Major League Rugby, which hopes to emulate the template established in North America by Major League Soccer, made its Island debut Friday night at Starlight Stadium.
The defending MLR champion Los Angeles Giltinis (1-1) defeated the Toronto Arrows (0-2) 31-16 before more than 2,500 fans, including sa国际传媒 Premier John Horgan.
“Look at this crowd for Toronto-L.A,” said Langford Mayor Stew Young.
“It’s great to have this venue.”
It was the first game on Canadian soil for the Arrows in 985 days dating to June 2, 2019. The team was based in Atlanta during the pandemic due to the closed sa国际传媒-U.S. border.
“The boys loved coming out here onto the pitch and they felt the Canadian crowd. We were disappointed not to come away with a win in our first game in sa国际传媒 after so long,” said the Arrows’ sa国际传媒-capped captain Mike Sheppard.
“We were dominant in the first half [leading 16-12 at the break] yet made too many mistakes in the second half. But we were resilient the whole 80 minutes and never game up.”
The regular-season MLR game on the Island came about due to a series of circumstances. The defending-champion Giltinis are out of their home venue, the historic Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, because of a NASCAR race happening there today on Super Bowl weekend.
The Arrows, due to winter weather in Toronto, will normally play all eight away games first consecutively and then their eight home games last consecutively over the spring and summer. Friday’s fixture, officially one of Toronto’s home dates, broke that up, much to the relief of MLS schedule makers.
The Arrows opened the 2022 season last week with a 21-8 loss to the Seawolves in Seattle while Los Angeles lost its season opener 21-11 to the Houston SaberCats.
Each team is allowed 10 imports. Los Angeles, named after a fictitious cocktail that didn’t exist until it was concocted by the team, featured a dollop of impact players from Australia, Samoa and Scotland. The three Canadians on the Giltinis are Corey Thomas and capped-players Ben LeSage and Djustice Sears-Duru.
The Arrows, who hope to be a direct feeder to the national team, feature a roster which is mostly Canadian. There were 17 Canadians among the 23 Arrows dressed Friday.
The arrows are the lone Canadian franchise in the 13-team MLR, which was established in 2018. The current expansion fee is $10 million US. Each team plays 16 regular-season games and operates under a salary cap of $515,000 US. Individual player salaries are capped at $45,000 US with housing and car allowances allowed on top of that.
Although obviously disappointed with the scoreline, Arrows president and majority-owner Bill Webb was pleased with the Island response: “It was fantastic. The crowd was behind us.”
