France has fallen. Russian squads cross into the European interior. England has held on –albeit barely– and the assaults continue ceaselessly. Ireland consolidates its status as a global superpower while the Triple Entente of New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa have all fallen in dramatic fashion. In South America, a rising power, biding its time and stalled by a few setbacks, seeks to usurp the traditional powers.

North America remains outside of the rugby chaos generally. But, perhaps its isolationism is and must be coming to an end. Canada recently secured the final spot of the 2019 Rugby World Cup. The Canadians have never missed a Rugby World Cup, but qualification for this one proved to be a tall order and it locked Canada into a death struggle with World Rugby small-fries Germany, Hong Kong, and Kenya in the repechage tournament. USA Rugby has never been stronger, and they still lost 57-14 to Ireland’s second squad.

For the Rugby World Cup, the USA sits in a pool with England, France, Argentina, and Tonga. Perhaps they can beat Tonga, but besting any of the other teams will be nothing short of a dramatic upset, and an unlikely one at that.

Canada sits with New Zealand, South Africa, Italy, and Namibia. Again, they might beat Namibia but the rest of the matches will be impossibly tall orders for the Mounties.

Amidst all of this is the upcoming second season of Major League Rugby, which will now feature a New York team and the Toronto Arrows. With any luck, there will be a third season and perhaps it will feature another Canadian team.

The USA Eagles and the Canadians are, without a doubt, rivals and the USA has played more matches against the team up north than any other nation. But, to a degree, they’re all they’ve got and vice versa. Mexico is currently ranked 48th in the world and though potential certainly exists, they are not quite at the level of either the USA or Canada. But, then again, Canada and the USA aren’t really at the level of many of the other teams they will be playing against next year.

North America needs some solidarity, an us-against-the-world attitude. USA Rugby and Rugby Canada should encourage players from both countries to play for either nations’ club and professional rugby teams. Academies and pipelines to MLR teams are and should continue to be fairly open and welcoming to Canadians and Americans playing outside of their respective borders. Canadian-born players found themselves exempt from MLR’s limited foreign player count on rosters, after all. And Mexico should be included in this as well if the potential exists. But for the sake of the argument, let’s focus on the Tier 2 nations.

Resources are thin for both unions; indeed Canadian rugby recently went through labor strikes over wages and rugby is far from the most popular sport in each country. An intense rivalry on the field is great and should be expected when the US plays against the wayward 51st state, but off the field, perhaps more cooperation and resource sharing –like training camps, or coach and staff development– could help the two nations build up their rugby chops simultaneously and with a little less overhead.

Other nations have well developed professional competitions and teams. Russia and Georgia are both able to send teams to the European Professional Rugby Cups, while the Southern hemisphere has the Rugby Championship and Super Rugby.

North America has a more limited scope. Sure the Americas Rugby Championship provides cross competition between the pair of North American sides as well as the South American rising powers. MLR even struck a deal to open a pipeline of talent from Uruguay. But there’s plenty more the two union bodies can to do to avoid assured mutual destruction.

Greater cooperation through the MLR and the national teams’ schedules and training will be essential, be it more frequent scrimmages or shared facilities to keep the rent down, anything really. The more the two unions work together, the more they might be able to bridge the steep gap between them and the rest of a hostile rugby world.