This April Major League Rugby launches in North America and for me, that is huge news as a fan of 15s rugby.
The MLR loop is a new try at professional league hereafter PRO Rugby had a one-year run and then folded into oblivion a couple of years ago. This group seems to be building on a better foundation with most of the inaugural seven teams emerging out of a strong club base in their communities. That should mean connections to local fans, players, volunteers and sponsors to draw upon.
So you wonder how I am keeping abreast of this new league?
Well in large part it is thanks to stumbling upon the Earful of Dirt podcast some time ago.
Earful of Dirt is terming The Major League Rugby Fancast by its originators.
“We’re just four guys trying to hype the game we love and the league we admire most. Join us weekly for everything MLR. Featuring recaps, commentary, breaking news and all the rumors you can handle,” is a snippet from www.soundcloud.com/earfulofdirt where you can listen to not just their most current show, but an archive of previous episodes.
This is a show coming from a group of rugby fans who are obviously pretty well connected to the sport, especially in the United States. With MLR kicking off with seven US-based teams that give them some pretty good insights.
It should be noted here a team, the Ontario Arrows are launching this year with plans to play exhibition games in 2018, with an eye to joining the MLR in 2019, which is huge news for the sport in our country. Again information gleaned from Earful of Dirt primarily.
The show takes a conversational approach to the topics covered, which generally works, although admittedly there are occasions they stay on a topic to the point it overstays my attention span.
And being focused on US rugby, aside from MLR, there is time talk turns to their national team, which has little interest for me, but you can, of course, jump ahead on a podcast, so that is not a serious drawback.
While there are a couple of little bumps with Earful of Dirt, it is excellent in terms of letting listeners inside the developing MLR, and when the season arrives in about 90-days I foresee more in terms of match-up previews, game analysis and player and coach interviews.
So if you are a rugby fan check out Earful of Dirt with a search on Facebook, or Soundcloud.
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