A Letter To Season Members From Free Jacks General Manager, Tom Kindley

3/28/24

Dear Season members, 

How good is it to be back in a cadence of regular rugby. The Free Jacks are back in town! We are very excited to be back in action for our Yacht Rock Festival against the Miami Sharks on Saturday April 6.

At the conclusion of four weeks of play, we congratulate 12 new Free Jacks who have made their debuts during the first four matches of the regular season.

#90 John-Roy Jenkinson 

#91 Martin Sigren 

#92 Danyon Morgan-Puterangi

#93 Sean Ralph

#94 Kaleb Geiger 

#95 Cam Nordli-Kelemeti 

#96 Kyle Baillie 

#97 Piers Von Dadelszen

#98 Gabriel Casey 

#99 Seta Baker 

#100 Mason Koch 

#101 Malakai Hala-Ngatai

Early in the season, we spend a lot of time designing our environment to generate as many collisions as possible off the field with an eye on assimilating these new players into the environment and expediting our on-field chemistry. 

As such, the players are always competing through the week, and we endeavor to make our day to day ever changing. Whether it is a game of table-tennis, cricket, or sing-a-longs, there’s always something a bit quirky going on. 

Of our debutants, a couple have certainly made their presence known on the field competing for regular spots. 

• Seta Baker showed what he can do during his debut against NOLA gold. During what was an industrial performance, Seta made 9 carries beating 6 defenders, and made 11 tackles in just over 60 minutes.
• Danyon Morgan-Puterangi is beginning to show how lethal he can be with his running game and array of skills. This past weekend against Chicago, Danyon made 8 carries for a whopping 148 meters, beating 5 defenders, making 3 clean breaks and getting two offloads away.
• Martin Sigren has demonstrated his durability and experience making 47 tackles at 96% accuracy, starting all 4 available games.

On the team side, there is a lot of progress being made. George Petrakos and Ricci Persico (our physical performance staff) have been working studiously to prepare the players for what is a long and demanding season, and we have been really happy with the progress in our physical outputs, a cornerstone of what being a Free Jack requires. Leaders in this department have included Ben Lesage and Wian Conradie, consistently putting out world class physical efforts. 

This past weekend in Chicago saw a physically testing performance where our boys made a massive 161 tackles and showed a lot of heart, earning an important win for each other before the bye week.

We currently top the league in tackles made (394) and dominant tackles (26)—good indicators of a team prepared to put in the work. 

Although there is still a lot of work to be done and accuracy to be found in various areas, we can be proud of the way we have come together and fought for one another to put ourselves in a solid position over the first four weeks. 

This week we welcome back skipper Mitch Jacobson, his partner Abby, and their newborn Carter. Mitch will reintegrate this week and be available for selection in the near future. Joining him is Le Roux Malan, who is finishing up his return to play and will be eligible for selection soon. A hat tip to our excellent medical practitioners, and awesome partners including Mui Chiropractic, New England School of Therapeutics, and Tufts Medical center for their amazing care of our athletes. 

Our hearts go out to our beloved John Poland, who is out for the remainder of the season with a pec injury. JP underwent surgery successfully earlier this week and is on the mend. A talismanic figure for us over the past 5 seasons, JP has made massive contributions both on and off-field, best demonstrated by how fondly he is looked at by our entire Free Jacks community. 

As always, thanks for your tremendous support. See you all on April 6th!

-TK

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