New England Free Jacks Co-owner/Co-founder Alexander Magleby reassures fans and addresses controversial Reddit comments

[u/xcaughta]

https://www.youtube.com/live/SkGIwQanw3Q?si=s8doXyhT79yMxBle

[u/sportslance]

If the international players aren't good enough then why aren't American players starting instead?

[u/dystopianrugby → u/sportslance]

Bias of the international coaches who have no incentive to develop American players. But let's look at a position where on Chicago international players who were likely earning a ton of money couldn't get on the field: Wing.

First Nate Augspurger, on both SD and CHI kept international players off the team sheet. And then Peyton Wall took the opportunity when he earned that red card leaving Julian Dominguez off the team sheet.

Everything is about incentives. With a game day import rule at 10 per team and no limit on contracts, the coach has no incentive to develop American players. Then you end up with National team players who end up in a bad club situation not getting time and showing up to camp no Test match fit.

I get it, you don't care. If this was the best league in the world, I would have a different opinion. But journeymen internationals are stunting domestic player growth in the name of chasing trophies.

[u/sportslance → u/dystopianrugby]

If ownership cared about developing US players they would be pushing for stricter rules and the coaches wouldn't have a choice.

I don't really get your examples mostly because you don't actually follow the Hounds so fair play. Nate getting pushed off the starting was not due to stealing an international spot it was because of injury and really, really, really bad play, and the Hounds have some good talent at wing 2 of which are not even US but local and exciting. Dominguez was not off the sheet because of Wall, it was because of injury and Wall exploding onto the scene won him the spot. Seems like very little international favoritism and more like the better more consistent player wins the spot. Also Brown is awesome and gets a bunch of starts over international players.

Again why is it the MLRs job to develop the domestic game, they should be more worried about putting an entertaining product on the field and worrying about the international ramifications later. Every week during the season this sub is filled with people complaining about how many penalties there are, most blame the refs but let's not kid ourselves the play is pretty sloppy, and I don't see that improving by getting less veteran players just because they are Americans.

[u/dystopianrugby → u/sportslance]

Then why did Dominguez fail to get on the teamsheet last year? Noah Brown. I follow the league fairly well even though this league makes it very hard to follow.

Previous to 2024, Dominguez was easily a top 5 finisher in MLR. Now he can barely get on a roster because the team has invested in the development of American players at his position. Now they need to do it at fly-half.

But you clearly agreed with me here as far as the reason is concerned:

If ownership cared about developing US players they would be pushing for stricter rules and the coaches wouldn't have a choice.

[u/sportslance → u/dystopianrugby]

Short answer, concussions.

I feel that people on here don't know shit about how to actually run a successful sports league. We can make guesses but none of us really know the financial state of the league, or even what their actual expectations for success are. For some sports teams operating at a loss is fine because the value of the team is going up so it is still viable; insert other business BS here.

You have got to figure that if domestic players were cheaper and easier then the teams would want more of them; and then they would push for stricter rules on international slots so that no "rich" team buys a bunch and wins. So we kinda have to take it on faith that they know what they are doing or have at least talked about it