Men’s Division 3 – September 2026 Recap

Days grow shorter, temperatures and leaves start dropping, kids head back to school, and all around the country rugby players gather at their local clubs to start laying the groundwork for another USA Club Rugby XV season. Unlike the 7s season that’s short, sharp, and played around the country at the same time; the XV season is a different beast. Different regions of the country play their regular season (and sometimes their playoffs!) at different times, usually weather-dependent. They also often don’t play across Geographic Unions, and if they do, it’s typically not when both teams are at their peak. So what does this mean? It means that one – it’s hard to compare teams across regions, and two – these monthly recap articles tend to be very heavily focused on certain regions depending on what time of year it is. Everyone eventually gets their moment in the spotlight, so if it’s not now, it’ll be later, just hang tight. 

If you’re new here – welcome to the monthly USA Club Rugby Recaps! How this works is simple. Every month I will cover what happened in the active GU’s and competitive regions, broken down by division. We have five divisions vying for USA National Championships – Women’s 1+2, and Men’s 1+2+3. There are Women’s Division 3 and Men’s Division 4 in some regions in the country. Depending on the density of these teams, they might play for a regional championship, or play in a hybrid league with some of the NCS-seeking teams. For now, hybrid leagues are the only time we’ll cover them, but there’s always room for growth in the future. 

So – where do I get my information? Ah, I’m so glad you asked. I get my schedules and league formats from union-entered data on Rugby Xplorer. So if there’s no schedule uploaded, I have to guess. I get my scores and stats from team-entered data on Rugby Xplorer. This means the more detailed your team is at entering match data (rosters, scoring, subs, cards), the more detailed I can be in my recaps. If you don’t upload the info – I’ve got to adlib, and no one wants that. That being said, if you do see a mistake feel free to reach out via email – I’m always going to try to get the most accurate information out there.

Whew, now that we covered all that (and for you regular readers out there) it’s time to get into it. Check out below to see what happened in September (and the end of August!) in the Men’s Division 3 Competition.

Let’s start out with our largest Men’s Division 3 competition, the Midwest. With eight different regional subdivisions, consider this section a figurative road trip from North Dakota to Ohio and back again. With so much to cover, let’s not delay.

We’ll start with the CARFU league, who last year sent the Chicago Blaze to the playoff rounds after an undefeated season. This year the Blaze are out, replaced by the Southside Irish, so we have a new top dog in town. Or should I say top Raven? Okay that was terrible, but seriously, the Rockford Ravens (4-0) have taken over the standings, collecting maximum bonus points so far this season. Their “forfeit” win over the Chicago Silverbacks (4-1) was chalked up to an administrative issue, but the match was still played, and the Ravens still won, final score 42-15, so there’s no doubting they deserve that number one spot. The Ravens defeated the Peoria Pigs (3-2) at the home opener 34-22, before winning a close one on the road over Lincoln Park (1-3) only 26-20. With only one match left against the Northwest Woodsmen (1-2), they’ve already managed to lock up first in the standings. The Woodsmen still have two matches left to play, one against the Ravens on the third, and one against Lincoln Park on the 10th. As Lincoln Park and the Woodsmen are currently tied on table points, fourth in the standings is still up for grabs for either team, and bonus points will likely make a difference in that one. The Peoria Pigs finished third in the standings after defeating both the Woodsmen and Lincoln Park, plus a forfeit win from the Irish. There’s only two matches left in this league, but neither will change the top of the table, the Rockford Ravens taking this one.

Moving over to the Central league (which was named the Indiana league last year), we’ve lost the Toledo Celtics and Ypsilanti, bringing us down to five. There’s still something to play for in this league as our top of the table teams have yet to clash. The Michiana Moose (3-0) are currently undefeated with a total PD of +173 (or an average of 57 points per match) and have only allowed 15 points scored against them all season. Fort Wayne (2-1) also only has one match left to play, but with two bonus point wins could still tie the Moose if they beat them with a bonus point and prevent the Moose from getting any in the loss on October 10th. Their lone loss of the season comes from the Kalamazoo Dogs (1-2) who topped Fort Wayne 38-17 on September 19th. It was a great game from Kalamazoo, who saw flyhalf Jared Russel score a hat-trick in the win. The Indianapolis Impalas (2-2) have finished their regular season splitting their results. They topped the Dogs 36-26 in the opening match of the year, but then fell to Fort Wayne, 39-12, before taking on the Moose. They managed to close out with a win over White River (0-3), 48-34, just last weekend. White River are still looking for their first win of the year, and are very unlucky not to have found it yet. They lost their season opener by only four points to Fort Wayne and only 14 points to the Impalas last weekend. Their last chance for a win will be October 10th when they host Kalamazoo. Two matches left, and it’ll come down to Fort Wayne hosting the Moose on October 10th to determine our league champion.

Moving over to the Eastern subdivision, we have the same number of teams as last year, but the Cleveland Crusaders have been replaced by the South Pittsburgh Hooligans. With four matches left to play, we still have a number of teams who might be able to lock up that top spot. Just like last year, the Cleveland Rovers (4-0) are in the best position, going undefeated so far this season. Although two of their matches were pretty solid blowouts, they did only defeat Canton-Akron (3-1) by 14 points in a 54-40 barnburner and they held off a very late push by the Pittsburgh Forge (2-1) to clinch that win, 31-28. Canton-Akron and the Forge have yet to face off this season, which is a must-win match for anyone wanting a final shot at the top of the table. Now granted, the only way for Canton-Akron or Pittsburgh to top the table is for the Rovers to drop their final match of the season against the South Pittsburgh Hooligans (0-4). I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it is unlikely as the Hooligans have not yet won a match this season. Both the Greensburg Maulers (1-2) and Erie (1-3) managed to defeat them, and neither of those sides fared particularly well against Cleveland. Erie and the Maulers face off on October 10th, fourth place is up for grabs in that one. Canton-Akron and Pittsburgh will go head to head on the 10th as well; if Cleveland loses without a bonus point next weekend, the winner of that one could jump to first in the standings. 

Over in the Iowa league, Iowa Falls traded out for Des Moines (0-6), but as Des Moines forfeited their entire season, it didn’t work out that well. So we have three teams who really only played each other twice, except for the Dubuque Riverboat Gamblers (2-2) who still have one left to play against both the Bremer County Bucks (5-0) and the West Des Moines Wombats (3-2). Regardless of the results of those games, the Bucks have cleaned this league up, just like last year. The Bucks closest match was 46-12 over the Wombats at the end of August, and have consistently scored over 40 points per game in the rest of their fixtures. The Riverboat Gamblers and the Wombats had a decent battle when they played at the start of the season, West Des Moines winning that one 36-20, so that rematch on the 10th could be pretty exciting despite not having any affect on the final standings. Hopefully next year a fourth team will join this league and shake things up a bit, because once again the Bucks will advance to the postseason. 

Over to Michigan where seven teams from last year have gone down to six this year, and we’ve had a fair number of changes in the competition. The Detroit Tradesmen, Michigan, Detroit, and the Traverse Bay Blues are all out, and the Toledo Celtics, Findlay Scars, and Washtenaw are in. It’s practically a new division! We’ve got two teams left undefeated at the top of the table with their head to head scheduled on October 10th. The Capital Area Crisis (3-0) finished in second last year with only one loss, so it wasn’t too surprising to see them back in the top spots, but the Flint Rogues (3-0) have had a stunning season so far, rising to the top of the table with a total PD of +148. The Crisis defeated the Toledo Celtics (2-2) 45-36 on September 12th and the Rogues took down the same team the next weekend by a score of 43-0. It’s the same story with the Findlay Scars (1-3); the Crisis topped them 59-34 while the Rogues smashed them 85-12. Pulling from those comparisons, it’s likely that Flint will take this league, but it ain’t over until it’s over. Outside of these two teams, there’s been some incredibly competitive matches so far this season. Findlay topped the Tri-City Barbarians (0-3) at the start of the year by a score of 47-43 and just last weekend Toledo defeated Washtenaw (1-2) 48-33. On average 85 points have been scored per match over all ten matches that have so far taken place, so if you’re looking for tries, look no further than Michigan. Coming up in October we’ve got the Crisis hosting the Rogues, Tri-City has two chances to get their first win of the season against the Rogues and the Celtics, and Washtenaw hosts the Scars for the final match of the regular season on the 10th. 

Over to Minnesota where the Red River Ruffians (4-0) are back on top of the standings after going undefeated last season, making it all the way to the Midwest semifinals. The Ruffians closest match of the past few months was back in August when they traveled to Metropolis (1-3), allowing their only losing bonus point of the season in the 36-22 win. They already took down the St. Paul Jazz Pigs (3-1) who are second in the standings by a score of 47-12 back on September 12th, and are scheduled to play Metropolis in a little Minnesota semifinal action this upcoming weekend in Fargo. The Jazz Pigs will host the Rochester Rogues (2-2) in their semifinal, who they defeated 53-24 back on opening weekend. The Jazz Pigs also won a very close match over Metropolis last weekend, final score of that one 15-0. With Metropolis’ bonus point loss to the Rogues just the weekend before, it feels like Metropolis are getting better as the season goes on, perhaps peaking at the just the right time to pull off the upset over the Ruffians. Winners of the two matches this weekend will face off on October 10th, and the winner of that one will represent Minnesota in the Midwest playoffs. 

Two subdivisions left! Let’s check in on Ohio, who have the same faces as last year, with the exception of the Lexington Blackstones who dropped down after a winless year in D3. With two weekends of matches left to play, it is truly still anyone’s game as four teams currently have 2-1 records. Here’s where the bonus points really matter. Louisville (2-1) is on top thanks to getting two losing bonus points in their season opener, where they lost 26-24 against the Cincinnati Kelts (2-1). The Kelts also topped Queen City (1-2) but then lost 50-25 against Dayton (2-1) last weekend. Dayton topped the Cincinnati Wolfhounds (0-3) but lost to Queen City, 42-34. They only got one bonus point in that loss as Andrew Binzer scored the extra try for Queen City to extend the lead to 8 points. The Columbus Castaways (2-1) defeated both Queen City and the Wolfhounds, but lost 32-7 to Louisville on the 19th. Louisville also managed to top the Wolfhounds, but only by three points, Ryan Pearce kicking three penalty goals for Cincinnati to bring the final score to 26-23. So what’s at stake in October? The Castaways host Dayton on the 3rd, and the Kelts host the Castaways on the 10th while Dayton hosts Louisville. Now these are just the fixtures between the four 2-1 sides. Both the Wolfhounds and Queen City are clearly more than capable of defeating any of the top sides; two wins from Queen City over Louisville and Cincinnati could spring them into the top half of the standings. 

Our final subdivision is the Wisconsin league where the Wisconsin Black and Blue and Oconomowoc have been replaced by Waukesha. Everyone but the Milwaukee Barbarians (1-3) and Waukesha (1-3) have two matches left to play, which leaves the gates wide open for a number of realistic endings to this regular season. The Fox City Gargoyles (3-0) are in the best position, having won their first three matches. They only played two of them however, getting a forfeit win over the Barbarians on the 19th. Both wins allowed their opponents to get a losing bonus point as they defeated Green Bay (1-2) 40-27 and Waukesha 48-29. The Gargoyles still have to face Wisconsin (2-1) and Oshkosh (2-1) who are dangerously close to them in the standings. Wisconsin also took down the Barbarians and Green Bay, albeit by a closer differential, with Green Bay getting two bonus points in that 41-39 battle. Eric Pimentel made the difference in that one, slotting three conversions for Wisconsin to John Littleton’s two for Green Bay. The Oshkosh Mighty Pigs have been keeping it close all season, defeating Wisconsin 47-43, before losing 22-17 against Waukesha, then winning 27-24 over the Barbarians. If this continues, I don’t know how the Mighty Pigs fans can handle it. All of the matches in October carry a fair amount of weight, and based on these results, I really don’t know who is going to take this one for the Wisconsin League. 

Once all our league champions are decided in October, the playoffs will begin. Although we won’t have time to preview them all before the action gets started, we’ll be able to recap everything that happened at the end of the month.

Mid-America has kicked off their Men’s D3 season with two less teams than last year, taking one away from each subdivision. Most teams have only played one match so far, except the Springfield Celts (0-3) who have already banged through half their season.

In the East, we have three teams at 1-0; The Royal Ramblers (1-0), the Hornets (1-0), and Sunday Morning RFC (1-0) all took a bonus point win in their first matches of the season over the Celts. The Royal Ramblers did the most damage, running in 18 tries in the 116-0 slaughter. The Hornets and Sunday Morning both had a bit of back and forth, the Hornets taking the win 61-19 and Sunday Morning allowing the Celts a losing bonus point in their 59-22 win. All in all, not a great start for the Celts. But there are so many more games to come! The Hornets host the Royal Ramblers on the third then travel to Sunday Morning on the 10th. Sunday Morning will then host the Royal Ramblers on the 17th, the same day the Celts travel to the Hornets. 

Over in the West, we’ve had two relatively low-scoring matches take place. Both Northland (1-0) and Kansas City RFC (1-0) won their opening matches, but neither hit that bonus point ceiling. Kansas City took down their crosstown rivals, the Kansas City Blues (0-1) by a score of 12-8 last weekend. A defensive battle from both sides, the Blues actually are the only team in the MARFU D3 West to get a bonus point thus far. Northland opened their season on September 19th with a 19-0 win over the Springfield Mudpuppies (0-1), an impressive shift from last year where they lost to Springfield 34-17. With only one match played there’s still time for anything to happen, and no one in the West last year escaped without a loss. Northland will host Kansas City this weekend and the Blues will travel to the Mudpuppies on October 17th. This fall season will go all the way until November 21st, so still plenty to come!

Heading over to the Rocky Mountains to check in on the eight teams in our RMR Men’s D3 competition. This year the Scalliwags Rugby Club (0-2) has officially joined the fray, and despite not winning either of their opening matches, they’ve still got two bonus points so far, and that’s something! But let’s start at the top of the table and work our way down. 

On top of the standings right now are Boulder (3-0). That’s right, Boulder, who finished in sixth overall last year with a record of 3-4-1, missing out on playoffs entirely. You might question it and wonder who they defeated; maybe they had all their easy games up first? Nope. They started out with a 65-17 win over the Scalliwags, but then took down the Queen City Rams (2-1) (who finished second last year) 50-40, and then they defeated the Denver Highlanders (1-1) (last year’s champions) 40-31. Okay Boulder! Next week they have a well deserved bye week before the host the Colorado Springs Grizzlies (1-1) on October 10th. The hits keep coming.

The Queen City Rams are in second, with one more match and one bonus point above the Littleton Scots (2-0), who are also still undefeated. Littleton won their first match of the season 46-36 over the Northern Colorado Flamingos (0-1), who finished fifth last year but trounced the Highlanders right before the playoffs. They then rolled over the Denver Harlequins (0-3) 83-10 last weekend, sending eight different players into the try zone for the Scots. The Rams had a pretty good win over the Grizzlies in the first match of the year, final score 42-17, but it was much closer last weekend when they hosted the Scalliwags. That’s where the newbies got their two bonus points; scoring more than four tries and coming within seven points in the 35-28 loss. Amazingly enough, the Scots host the Rams this weekend, so we’re going to see who will go up and who will go down in just a few short days.

The Denver Highlanders and the Colorado Springs Grizzlies are next up in our standings, both with a 1-1 record. As two of our top teams from last year, this might be alarming to see these sides at fourth and fifth overall, but there’s so much of the season left to burn. Both teams still have a positive PD overall, so I’m not too worried for either of them. The Highlanders will host the Flamingos this weekend and the Grizzlies will host the Scalliwags before they both travel to top of the table teams on the 10th. 

Still looking for their first win are the Scalliwags, Northern Colorado, and the Denver Harlequins. On the 10th Northern Colorado will host the Harlequins and on the 24th Scalliwags will host the Harlequins. There are certain to be some wins out of those matches (unless I’ve just jinxed them into a tie). I guess we’ll find out next month!

Up in New England the Men’s D3 competition has grown from nine teams to eleven teams with the addition of New London County Rugby and Charles River. This has split the competition into two pools, one of five and one of six. Let’s check them out below!

Pool A is headlined by last year’s top of the table team Providence (1-1), but this year they were taken out early by the Albany Knickerbockers (2-1) by a score of 34-0 on September 12th. They managed to bounce back with a 30-15 win over the South Shore Anchors (0-3) on the 19th, and honestly when you look at the historical results, Providence lost to Albany in pool play last year too, so it might not make much of a difference come the end of the season. 

The team that could possibly throw a wrench in Providence’s plans though are the newcomers, New London County Rugby (3-0) who already took down the Albany Knicks, North Shore (0-2) and the Boston Irish Wolfhounds (2-1) in their first three games of the season. Fortunately we get to see the two of these teams go head to head on October 10th, so the anticipation won’t kill us before them. The game will be held at Providence, and the home field advantage is real in New England. 

Despite a loss to New London, the Wolfhounds still look pretty good, bagging a pair of wins over North Shore and South Shore this past month. The match against South Shore was actually incredibly close, with the Anchors getting two bonus points in the loss, final score 45-42. This means that South Shore actually has the most bonus points of any team right now in Pool A, even though they haven’t gotten a win yet. North Shore will host South Shore on October 10th and the Knicks will travel to the Wolfhounds on the same day.

Pool B has one less team, and is home to last year’s NERFU runner-up Burlington (1-0) who won their season opener over last year’s fourth place team, the Hartford Wanderers (1-1). Hartford made a late surge in the second half to try to snatch the win away from Burlington, but it wasn’t enough and Burlington managed to hold them just far enough to not get any bonus points in the loss, final score 29-21. The Hartford Wanderers won big last weekend over the Boston Maccabi (1-1) 57-7, who had won their opener over Amoskeag (0-2) 48-24. Amoskeag also dropped a match to Charles River (1-0), but that one finished up 24-17, so they got a bonus point in the loss. So far there’s not enough crossover to really compare and contrast teams in this Pool, but if the scores really are reflective of the teams, we could have some point differentials in our future. Amoskeag will host Burlington on October 3rd while Charles River hosts the Boston Maccabi. The Hartford Wanderers’ next one will be October 10th hosting Amoskeag. 

Over in the Empire GU, we’ve got four geographical subdivisions – Connecticut, Metro, New Jersey, and Upstate – which honestly sounds like a very New York way to describe the nearby regions. The big player out of this region is the defending D3 National Champions, the Syracuse Chargers, who won the championship at the death last year, scoring with time expired to pull ahead of Brevard Old Red Eye and take the win 46-44. Syracuse are in the Upstate subdivision, and spoiler alert, they’re still pretty good. But we’ll get to that. First let’s start in Connecticut. 

We’ve got four teams in the Connecticut league and so far the Fairfield Yankees (2-0) are on top of the standings over Danbury (1-1) and New Haven Old Black (0-2). Both wins were competitive matches with almost 50 points scored in the first and over 60 in the second. Danbury took away a losing bonus point in theirs, final score 40-26. Now if you want to talk about competitive matches, we have got to cover the 42-41 win that Danbury had over Greenwich (1-1) on August 29th. Both teams scored six tries, but Justin Mange slotted two penalty goals for the Madhatters that ended up being the difference. It was a tough opening loss for Greenwich who finished on top of the table last year, but they made up for it the next weekend with a 34-20 win over New Haven. New Haven will host the Yankees on the third and Danbury will host Greenwich on the 10th. 

In the New Jersey subdivision we have the same five teams from last year but boy do we have some competition on our hands. The Union County Mudturtles (3-0) are undefeated after facing everyone but Princeton (0-2-1), racking up a total PD of +163, or an average PD of 54 points per match. So the Mudturtles are definitely the most convincing team we have right now in New Jersey to make it to the playoffs, but everyone else is neck and neck behind them. The Morris Lions (1-1-1) got a pretty strong win over Princeton on opening weekend 55-10, but then tied the Bayonne Bombers 26-26 on September 19th. Central Jersey (0-1-1) also tied one of their matches, 34-34- against the Lions. Now Union beat both Bayonne and Central Jersey by about the same differential, so you’d think they might also be pretty evenly matched. Currently Union is safely in first with 15 table points, Morris and Bayonne are tied with seven apiece, and Central Jersey and Princeton are tied with two apiece. This weekend Union will host Princeton and Central Jersey will host Morris, then hopefully we can break a few of these tied teams in the standings. 

Over in the Metro subdivision, we have the same seven teams, but there have been some serious shakeups in the standings. New York Rugby Club (2-0), who finished fourth last year, are currently undefeated after taking on Rockaway (0-2) and the Suffolk Bull Moose (1-1). Rockaway finished with a 7-1 record last year, missing out on the postseason due to a forfeit that made them ineligible. Suffolk finished with the same record as NYRC last year, but lost to them twice so they sat below New York in the standings. This year was another close match, but New York Rugby Club pulled out the win 24-14, securing a bonus point with ten minutes left to play. Both Long Island (1-0) and the Village Lions (1-0) won their opening matches of the season. Long Island took down Brooklyn (1-1) 27-7, while the Village Lions edged Queens (0-2) 41-40. That match must’ve been a thriller, with three players all scoring twice for the Lions, and no fewer than four yellow cards dealt. Queens are honestly unlucky to be winless so far, their first match was a bonus-point loss to Brooklyn, 12-5, putting their total PD this season at -8 after only two losses. Coming up, NYRC will face Long Island and someone will get their first loss of the year, Suffolk will host the Village Lions, and Queens shoot for their first win when they host Rockaway.

We finally travel upstate to check in on Syracuse (4-0) and their competition. Now obviously at 4-0, Syracuse is doing pretty good, but they only have an overall PD of +83, which means they’ve won each match by about 21 points, which is not that big of a difference (particularly compared to other regions in the country), and isn’t even the biggest in Upstate D3. Remember, we’re talking about the defending National Champions here, which speaks volumes about the quality of ball up in Upstate New York. The only team to get a losing bonus point against the Chargers was South Buffalo (0-3), back on the 19th, who scored four tries in the 39-22 loss. Also still without a win are Buffalo (0-3), who only lost to Syracuse 36-20, but opted for a shot at goal instead of that fourth try. So who’s racking up all the points and dealing Buffalo and South Buffalo those other losses? That would be Rochester (3-1), who after four matches played has a total PD of +145. Now they did lose to Syracuse on the 12th, 38-19, but it was an away game for the Aardvarks. I will be very curious to see the result of the October 17th match when the Chargers make the trip to Rochester. Buffalo and South Buffalo will finally get their chances to play each other on October 3rd and October 24th; it would be great to cap off their season with a win, and at least one of them has got to do it. 

The Capital Men’s D3 conference is mostly the same this year; we’ve got four subdivisions, two multi-sided team leagues and two D3-only leagues. These are separated geographically to give us roughly four pools of 3-6 teams each. The new team entering this year are the Western Suburbs, coming into the D3 Central, while the New River Valley and Rocktown Roosters depart the D3 South. 

Starting with the D3 Central league; Severn River (1-0) opened their season with a win over the Washington Renegades (1-1), final score 35-7. Severn kept the Renegades scoreless for the first half, but Washington dotted one down right out of halftime to bring the score to 14-7. The rest of the second half was all Severn, as they scored and converted three more tries before the final whistle, Erik Dronberger going perfect off the tee. Frederick (1-1) also won their opening match when they defeated Loudoun (0-2) 26-14. Last year when these two played, they split the results, Loudoun winning the first but forfeiting the second. An early win was good for Frederick, who finished bottom of the table last year with a final record of 1-5. The Western Suburbs (1-0) also defeated Loudoun on their opening weekend, in their D3 debut match. Jacob Zegada scored twice and converted three tries for the Suburbs in the 26-14 win. Finally the Renegades got one in the win column when they defeated Frederick last weekend by a score of 33-5. This league should sort itself out a bit more when Severn River hosts Loudoun this weekend and the Western Suburbs host Frederick.

In the D3 South we’ve dropped from six teams to two, but our top four from last year are all still in attendance. Last year’s Capital runner-up Virginia (2-0) is back on top after two strong opening wins, a forfeit win over Virginia Beach (1-1) and a 50-15 win over Roanoke (0-2). Virginia Beach got a 52-32 win over Newport News (1-1) last weekend, but then it looks like Newport News just got a forfeit win over Roanoke for this upcoming weekend. So it’s kind of all over the place in this subdivision. Newport News are slated to host Virginia on October 17th and Roanoke are supposed to host Virginia Beach on the 24th. Hopefully both of those matches go off and we start to see a pattern emerging between these four teams. 

Over in the D3 Challenger Central, we move into the D3 teams that belong to multi-sided clubs, specifically clubs that have D1 sides who play in the Mid-Atlantic D1 Men’s competition. Currently undefeated we have Schuylkill River (2-0) and the Potomac Exiles (1-0) who both won their matches by pretty narrow scorelines. Schuylkill played the Washington Irish (0-1) in their season opener, and managed to pull out a 41-33 win thanks to a late penalty goal by Daniel Limbauan and a try from Lachlan Jackson. They followed this up with an away win at Rocky Gorge (1-1), also bagging the bonus point with a final score of 24-14. The Exiles won their opener 27-19 against NOVA (0-1). They also got the bonus point in their win and prevented NOVA from getting any losing points, keeping them at the bottom of the table for now. Rocky Gorge are currently 1-1 thanks to a win over Washington (0-1), which was also only a ten point differential, final score 27-17. These games in the Challenger Central are seriously competitive, and bonus points will probably make the difference come the end of the season. Washington hosts Schuylkill and the Washington Irish host Rocky Gorge this weekend, and Potomac and NOVA both host on the 17th.

Our final subdivision, the D3 Challenger South is only three teams again, all D3 teams from multi-sided clubs who have D2 sides. With only two matches played so far, it looks the Riverlands (2-0) have gotten off to a pretty good start with wins over James River (0-1) and Raleigh (0-1). Raleigh did get a bonus point in their 38-27 loss, which puts them just above James River in the standings. We won’t get to see James River and Raleigh take each other on until October 17th, first James River plays a second match against the Riverlands this weekend. 

Finishing off the Atlantic region, we’ve got the EPRU Men’s D3 competition. There’s 11 teams in this comp that play some of their opponents but not all, which makes for some very interesting results in the standings. 

As of right now we have five teams still undefeated, four with two matches played and one with only one played. No change from last year, all five are the teams who finished in the top five spots at the close of the regular season. Jersey Shore (2-0) leads the way with maximum bonus points and a +111 PD, including one forfeit win over Reading (0-2) that capped them at 28PD max. Lehigh Valley (2-0) also have max bonus points, with a differential of +61. Most of that was from their win over Phoenixville White Horse (0-2); Harrisburg (0-1) put up a pretty good fight before eventually falling 29-12. 

The Northeast Philadelphia Irish (2-0) are also undefeated, but with a total PD of +18, which seems really low. It makes sense when you consider they only beat Reading 16-0, then very narrowly edged by Wilmington (1-1) 21-19. Liam Ellison got all the credit on the scoresheet for that one, scoring twice, kicking three penalty goals and one conversion. Their next match is against Jersey Shore this weekend; barring a tie, one of them will end up with a check in the loss column by Sunday. 

Wilkes-Barre (2-0) is our final 2-0 team on the table, having won their season opener over Blackthorn (0-2) and their second match over the Montgomery Bucks (0-2). Jake Cole scored three tries for Wilkes-Barre against Blackthorn and two against the Bucks, leading the team with tries scored so far this season. Brandywine (1-0) also defeated the Montgomery Bucks, rounding out our final undefeated team. Wilkes-Barre will have to take on Lehigh Valley next weekend, and one of them will not be winless after that. Brandywine’s next match is against Harrisburg, who lost their season opener to Lehigh Valley (but not by that much). 

We have five teams still searching for their first win of the season, but it won’t be that way for long. Blackthorn hosts Reading this weekend, Montgomery hosts Phoenixville on the 17th, and Harrisburg travels to Blackthorn on Halloween. Also, any of these teams can easily top one of the five undefeated teams in any of those match-ups. Remember, it’s still early in the season and most teams get better as the season goes on. 

Northern California hasn’t yet released their schedule, which doesn’t surprise us because they likely won’t kick off until 2027. Last year nine teams played in NorCal’s D3, with Life West finishing undefeated. If Life West moves up, we could have a real battle on our hands for a new champion seeing as the next top four teams all finished neck and neck. Reno could move down, they finished 0-8 with a forfeit last year; but we won’t know until the schedule drops. Until then, it’s all speculation, so don’t take my word for it.

Southern California is pretty similar to NorCal; they haven’t yet posted a schedule, but aren’t expected to kickoff until January. Last year there were seven teams in the league, with the Fullerton Dead Elephants going 6-0 before the South LA Soul made a dream run to take the SoCal Championship out from under them. The San Diego Armada went winless with a forfeit, which might push them down to D4 (if SoCal has one). We’ll find out more as we get closer.

The Pacific Northwest is the lone region in the Pacific that has kicked off their Men’s D3 competition, and we have a number of games to cover! Last year there were only six teams in the PNW Challenger, and everyone recorded at least one win. This year Salem/Eugene, the Eastside/Spokane Razoraxes, and the Bend Roughriders have joined the league, bringing us to nine total teams. We’ve only had two-ish weekends of matches, and there’s a bit to wade through. 

So first things first, we’ve already had three forfeits in the league. I don’t love that. But it is early enough in the season that perhaps these will get rescheduled (fingers crossed). We also had one match postponed, so we’ve really only had four matches played since the season opened on September 12th. For this article, I am only going to give the results of the games that were played, and if all the forfeits really do stand by the end of next month, I’ll include them then, but I’m holding out hope! Five teams have taken the pitch so far, and we’ve already got our first tie of the season, it doesn’t get better than that.

The Bend Roughriders (2-0) are on top of the table thanks to their wins over the Seattle Quake (1-1) and the Portland Pigs (0-1-1). It was a solid win for Bend over the Quake, but Quake still managed to score four tries in the 52-24 loss and come away with a losing bonus point. Against the Pigs last weekend it was a much closer battle, with Killian Kellegher nailing all five conversions to keep Portland within seven points of the Roughriders come the end of the match. Bend scored two more tries than Portland, but still only won 41 points to 35. The Seattle Quake managed to get their first win of the season nice and early this year when they defeated the Eastside/Spokane Razoraxes last weekend 12-7. The Razoraxes scored first in the match, but the Quake quickly bit back and managed to hold strong defensively for the next 75 minutes. This bodes well for Seattle, who finished on the bottom of the table last year with a final record of 1-9. 

The Snohomish Rhinos (0-0-1) opened their season with a DRAW against the Pigs on September 19th. Snohomish lost both matches last year against Portland, who finished on top of the table, so this was a big win for the Rhinos. Will Mohan actually kicked a penalty goal for the pigs with only a few minutes to go to extend the lead, but the Rhinos scored at the final whistle through Teo Gebrehanna to tie it up. The conversion failed to go over the posts, and the tie stood. 

Coming up in October we will hopefully see some of the other teams spring into action; the Pigs are supposed to host Salem/Eugene while Budd Bay hosts Yakima this weekend and the Rhinos will host the Clark County Chiefs on the 10th.

Nothing yet posted for the Southwest Men’s D2/D3 competition. Last year this league played a hybrid regular season with 12 Men’s D3 sides competing with four Men’s D2 sides. The D3 sides held their own, with the New Mexico Brujos advancing to the Pacific Super Regional after defeating Phoenix Camelback 32-28 in the Southwest Championship. All of the playoff matches were quite competitive, along with most of the regular season games. There were a number of forfeits from some of the bottom teams, I could see them dropping off this year to rebuild, so we might have a smaller playing field for 2027. Last year the games started in October with one at the end of September, so time is ticking to get this schedule formalized and give it to the people! We wanna know!

There’s nothing yet posted for the True South Men’s D3 competition, so we’re left guessing for the time being. Last year there were 13 different teams split into two subdivisions (although there were also a few forfeits). With Atlanta Old White leaving the Men’s D2 comp, the D3 might follow suit, and there might be some reshuffling with the current Men’s D2 sides. Last year this season started in October, so hopefully by the next recap we’ll have an active schedule, and even possibly some results to go over!

The Men’s D3 clubs over in the Red River have dropped from four subdivisions to three with the Central league dissolving. As three of the four teams last year were already D4, this only results in the loss of Fort Hood Old Skool to D4. In the North, both Alliance and Tulsa have moved down to D4 leaving four teams to duke it out across North Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. The South loses Cy-Fair to D4, putting them down to four teams as well. Overall this may sound like a lot of loss and not a lot of gain, but there were a number of teams with pretty big point differentials last year that now get to thrive in a stronger Division 4 this season, with three geographic regions with at least five teams each. Games will start at the end of October, so by the next recap, we should have some action to share with you.

Florida Men’s D3 is down to ten teams this year after boasting an impressive 14 last season. Four of the double-sided clubs are out – Fort Lauderdale, Pelicans, Tampa, and Orlando. FSU’s second side is also out, while Tallahassee joins the fray. Currently games are scheduled to start on January 23rd with Brevard hosting Palm Beach, Jacksonville hosting Gainesville, the Hammerheads hosting Sarasota, and Tallahassee hosting Lakeland. 

The Georgia Rugby Union has also not yet released a public schedule via Rugby Xplorer, so I don’t have any updates here. Last year there were 13 teams that played in two subdivisions, but there were also a number of forfeits and a number of massive point differentials (I’m counting four 100+ point wins). No one loves to see that, so I am assuming (hoping) that a few of the teams in the Georgia D3 have reorganized and the GRU will put forward a strong Men’s Division 3 competition this year. Watch this space!

We’ve got some major restructuring in the Carolinas Division 3 as six teams have moved up to Division 2 and a few new ones have jumped in to take their place. Last year we had two six-team leagues geographically sorted into the East and the West divisions. The Columbia Rhinos, Asheville Iguanas, Cape Fear, Charlotte Olde Originals, Greenville Griffins, and Southern Pine Big Cones have all moved to D2, though Charlotte has also maintained a side in D3. New to the competition are the Clayton Bootleggers, Triad, and the Hartsville Hydras. Games kicked off on September 12th, and everyone’s got at least one match under their belt.

The Onslow Misfits (1-1) and the Myrtle Beach Man O’ War (1-1) have both played two matches so far, winning one and losing one. Onslow topped Charlotte (0-2) 26-11 on opening weekend before losing a heartbreaker of a match to the Fayetteville Dragons (1-0) last weekend. With 92 total points scored, four yellow cards, and three bonus points doled out, this match had everything you could want. The Dragons emerged victorious with a final score of 47-45, but honestly the fans were the winners in that one. Myrtle Beach lost their first match by an equally thrilling 45-40 battle against the Charlotte Barbarians (1-0) on September 19th, before topping the Hartsville Hydras (0-2) 47-33 the following weekend. Triad (1-1) also defeated the Hydras in their season opener, but then forfeited their next match to the Clayton Bootleggers (1-0) who have yet to play their first league match. Tobacco Road (1-0) got their first win in incredibly exciting fashion when they topped Charlotte 28-27 at home on September 26th. Max Fausnaugh scored at the death for Tobacco Road and George Condra slotted the conversion to give the home team the victory at the last possible chance. 

Coming up in October we have another exciting slate of matches with Man O’ War hosting the Misfits on October 10th while Clayton finally kicks off their season with a trip to the Dragons the same day; the Hydras host the Barbarians on the 17th, and Halloween sees Triad host Myrtle Beach.