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

Dear Season Members, 

As you know, our 4th regular season of Major League Rugby concluded on the 29th of June with a strong performance against Anthem Rugby Carolina. It was great to compete against so many players who have been involved with our club in some capacity playing for Anthem, including draftees Ivan Pula and Junior Gafa. Junior has enjoyed a fantastic season with Anthem, a credit to what the program is about, giving up-and-coming American players a platform to develop and express their abilities. 

We are grateful for what has been another fantastic regular season, the efforts of which see us atop the Eastern Conference for the third season in a row, a pretty amazing achievement. Not to mention the outstanding growth in attendance at Fort Quincy, and the general amazingness of our match day festivals – thank you to our front office staff, for the hard yards behind these special days. We were able to celebrate the regular season at our Awards Banquet in Marina Bay post match, and put the regular season to bed, turning our attention to the playoffs (a recap article will be coming out shortly!). 

Congratulations are in order for Kenny and Barbara Thomson, deserved winners of our Community Impact award this season. Their efforts (alongside many of your own and our official supporter group, The First Regiment) make our job super rewarding. We love playing for you guys and appreciate the huge efforts (and travel mileage) of the Thomson’s in orchestrating support, and galvanizing our supporters and members. 

We have faced more adversity this season than in recent years, with injuries requiring other players to step up. I am proud of what is clearly a deep and competitive playing group, and innovative staffing group, for reflecting, adapting, and finding a way through some tumultuous times. At the same time, we have very high standards and expectations for ourselves, and we have learned some valuable lessons that we plan to get better from, while reflecting on these experiences. 

We currently have 9 players away on international duty (Mitch and Kaleb with USA, Andrew, Cole, Conor, Kyle, Ethan, and Ben with Canada, and Martín with Chile). It is a huge honor for us to have so many boys playing for their national teams and representing the Free Jacks on the international stage. We look forward to supporting them this weekend where the USA plays Scotland in DC at 6:30 PM on Friday, followed by Canada against Romania in Ottawa at 7:00 PM on Friday, and Chile against Belgium on Saturday at 3PM . We will welcome these boys back after these matches over the weekend in the lead up to playoffs.

We have put ourselves in a great position to propel into the playoffs, commencing next weekend with our home Eastern Conference Semi-Final against Old-Glory DC on July 20th at 5:00 PM. This event includes NERFU summer 7s championships, Wallop! Beer Festival, and live music with ‘Turn it Up’. 

Just as you have done all season, we need your support at this critical juncture to get us over the line and earn a home conference final the following weekend (July 27th at 1:00 PM). Get the Huzzah’s ready, and we will see you next weekend. 

Let’s ride!

TK