Welcome to the Windsor and Hattingh show with supporting cast of Rossouw and Pulu. The stars of the show scored 24 of the points in the 36-5 win over Los Angeles on Sunday.
Riekert Hattingh and Sam Windsor accounted for all Seattle’s 17 points in the first half. It wasn’t until the 58th minute that Divan Rossouw entered the scoring stage with a try when Seattle’s backs overloaded the LA defense. Toni Pulu had to wait until the 80th minute before he did his own do-it-yourself try by intercepting an LA pass and trotting in (75 yard) for an under-the-post try (did LA pursue at all?).
Windsor converted his own try at the 32nd minute after the ball came out from the ruck at the LA goal line, pass to Windsor, a show and go, breaks a tackle and scores.
Hattingh had another try at the 68th minute on a play from behind a set scrum: scrum half goes right, probably for a pass from No. 8, but Hattingh, the No. 8, fakes a pass, goes left, breaks through tackles and scores.
Besides his try, Windsor kicked one penalty kick and converted three tries for 14 points in the game.
The Seawall defense let LA buffalo in a try off a lineout maul at the 45th minute. LA only had one yellow card, down from four in their last game (and a red card).
With five tries in the match, the Seawolves picked up a bonus point and top the Western Conference with 29 points. San Diego and the Houston Sabercats follow with 24 points apiece. Dallas is fourth, where they will need to stay to get into the playoffs.
About Houston. There is no longer an undefeated team in Major League Rugby. The New England Free Jacks took care of that on Saturday when they defeated the Sabercats, 47-35. It was quite a game. Thirteen tries were scored, six by Houston, seven by New England. Wayne Van der Bank scored three of them after receiving a yellow card at the 25th minute in the game. Jayson Potroz converted six tries, including one of his own for 17 points.
Houston started the scoring with a try in the first five minutes of the game but fell behind by 10 points at the half, 28-18. At 52 minutes, Houston was further down, 40-18, before they came alive and caught up to 40-35 with five minutes left in the game. A try would tie, a conversion would win. But it was the Free Jacks who scored, finishing 47-35.
Davy Coetzer scored two tries for the Sabercats and kicked a penalty. But he missed five conversions before they let former Seawolves AJ Alatimu kick the last conversion that brought them to within five points.
Next for Seawolves: A preview of my predicted MLR championship: Seattle vs. New England on Saturday, April 20. See it on NBC Sports Boston, FOX13 or The Rugby Network. Game starts at 11 a.m. PDT.
Seattle played on Sunday, then will play again on Saturday, An away game in Quincy after a short week for them. New England played Saturday and have been resting ever since.
Making no predictions.