The Seattle Seawolves retained their Major League Rugby title on Sunday, beating San Diego 26-23 on the Legion’s home turf. It took a last-minute try to do it, in front of more than 5,000 fans.

The game was a thriller, four tries to two shown live by CBS, a fitting end to a second season which brought rewards as well as challenges.

Before the game, MLR commissioner Dean Howes said: “It was our sophomore year and we grew a little bit, and that’s an atypical thing in the world of sports. Your second year is usually kind of a tough year, and I think we grew and I think we’re poised to build.”

MLR began in 2018 with seven teams then added Toronto Arrows and Rugby United New York. Both made the playoffs. In 2020 the league will welcome the New England Free Jacks, Old Glory DC and Rugby ATL. The first two have played games in Boston and Washington; Atlanta are starting to sign up players.

“I think Boston and DC had some really shining moments on the games they put on,” Howes said, “Atlanta’s going to put some on in a little while. So I think they’ll jump in and be equal to anybody.

“I think it’s still a young enough league that a coach and good player selection and a good system can make a huge difference.”

As much as a reference to work done by head coach Richie Walker and player-coach Phil Mack in Seattle, where the enormous MLS Shield will remain on its reinforced shelf, that could have been a nod to Atlanta, where James Walker and Paul Holmes are quietly signing college products.

True to their brash home city, New York have been more noisy, signing the England full-back Ben Foden and last week unveiling a big name for season two, Mathieu Bastareaud, 54 caps and 300lbs of French international centre.

“This is sports in United States,” Howes said. “New York is New York. It gets the attention because quite frankly it deserves it.

“Now that said, I think James [Kennedy, RUNY owner] has been very proactive, to build on that. And so it’s kind of the icing on the cake that you have an owner there that is making a lot of things happen.”

Rugby United New York, in blue, take on the Glendale Raptors at MCU Park in Coney Island, Brooklyn. Photograph: RUNY

Speaking in a hotel bar on Lexington after making Bastareaud happen, Kennedy put a New York spin on things when he said, “I think for the league the season was a success, but for me it wasn’t because we didn’t win the final.”

He added: “You’ll see that the expectations are much higher now, because you’ll see the amount of head coaches that are going to be replaced in the off-season.”

Kennedy indicated an imponderable of any league – the question of money, who has it and who doesn’t – when he responded to a Rugby Today report which said he had run out of cash.

“We are very well financed,” he said, “and have been entertaining investment offers for the last year and a half.”

‘One team’s problem is all of our problems’

MLR is indeed an investment opportunity, for players, coaches and those who hold the capital. Which means it carries risk. RUNY have French funds and a glittering market but struggled to attract crowds out to Coney Island. Kennedy said games will be played elsewhere next year.

That San Diego hosted Seattle in the final was fitting not just in that they were the top two teams on the regular-season table. Both also play in smart stadiums, Torero and Starfire, which they have managed to fill. The Houston Sabercats have followed the Glendale Raptors in building their own home but the Austin Elite, like RUNY, found themselves playing in an echoing ballpark.

Unlike RUNY, the Texans finished winless. There have been changes, former US Eagle Todd Clever becoming director of rugby. But unlike the Utah Warriors, once precariously placed too, Austin do not seem to have stabilised. There are rumours the operation could move to Ohio, which hosted a team in PRO, the predecessor to MLR.

“This is a single entity,” Howes said, referring to the MLR ownership structure. “So one team’s problem is all of our problems. So we definitely have a ways to go but this is not atypical, right? I mean this is something every league goes through and I think it’s better if they go through it with partners around them than if they were in a franchise model and things were a little different.

“The league is involved with everybody, and we still have to improve some of our groups, and help them, and get them in a situation where they can succeed. That’s why we spend a certain amount of time visiting with the city officials and because some of this is public-private help. It’s finding the right facility, it’s getting the right coaches. This is a complex heavy lift, and we want to work together to solve it.”

James English, RUNY’s general manager, called their season “a roller coaster and a learning curve”. But he also confirmed that Foden would be back for 2020, to join Bastareaud in working with Americans new to the professional life.

“We’ve had to kind of go into the foreign player well a little bit deeper than we did [last year],” Howes said, before a finale that showed strong South African influence.

Full highlights of the MLR championship game.

“But predominantly we are still a domestic league, which is our goal. And I think the domestic players have done a great job, augmented a little bit by the programs that we have going on [to import players from] Uruguay, and next year we’ll have an Ireland programme and we’ve got a few French players too.

“We want to build up our domestic teams, our players, and our national team. But at the same time we feel one of the important things is that we have some international players to try to teach our players.

“I’m very pleased that the speed and the games I think are far better this year, even though we had to go deeper in talent pool.”

Some around the league say the bottom of that pool will be hit before kick-off in February. With 12 teams in two conferences, three in the east will be newly scrapping for talent. Around the oval world, players with passports may not lack for options.

Back in the hotel bar in New York, Kennedy decided to tantalise.

“You look at next year,” he said, “after the World Cup, and you wonder... I’m hearing rumors about a lot of All Blacks coming in.”

It’s not an outrageous suggestion: Mils Muliaina packed up his 100 All Black caps and played in PRO, as did the big prop Jamie Mackintosh, who admittedly wore the silver fern 99 times fewer.

“We’re not talking to any,” Kennedy added, smiling. “But I think you’ll see a lot of talent come in. Hopefully it will spread across the league.”