner.

The Free Jacks have become a key pipeline to Kingsley Jones’ Canadian national team.

New England’s LeSage, Baillie, Fryer, Keys, Keith and Qattrin were all called up for Canada’s home test matches against Scotland and Romania last month while fellow Free Jacks DeWitt, Casey, Larsen, Olson and von Dadelszen were placed on standby.

Both the Free Jacks and Seawolves have championship pedigrees.

New England edged the San Diego Legion 25-24 in last year’s final in Bridgeview, Ill. Seattle hoisted the trophy in 2018 and ’19, the pro rugby league’s first two seasons, and was runner-up to Rugby New York in 2022.

New England finished atop the Eastern Conference at 11-5-0, while conceding a league-low 344 points. Seattle (11-5-0) was runner-up to the Houston SabreCats (14-2-0) in the West.

New England, which went 14-2-0 last season, beat Old Glory DC 33-29 in the Eastern semifinal and the Chicago Hounds 23-17 in the final.

Seattle downed the San Diego Legion 30-28 in the Western semifinal and the Dallas Jackals 28-25 in the final. The Jackals had ousted Houston 34-22 in their semifinal.

Both New England and Seattle go into the final on a run of form.

The Free Jacks have won six of their last seven, with the lone loss a 27-17 decision at NOLA Gold on June 22. Seattle has won five of its last seven.

Seattle won 29-21 when the teams met April 20 in Quincy, Mass.

LeSage says the Free Jacks, as champions, spent the season with a target on their backs. Five New England games were decided by two points or less with the Free Jacks winning three of those.

“We acknowledged early in the season that we were the game that basically everyone circled on the calendar, where they were able to lay a marker in the sand and see how they compare,” said LeSage.

“So we definitely probably had to lick our wounds a few times and learn some lessons,” he added. “Probably not all the games went our way but … maybe it’s helped us be a little battle-tested.”

New England has non-Canadian weapons. New Zealand-born fullback Reece Macdonald scored a spectacular try in the Eastern final, against Chicago, retrieving a kick in his own half and then outpacing five defenders to score.

A member of Canada’s 2019 Rugby World Cup team in Japan, LeSage was an MLR all-star with the Arrows in 2021 before a 2022 trade to the now-defunct Los Angles Giltinis. He joined New England prior to the 2023 season and has trained with England’s Gloucester in the off-season.

LeSage, who made his Canada debut in November 2016 against Romania, is expected to rejoin the 21st-ranked national team for Pacific Nations Cup games later this month against No. 14 Japan in Vancouver and the 19th-ranked U.S. in Carson, Calif.

Away from rugby, LeSage works remotely for a British company named Omnipresent that specializes in helping businesses with human resources around the globe.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 2, 2024

Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press