Men’s Division 1 – October 2026 Recap

This past month we had FIVE bumper weekends of rugby action; from teams finally kicking off their season to the Midwest and New England dealing up some intense playoff games, there’s a lot to cover from October. We’ve also gotten some of the answers to the questions we asked at the end of September, and a few more competitions have posted schedules, so hang on for the ride, because this is going to be a long one.

Disclaimer – before anyone gets mad at me – all of this information is taken from team-entered data in Rugby Xplorer. The quicker you are about updating information and the more info you include, the better picture I can paint. The rest of the commentary is added for fun from someone who has no stake in the outcome of these matches. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. If you do like it, then welcome!

Without further ado – let’s dive into what happened in the Men’s D1 Competition over October!

October brought us the end of the Midwest Men’s D1 regular season, and this year eight teams are heading to the D1 quarterfinals on November 7th. We’re going to recap what happened in October, how each team ended up in their final standing, and what we can expect from these quarterfinal match-ups. 

Let’s begin in the Western Division. At the end of September, we had two teams tied on record and table points, but one has pulled away to cement themselves on top of the standings. The Chicago Lions (7-1) wrap up the top spot this year thanks to an undefeated October. They got a forfeit win over the KC Blues (0-8) before taking down Metropolis (2-6) 69-29. Their final match of October was a top of the table clash between the Lions and the Blaze, but the Lions held strong to a 43-30 win, securing the top spot. The Chicago Blaze (6-2) finished in second place, but with a larger total PD than the Lions. This was helped by their 83-0 win over the Blues on the 17th of this month. The St. Louis Bombers (5-3) finished in third after making a strong attempt to upset the Blaze at the beginning of October. It was an incredibly close match, but in the end Chicago managed to pull away and stay out of bonus point territory for the Bombers, final score 29-21. St. Louis did follow this loss up with two wins over the KC Blues and Metropolis by a combined score of 94-18. Our final team sneaking into the quarterfinals from the West are Metropolis, whose two wins are both over the KC Blues, who missed the cut. The last one was just the other weekend, October 24th, meaning that Metropolis is coming off a win heading into this playoff battle; which is good because they’re going to need all the momentum they can get. 

Checking in on the Eastern Division; there was a fair number of upsets and close matches in this one, with the action running all the way through the final weekend of games. The Detroit Tradesmen (6-2) managed to keep a hold of the top spot from last month, despite dropping their final regular season match to the Indianapolis Impalas (2-5-1) on the last weekend of games. I suppose they knew that the top spot was guaranteed, so they took the opportunity to give extra minutes to their finishers, but it was still a great way for the Impalas to end their season, with two wins, the first over the Cincinnati Wolfhounds (3-5) on the 10th. Detroit also notched a win over second-place Pittsburgh Forge (5-3) on October 17th; Ethan Spowart scoring two tries and kicking two conversions to lead the scoring for the Tradesmen in that one. The Forge can thank their October 10th win over the Chicago Griffins (3-4-1) for giving them the hold on second in the standings. There was a lot of first half action from both teams, but the lone try in the second half by Pittsburgh’s Santino Fischio made the difference and kept the Forge in the lead come full time. The final score of that one was 28-24. The Griffins won their final match of the season over the Cincinnati Wolfhounds on October 24th, 45-26. That win kept the Griffins in third, while Cincinnati qualified for the quarterfinals in fourth place. The Impalas unfortunately missed the cut for this year, but still finished their season on two wins, an achievement in itself. 

So what do the quarterfinal match-ups look like for this conference? East #1 Detroit Tradesmen will face the West #4 Metropolis in Michigan, a 10.5 hour trek. East #2 Pittsburgh will host West #3, the St. Louis Bombers, a 9.5 hour trip. West #1, the Chicago Lions, will host East #4, the Cincinnati Wolfhounds, a meager 5 hour voyage. Finally West #2 Chicago Blaze will host the East #3 Chicago Griffins, a cross-town rivalry. It’s going to be a goodie this weekend, no matter which match you tune into.

The ARP closed out their 2026 season with a couple of interesting results this past month. At the end of September, Life U (5-1) were running the show with an undefeated record, and they kept that going for most of October, taking down Mystic River (0-6) 55-12 and NYAC (4-2) at home, 43-21. However when they made the trip up to New York to face NYAC a second time, they were caught out. NYAC pulled off the upset, taking down the champs by a very close score of 26-19. One loss wasn’t enough to uproot Life from the top of the standings, but it was a mar on their otherwise perfect season. Perhaps inspired by NYAC’s upset win, White Plains (3-3) took their chance the next weekend and defeated NYAC at home, final score 31-24. Again, it didn’t change up the standings, as NYAC had already won four of five matches, but a win over White Plains could have possibly vaulted NYAC into the top spot. The only team that never managed to find a win this season was Mystic River (0-6) despite their valiant effort on October 10th, when they stacked 41 points against White Plains. It still somehow wasn’t enough, as White Plains scored 49 in the 90-point try fest. 

Without a final being played this year, Life University repeated as the 2026 ARP Champions, with NYAC coming in second place, White Plains in third, and Mystic in fourth. Some of these clubs may seek to qualify for Nationals in the spring, but they will be joining different conferences in order to do so, the ARP matches do not count as qualifying games.

After four weekends of action this past month we’ve got some shakeups in the Mid-Atlantic Men’s D1 standings.

Starting off with the top of the table, it’s all Rocky Gorge (5-0) right now. They are the only undefeated team left in the conference, and they’ve played every other team except Baltimore-Chesapeake (2-3). With the current standings and maximum bonus points, they’ve already guaranteed themselves a place in the top two as we roll into the postseason. That means home field advantage for the conference semifinals in April. They could theoretically lose out on the top spot to Schuylkill River (4-1) if they lose without a bonus point this weekend, but I don’t think that is going to happen. Their closest matches were both back in September, they’ve been getting sharper as the season moves on. They blanked the Washington Irish (1-3) at the start of the month and followed it up with two 26-5 wins over the Potomac Exiles (2-3) and NOVA (3-2) on the 17th and 24th. Their final game will be this weekend at Baltimore-Chespeake.

Schuylkill River has the second spot in the standings, for now. Their final match of the season is taking on third-place NOVA, who currently has one more bonus point than the Exiles, but one less win in their record. Schuylkill won all three matches in October, and their only loss of the season comes from the top of the table Rocky Gorge. Meanwhile NOVA, who started out with a three-game win streak, have currently lost the last two matches, 26-5 against Rocky Gorge and 35-31 against the Washington Irish. It was a spicy game against the Irish, whose Beck Tuvesson kicked five for five off the tee, nudging the Irish to the win over NOVA. Thanks to the bonus points NOVA got in that loss, if they can beat Schuylkill and prevent them from getting double losing bonus points, they can leapfrog them in the standings and secure second overall. 

Our final two teams duking it out for a playoff spot are the Potomac Exiles and Baltimore-Chesapeake. They did play each other way back at the start of the season, Exiles taking the victory, but so much has changed since then. Baltimore-Chesapeake pulled out a 46-28 win over the Washington Irish, who went on to defeat NOVA the following weekend. Both teams did suffer a loss to Schuylkill River at the end of this past month, Baltimore-Chesapeake by a score of 33-12, and Potomac by a score of 36-19, so not much difference between the two. As it stands, Potomac is ahead by one table point, so if both teams finish with the same result this weekend, the Exiles will advance. But if the Exiles lose to the Irish and Baltimore-Chesapeake beats Rocky Gorge, then the tables will turn. It’s do or die this weekend, everything is on the line. 

Out of playoff contention, but still a chance to mix everything up are the Washington Irish and Washington. Their match against each other was postponed from October 24th, whether they will play that or not, who knows. It would be a good end of season friendly, but it’s already been a long season for these teams. The Irish have one more this upcoming weekend hosting Potomac, before they retire for the winter. 

Heading over to the West coast, we’ll start off with Northern California. There’s not a lot to cover here, as NorCal typically doesn’t kick off until January. Last year both Life West and Olympic Club played a hybrid season with the D2 clubs, but an impressive showing by Silicon Valley during the regular and post-season might have done enough to move them up into the top division. We’ll see if we have a schedule posted or more updates by our next recap – but there’s no rush.

October brought a couple of cross-divisional matches as well as one D1 head to head battle for us to dive into. 

The Seattle Orcas (1-0) played in the lions’ share of the cross-divisional matches, taking down every opponent who stood in their way by a differential of at least 75 points. First was the Tacoma Nomads on October 10th, followed by the Moscow Mules and the Valley Kangaroos at the end of the month. They also found time to play their D1 rivals, Boise United (0-1) back at the beginning of the month. That one also fell the Orca’s way, but not by that much. Boise held their own for most of the match, managing to score twice and convert, final score 36-14. The Portland Pigs also dealt Boise a blow on October 17th as they topped the Idaho team 58-17 in a cross-divisional match-up. A rough month for Boise, who will go back to the drawing board in preparation for the spring season. Still no word from the Eastside Tsunami who looked like they were joining the D1 fray this year, perhaps they are gearing up for a massive spring. Boise will take on the Moscow Mules on November 7th before closing their doors for the winter. Seattle have already wrapped up their fall season, they will return in the spring, ready to defend their berth to the Pacific Super Regionals.

Still no formal schedule from SoCal, but they have plenty of time until January. Last year six teams played in SoCal’s Men’s D1, and since all six recorded at least one win, we’re not sure if anyone is on the chopping block for demotion. As soon as we get the schedule, we’ll start making predictions.

The Red River Premiership doesn’t kick off until December, but we’ve got some changes in the format of this league to look forward to. Four Men’s D1 teams (losing HARC from last year) will play a hybrid schedule against D1 and D2 sides in order to fill out their schedule. Last year’s National semifinalists and 2023 National Champs, the Austin Blacks, will be joined by 2022 National Champs, the Dallas RFC, the 2017 National Champs, the Austin Huns, and the 1984 National Champs, the Dallas Harlequins. I’m not sure there’s any other division in the country that has had every team win a National Championship (and if there is – you’ll probably tell me). The Austin Huns will play a cross-conference match against San Luis Obispo in early November, but outside of that, no preseason friendlies have been scheduled. As it stands, the first league matches will be on December 5th when the Blacks take on HARC, the Huns take on the D2 Blacks, the Dallas Harlequins host the D2 Huns, and the Dallas Reds host HURT. 

Maybe I spoke too soon with my optimism regarding this hybrid division. It appears the cross-conference match on October 10th between Atlanta Old White and Asheville was recorded as a forfeit in favor of Atlanta. Life U and Old White are both still on the schedule moving forward, so I will hold out eternal hope that those matches go off, but anything could happen. Life U is slated to travel to the Greenville Griffins on November 14th followed by a trip to Cape Fear on the 21st. Atlanta’s next match is scheduled for February 6th, traveling to Charlotte.