Nine HS boys teams from the South have created a new league, and that league kicks off this weekend.

Teams from North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia have set up the MSIRL - the Mid-South Independent Rugby League - to give top teams from that area tougher competition through the season. The teams involved will still play their in-state competitions, but most of them do pretty well there even if they don’t run out their top lineups every time.

So this plan gives a greater number of challenging games for these strong programs, and also allows younger players in those teams the chance to play more in other games. 

The teams involved are Charlotte Catholic, Charlotte Tigers, Union County, and Myers Park from North Carolina, South Greenville, Wando, and Columbia Area from South Carolina, and Phoenix and Lassiter from Georgia.

This weekend, Phoenix and Myers Park meet up for the first game. Phoenix normally schedules a large number of opponents in the fall, but competition with football has hurt numbers for some teams, so this will be the Georgia team’s opening game.

This weekend is also a weekend for students to take the ACT, and that will undercut Phoenix numbers. All that does, said Head Coach Niall Fenton, is to open up chances for other younger players.

Phoenix graduated 14 players from last year’s state runners-up, but their excellent middle school program has produced a strong freshman class. Meanwhile, the likes of flyhalf Mitchell Blair, center Ollie Kennett, and prop Daniel Everett keep the tradition alive. Prop Jake Ibarra returns to Phoenix, where he started playing in middle school, and joins Everett in an impressive front row. Injuries and the ACTs, however, have five returning starters on the sidelines.

Meanwhile, Myers Park Head Coach Tyree Reed said the North Carolina fall 7s season has been very helpful in getting his program the right start to the 15s season.

“We have been playing fall 7s to get the new guys a run and to get the team chemistry going,” said Reed. “We are looking good, we are ready to play, and look forward to a hard-fought game.”

Myers park will also be missing five starters due to injury, and will replace them with five rookies. It will be a challenge for both teams.

This opens up an eight-game MSIRL season for these teams. Some of the games on the schedule will be played at the Carolina Ruggerfest on the first weekend of March. Still others will double as league games. But the MSIRL will keeps its own standings and will be hugely useful for the coaches as they assess performance, for the Boys HS Rugby National Championship panel in assessing how to seed teams for nationals in May, and, of course, for Goff Rugby Report in ranking teams. Phoenix kicks off at Myers Park at 2pm on Saturday,

Below is the rest of the MSIRL season. The specific dates have not been confirmed yet, but will be players in a specific time window.