Month: April 2025

Time for Seawolves to show who’s boss

The Seawolves’ loss to NOLA Gold on Sunday sets up a mano a mano fight for fourth place in Major League Rugby’s Western Conference. That will come Friday night at 7:30 at Starfire Stadium when LARFC, now in fourth place, comes to visit Tukwila. With six weeks to go in the regular season, this match-up between the fourth and fifth place holders might not be a win-and-you’re-in to see who goes into the playoffs, but a victory Friday night would advance the argument for who ought to be there.

Both LA and Seattle lost this past round, LA to San Diego, 38-36. They were down 31-17 at 60 minutes into the game when the Legion got their second yellow card in 10 minutes. With SD down to 13 players, LA rattled off 14 points to tie at 31-31. SD scored again, then La scored and a successful conversion kick would have tied it with a minute left in the game. The kick went wide, but LA still got two bonus points in the standings: four tries and finishing within seven of the winner. That boosted them to 27 points in the standings.

Seattle had what it takes to win a game against NOLA: tries by Jade Stighling, J.P. Smith, Lauina Futi, Eduard Fouche, Divan Rossouw and Devin Short.

They also had what it takes to lose a game, as they did, 44-36: Seattle had 11 penalties in the first half when I stopped counting; NOLA had one. Three yellow cards against the Seawolves that half. Playing with 14 against 15, then 13 against 15. Three missed conversion kicks. Some untimely mishandling and not being able to stop NOLA from scoring more points that the Seawolves did.

Seattle picked up one bonus point for scoring four tries, but if one of those missed conversions had sailed between the posts, Seattle would have been within seven for another bonus point. That would have kept Seattle at the bottom of the Western Conference but only one point away from LA. Alas, none of those kicks split the uprights and Seattle goes into Friday’s match two points down from LA.

Time to advance your argument, Seawolves.

Seven Seawolves touches to score Gallagher

Finally saw a highlight from the Seawolves game against Anthem so I could count the number of touches Seattle had before Gallagher scored. Here is what I saw:

No. 8 Riekert Hattingh picks up ball from back of scrum (1), passes directly to Dan Kriel (2), who passes back to Brock Gallagher (3), who passes to Rodney Iona (4), out to Malacchi Esdale (5), on to Duncan Matthews (6) and inside to Gallagher (7), who scores.

Seven touches, counting Gallagher in there twice.

On to NOLA today at 1 p.m. Seawolves are three points behind LARFC in the standings before the game. A win pulls them out of the cellar: 28-27. A four-try win would be even better: 29-27.

From scrum to try: How many touches?

Brock Gallagher scored Seawolves’ first try of the second half Wednesday night.

He was the last Seattle player to touch the ball before he scored. The question: How many Seawolves touched the ball from scrum to try?

I can’t view the highlights, so I don’t know. Any guesses without cheating by looking at the highlights? I’ll say seven.

You’ll almost need all 10 fingers to count the Seattle Seawolves who scored tries in the 60-19 victory over the Anthem RFC. That pulled the Seawolves to within one point of the LARFC in the Western Conference of Major League Rugby. Much closer, but still at the bottom and out of the playoffs at this point.

About those scoring Seawolves: Start with Lauina Futi under the posts for seven points, then Captain Riekert Hattingh, then Malacchi Esdale, J.P. Smith, Jeremiah Sio (more on that later), the aforementioned Gallagher try, Dan Kriel, Kerron Van Vuuren and Duncan Matthews. Nine tries for 47 points. Add to that a penalty kick for 3 (50) and five conversion kicks (60) by Rodney Iona.

But the greatest kick of the night was a cross-field kick by Iona that just cleared the outstretched arms of the jumping defender and landed in the arms of Sio, who ran it in for a try.

A five-point win in the standings brings the Seawolves to 24 points, still one point behind LARFC at 25, thanks to a try in the 80th minute of their game Tuesday night that brought them within seven points of the winner: New England Free Jacks 23, LA 21. Without that try, the Seawolves would be ahead of LA: at 24 points each but ahead on plus or minus points (Seattle plus 15 and LA at minus 26).

LA starts the coming weekend facing San Diego, who has been dropping in the standings lately. Seattle (4-5) plays NOLA Gold (3-6) in New Orleans on Sunday.

Hoping the winless Anthem wins the rest of their games so they can taste victory but glad they put it off Wednesday night.

Start Lynch, Peters for more media coverage

“The Seattle Seawolves (3-5) beat visiting Chicago 28-22.”

That was The Seattle Times print-edition coverage on Saturday morning of the Seawolves’ game Friday night.

One sentence. Six words. Four numbers, two hyphens and two parentheses.

They could have said a lot more, as perhaps the Seawolves staffer who supplied the information had done.

  • J.P. Smith earned his 100th caps, only the second to do so in Major League Rugby.
  • Seattle, who sits at the bottom of the Western Conference standings in Major League Rugby, beat the No. 1 team in the Eastern Conference.
  • That Seattle got on the scoreboard first as Rodney Iona slotted a penalty kick, the first of his 13 points he added in conversions and penalty kicks to the Seawolves’ total score.
  • That Divan Rossouw, Riekert Hattingh and Lauina Futi scored tries, all of which keeps the Seawolves closer to getting into the playoffs this coming summer.

There is a way to get more than six words in the local newspaper: Take this man off the sidelines and into the lineup. Marshawn Lynch at stand-off, at No. 8, on the wing, in the centers for a half, or until the first hydration break. Or let Marcus Peters play some defense. The crowd of reporters, columnists and photographers would strain the attendants at the entry gate.

This has been suggested to the Seawolves previously by an unnamed source. And big names, especially American football names, get coverage. Read it here: Marshawn Lynch, Marcus Peters join ownership group for Seawolves.

And read it online, where the readership is tallied to see which sports capture the most eyeballs.

A bye, then many games in few days for Seattle

Let’s pause slightly to applaud Toni Pulu and Riekert Hattingh for scoring tries and to Eduard Fouche for making one of two conversion kicks in the 29-12 defeat at the hands of Old Glory DC. Then let’s move on to what’s ahead for the Seattle Seawolves.

This coming weekend, Seattle has a bye, which means they will fall further behind as other teams in the Western Conference all have games. The Utah Warriors found out what a bye weekend can do: They fell behind the RFCLA in the standings and are right now the team Seattle needs to top in the standings if the Seawolves want to see playoff games this summer.

While Utah was resting at home last weekend, the LA club beat Houston Sabercats, 24-22, allowing them to climb two points better than the Warriors in the Major League Rugby standings – 23 to 21.

Seattle is six points behind Utah, in fifth place, the non-playoff spot in the Western Conference. A win by Seattle and a defeat by the Warriors will not be enough for Seattle to gain a fourth-place spot in the standings; they’d be at least one point behind. They will need more than that, and there are many – maybe too many – opportunities coming up in the rest of April and beginning of May.

Let’s start with the needed rest the Seawolves will get in this coming bye weekend. On Saturday, Utah will play LA, the loser relegated to the fourth-place spot in the standings – the team Seattle needs to overcome.

Starting Friday, April 18, the Seawolves will play four games in the next 15 days:

Friday, April 18 at Starfire against Chicago Hounds, the No. 1 team in the Eastern Conference. 7:30 P.M. (PDT)

Rest five days.

Wednesday, April 23 at Anthem at 4:30 p.m. (PDT)

Rest four days.

Sunday, April 27 at NOLA Gold at 1 p.m. (PDT)

Five days after that, on Friday, May 2, Seattle will get a rematch against LA at Starfire.

Fifteen days, four games. Lots of games to catch up, to climb over whoever is in fourth place in the conference.

Also, lots of games to stay healthy, uninjured. Trainers and conditioning coaches, do your stuff.