At the end of 2023, in little more than week, Major League Rugby lost two teams. First the Toronto Arrows, the sole Canadian team, then the New York Ironworkers, champions in 2022, ran out of money and options.
For Alex Magleby, a US Eagles flanker turned co-founder and chief executive of the New England Free Jacks, the reigning MLR champions, losing Toronto and New York proved “traumatic”.