Strange Times at MLR

The late season/post-season permutations in Major League Rugby have been unprecedented in their unexpectedness and impact on the playoffs. To make a long story short the two teams with the best records have been disqualified and two teams who thought their season was over have been restored to playoff position.

On Friday, June 3rd the league posted the following on their Instagram feed under an image that said “Competition Update”

League Update: Due to a violation of team rules, the Austin Gilgronis have been disqualified from 2022 postseason play. Championship Series fixtures will be announced as they are determined.

Later that evening I happened to attend the Houston Sabercats match (My Live Oak Vodka brand is the "Official Vodka of the Houston Sabercats.”) against the Gilgronis at AVEVA Stadium. The match proceeded as normal and Austin got the better of Houston on their way to winning the Texas Cup, while Houston rested many of its starters for the highly anticipated and heavily promoted playoff match on June 12th. As a side note the Gilgronis finished with he best record in the Western Conference and would have had a bye into the Conference Final had they not been disqualified. After the final week of the regular season the LA Giltinis were the top remaining seed and waiting for the winner of the Houston home playoff match against the Seattle Seawolves. The Western Conference standings looked like this:

Until everything changed again today:

The Houston Sabercats are now the top remaining seed in the Western Conference. As with the Gilgronis announcement there are not many details. Commenters on Instagram and Reddit are pretty pissed about the lack of transparency. The email I got referred to it as #GillyGate. 

Adding to the strange last minute disqualifications is the fact that both teams are owned by Australian Entrepreneur Adam Gilchrist (Hence the "Gil-" names). It is an oddity in a professional sports league to have two teams owned by the same person, more so two teams in the same conference. For both to be disqualified within four days of each other without further explanation is probably one of the weirder things to happen in professional sports in a very long time. 

There are rumors that the Gilchrist is in the process of offloading the Austin franchise and that financial irregularities might have come up during the due diligence in that transaction. 

The only conclusion that I have come to so far is that apparently the teams in the Eastern Conference know how to behave.