{"id":360179,"date":"2025-12-20T09:51:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T09:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/360179\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T09:51:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T09:51:11","slug":"eagles-rookie-harvey-moves-east-to-chicago-hounds-for-2026-mlr-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/360179\/","title":{"rendered":"Eagles rookie Harvey moves east to Chicago Hounds for 2026 MLR season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/chicago-hounds\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chicago Hounds<\/a> have landed rookie Eagles lock <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/brandon-harvey\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brandon Harvey<\/a> on a two-year deal ahead of the 2026 MLR season.<\/p>\n<p>The 23-year-old rising star shifts east from the California Legion, formerly the San Diego Legion, in a move that bolsters Chicago\u2019s second-row stocks.<\/p>\n<p>Hounds forward coach Todd Dammers will look to take the North Carolina product to the next level in his third season in the MLR, which follows a collegiate stint at Cardiff Metropolitan University.<\/p>\n<p>For Harvey, the move could open the door to more playing time after making 10 appearances over his first two years in the league.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith Todd Dammers\u2019 excellent technical coaching and playing amongst our experienced pack, we feel Brandon will go from strength to strength over the next two years,\u201d stated Hounds General Manager Will Magie.<\/p>\n<p>The Hounds ran with a second-row unit of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/jonah-dietenberger\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jonah Dietenberger<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/george-merrick\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">George Merrick<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/james-scott\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">James Scott<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/tavius-sykora-matthess\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tavius Sykora-Matthess<\/a>, and versatile forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/brad-tucker\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Brad Tucker<\/a> in 2025. The team was one of the top contenders, finishing as the fourth seed with 11 wins in 16 games. They went on to bow out to eventual champions New <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/england\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">England<\/a> in a one-point semi-final loss,<\/p>\n<p>With Harvey\u2019s Legion ending their campaign as the seventh seed and missing the playoffs in 2025, he\u2019ll be looking to return to the postseason after 2024\u2019s quarter-final defeat to the Seattle Seawolves.<\/p>\n<p>An impressive debut season for the Chicago outfit could see him add to the one Test cap he won in 2025 against Georgia, with a spot in 2027\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/rugby-world-cup\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Rugby World Cup<\/a> squad within view. The United States\u2019 2031 Rugby World Cup also looms as a potential carrot for the emerging talent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chicago Hounds have landed rookie Eagles lock Brandon Harvey on a two-year deal ahead of the 2026&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360180,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-360179","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}