Seventy-five minutes into the Seattle game against the Houston Sabercats, the Seawolves are awarded a penalty just five meters outside the 22-meter line. The Seawolves are playing with only 14 players because of a red card against Pago Haini. With five minutes left in the game, the Seawolves kick to touch, hoping for a lineout-maul-try to win the game 26-24, or maybe even 28-24 as Eduard Fouche has already kicked three conversions.
The lineout was successful. The ball came out from the maul under control, but then a knockout torpedoed the winning try, and Houston goes on to win, 24-21.
If on that penalty, Fouche had kicked for three points and a tie, 21-21, could they have gone on for the win? They would have received the ball back on the next kickoff and at least had a winning chance. But we’ll never know since no one followed my advice to always take the points, especially when you are down a man. (Also noting here, that no one has ever asked for my advice.)
Red cards: Looking back on the red card to Haini, it appears that he stumbled into the Houston ball carrier. The refs ruled that Pago was targeting a knee, a high danger play. It was a no-wrap tackle, but it looked like he was trying to regain his feet when he collided with a Houston knee. Are intentions regarded? If so, maybe a yellow car instead, although the Seawolves would have played out the game one man down as a 10-minute sin bin would have gone past 80 minutes.
Or two men down as on the fatal knock-on play, Njabulo “Juice” Gumede received a red card. He came in from the side of a ruck and his elbow hit the head of a Houston player. Definitely a red card.
A hometown win at Starfire Stadium on Saturday, March 8, at 7 p.m. against the New England Free Jacks, the team that beat them last year in the Major League Rugby championship game, would go a long ways to getting this season back on track. The Free Jacks lost 36-7 against the Chicago Hounds on Sunday. What happened to them?
Now dialing in to youtube.com for the weekend’s highlights, which I have not completed.
However, in looking at the minimal information on Tribe Sports, the number of yellow and red cards handed out over the weekend has colored their game summaries. In five games, there were 14 yellow cards and three red cards. New Orleans and San Diego teams led with three yellow cards apiece. The Miami Sharks, Chicago Hounds and New England had red cards.
Is this because the refs are calling rules tighter or because we have hooligans in the gentlemen’s game?
The Seattle Seawolves will have another go at the Sabercats. The best way for that to happen is for Seattle to win three games: against Los Angeles on June 22, against San Diego on June 29 in San Diego, and then again against San Diego in the playoffs on Sunday, July 21. And then the Seawolves return to Houston for the Western Conference finals on Sunday, July 28.
The must-win game in that scenario is the playoff match on July 21. Lose that game and the season is over without the rematch against Houston, which beat Seattle Saturday, 28-25, at Sabercats Stadium.
Three of Houston’s tries started from mistakes the Seawolves made: an overthrown lineout toss, a rare knock-on by Divan Rossouw at fullback and a quick penalty that caught the Seawall defense still in neutral. Houston’s fourth and “you can’t blame me” try came with wing forward Keni Nasoqeqe busting through Seattle’s back line.
Seattle’s offense relied heavily on Mack Mason’s foot. Not just for the conversion and two penalty kicks he made, but for his kicks ahead that resulted in tries for Toni Pulu (who outran the Houston winger to touch down in the corner) and Jade Stighling, who gathered in Mason’s kick right at the try line. Even with the Seawolves at 14 men after a high tackle yellow card on Rhyno Herbst, the Seawolves found a way to keep scoring.
The other Seattle try came from a heads-up play by Sam Matenga, who regained his feet at a goal line ruck, saw the ball in front of him, picked it up and dived over for the score.
That totals 25 points. Houston had 28, winning by a penalty kick that can be blamed on A.J. Alatimu, a former Seawolves, who had two of them in the game.
The surest way to a rematch with Houston is for the Seawolves to win, win, win. That will give the Seawolves the hometown advantage in the first playoff game before heading to Houston for the conference final. Assumption here is that Seattle will play San Diego in the playoffs, which is how the standings now line up. But that could change in the last two weeks of the regular season. Looking ahead:
San Diego plays Chicago Hounds on Monday night, June 17, then Houston on June 23 and Seattle (in San Diego) on June 29.
Besides the Legion on June 29, Seattle plays Los Angeles on June 22 in Seattle.
Besides the San Diego game, Houston plays Dallas, now in the fourth spot in the standings, on June 29.
Besides the Houston match, Dallas plays Utah on June 22.
Utah has to win today against New England and then finish their season at home with wins against Dallas and LA. That would give Utah 12 points in the standings (with no bonus points). If Dallas loses against Houston and Utah and picks up no bonus points, the Warriors would be in the playoffs, outranking Dallas in the standings, 40 points to Dallas’ 39.
The Seattle Seawolves, previously 8-1, losing to New Orleans Gold, previously 4-4, on Saturday in a one-point game, 32-31, was not the way to get closer to Houston, the leader in the Western Conference of Major League Rugby. But the prospect of becoming No. 1 again is not out of the question.
The Seawolves, now 8-2, trail the Saborcats, 9-1, by four points, 44-40 in the standings. Both teams picked up bonus points for scoring four tries. Seattle was within seven of the winner for another bonus point. But Houston won, and Seattle lost.
Setting aside Houston’s 38-15 turn on the winless Anthem, the biggest margin in this weekend’s five games was three points, RFC Los Angles win over the Dallas Jackals, 29-26 (a surprise).
The rest of the games were one-point affairs: The previously mentioned NOLA win over Seawolves, 32-31 (a surprise); Old Glory DC’s 22-21 win over Chicago Hounds (another surprise); and Miami Sharks’ win over Utah 20-19 (one more surprise).
Close games usually mean a well-balanced state of competition, which seems true in the Eastern Conference where the top four teams and present playoff contenders are within six points of each other from No. 1 New England (30 points) to No. 4 Old Glory (24). The close-game model does not hold up in the Western Conference with the No. 1 and No. 2 teams 10 points ahead of the other playoff contenders: Houston 44, Seattle 40, San Diego 30 and Dallas 28.
Can Seattle make up the four-point deficit behind Houston before they meet again on June 15 in Sabercat Stadium? Before then, both teams have a bye in the coming five weeks. Seattle faces Dallas, Old Glory and Utah, all except Utah in the playoff race. Tough games. Houston meets Chicago, NOLA and LA. Two playoff contenders (and LA).
Looking at those schedules, it seems that the Western Conference lead going into the final month of the season could be decided on June 15.
More about the Seattle-New Orleans game and further complaints about rugby rules and tactics in a coming post. Off to a Mother’s Day brinner (brunch and dinner),
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.
San Diego must have tried to sleep in the cargo hold of the plane taking them to their game against the Sharks in Miami. The Legion did not awake up until there was only 20 minutes left in the game. Down 21 to 5, San Diego scored two tries and a penalty kick to sneak by the Sharks, 22-21.
San Diego had only three tries, but the four points for the win was enough to tie them with the Seawolves at 19 points apiece in the Western Conference standings, four back from the Houston Sabercats.
Old Glory DC, 46, Anthem 32: Depending on which team Old Glory DC showed up with (the one that beat New England or the one that lost two and tied one), Anthem might have a chance at a win. But DC showed up strong, beating Anthem, 46-32.
Game to game, Anthem is scoring more points and former Seawolves Jake Turnbull continues to account for some of them.
Kicks make a difference in today’s rugby. Too much foot in the game? Maybe. But for now, those are the rules of the game.
In the Dallas vs. Houston game Friday evening, the Jackals made five tries but their kickers only made one conversion, losing out on eight possible points.
Houston had four tries but converted two of them. They added two penalty kicks even though they committed 12 penalties to the Jackals’ eight.
So Dallas had 25 points on tries and two on a conversion for 27 at the end of the game.
Houston had 20 points on tries, six on penalty kicks and four on conversions to win 30-27 and maintain their undefeated status.
Hoping the Seawolves’ kickers are on target this afternoon in Chicago, the team scores more than four tries, the Hounds score fewer and the Miami Sharks pull off an upset against San Diego on Sunday.
After three games without scoring four tries and the extra bonus points in the standings, the Seattle Seawolves racked up four tries Friday night.
So did thier opponents, the Houston Sabercats.
Besides the four tries (20), the Seawolves added two more tries (10), two penalty kicks (6) and two conversions (4) for 40 points on the scoreboard.
The Sabercats (is that a cartoon character?) added a penalty try (7), three penalty kicks (9) and three conversions (6) for 42 points. All those kicks came from our old friend AJ Alatimu, who departed for Houston after two years in Seattle.
Seawolves come away with two bonus points for four tries and for being within seven points of the winner. Houston gets four points for the win and a bonus point for four tries. That puts them on top of the Western Conference with 18 points.
San Diego’s 27-11 victory Saturday over Old Glory DC gives them five points (four for the win, one for four tries scored) and a second place in the standings with 15 points.
Seattle is third with 14 points.
Look for the top two teams in the Western Conference to pick up more four-try bonus points this next weekend with Houston at Dallas on Friday night, March 29 at 5:30 PDT, and San Diego at Miami on Sunday, March 31 at 3 PDT.
Seattle plays Chicago there on Saturday at 3 PDT. A win and four tries in the Seawolves’ Easter basket? That would be nice.
After the Seawolves beat the Miami Sharks, 29-18, a Seattle fan passing in front of me on the way out of the Starfire Stadium, remarked, “That wasn’t as easy as I expected.”
True that.
If the Miami kickers had made all their kicks, the Sharks would have pulled within three points of Seattle. Think if Mack Mason were playing for them.
Fortunately, Mason plays for the Seawolves, who depended on him for 17 of Seattle’s 29 points.
Mason’s four penalty kicks and a dashing, under-the-posts try by Jade Stighling accounted for Seattle’s 19-3 halftime lead.
Miami had an unusual try two minutes into the second half. A cross kick by Miami’s Uruguayan fly half Felipe Etcheverry bounced in the try zone. The Argentine wing forward Benjamin Bonasso tipped the ball higher but then grabbed it and touched down for a try just inside the dead ball line. A missed conversion. Score is 19-8, still Seawolves.
A successful penalty kick by Miami. 19-11, still Seawolves.
Mason kicked another penalty with 60 minutes gone in the game.
It’s nice to have Olive Kilifi back home again,
Then it was time for the replacements to show their stuff. Daquan Perry, from Philadelphia, USA, threw the ball in for a Seattle lineout, raced around the back of the formation and drove toward the Miami goal. Then Olive Kilifi, Seattle’s own replacement prop, secured the ball in a ruck. One more ruck and the ball comes out to Mason for a skip pass to sub Sam Windsor, an Australian who has been in the MLR since the beginning, who dodges, gets his shirt tail caught from behind but not before a pass to Jeremiah Sio, a Rainier Beach grad, who touches down in the corner for a try.
The game ended on a bad note with a yellow card against Seattle and one more late try for Miami, ending the game 29-18.
Still no four-try games, which Seattle will need those bonus points to keep up with the Houston Sabercats. More tries, fewer penalties will make me and that passing fan happier.
The Seawolves are off to Utah next Saturday for a 6 p.m. game that will be shown on Fox 13 and The Rugby Network.
J.P. Smith admitted this wasn’t his best look. Will he ever play fullback again?
Other games:
Houston 27, Los Angeles 12. I thought this game would have been closer. The score was Houston 14, LA 12 at half. But then the Sabercats got control of the game in the last half. It would have been closer if two of LA’s tries had not been disallowed because the scorers started from an offside position. And is LA playing their games in a high school football field? Looks that way.
Update: Grant and Jordan pointed out that there were four disallowed tries in the Houston-LA game, two for each team. I knew about one of the whistled try for Houston but missed the other one. So in the end, that probably means Houston is 15 points better than LA.
And yes, I know that LA plays at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, CA., but the field still looks small to me. But Grant points out, “That field was recently re-built specifically for the LA Galaxy II USL team Some of the money from the rebuild came from WR so the goalpost sleeves could be built into the field for the USA to host WR XVs Series matches (an annual women’s test series). RFCLA benefits from a low cost, ~2,000 seat stadium that has lighting, access control, plenty of parking, and other typical, professionally managed stadium features.”
San Diego 30, Dallas 23. Dallas was ahead 13-11 at the half but 14 minutes later, San Diego was up 25-13. Then a San Diego Legion received a yellow card for a dangerous tackle. A chance for Dallas to come back. Could they? No. Dallas scored a try with 84 minutes gone for get a bonus point for pulling within seven points of the winner, which was San Diego, 30-23.
Utah 29, Chicago 15. Chicago Hounds scored first with a try, added a penalty kick and one more try. But the Utah backsare a dangerous bunch, too hard for the Hounds to collar. Keep that in mind, Seawolves, next week.
New Orleans 34, Anthem 19. About what I expected, but best luck to former Seawolves Jake Turnbull and Shane Barry, who scored a try on Saturday, in making this team competitive.
What it looks like when the lineout is lost: Ball overthrown and the Houston, in yellow, take it.
Some new names in the Seattle Seawolves professional rugby team’s starting lineup Sunday night, but the same results – another win.
This one against the Houston Sabercats, 27-14. at Starfire Stadium in Tukwila, WA.
Scoring in the first half was limited to a penalty kick by Seawolves’ Brock Staller, and a try by Houston after they stole a Seattle lineout, won a scrum, scurried the ball out to the backs and Osea Kolinisan scored in the corner. Sam Windsor uncharacteristically missed the conversion kick but added a penalty later after Seattle failed to release a tackled player. The half ended 3-8 with Houston ahead.
Seattle stayed on the Houston side of the field in the first half but found every way in rugby to loose the ball, the momentum and scoring opportunities – offside penalties, lost lineouts, knock-ons, ball not thrown in straight in the lineout and giving up the ball in their own loose rucks.
A long run by Eric Duechle looked like it might overcome the scattered play as he broke through several tackles and flopped into the try zone, slamming the ball behind him. Looked like a try, but the referee called it a dribble – didn’t touch the ball down to score – and a Houston player picked up the ball and ran it out of trouble.
With six minutes gone in the second half, the Seawolves took the lead again on a maul off their own lineout when Jeremy Lenaerts touched down for five points. Staller converted for two more.
Then it looked like the kicks by Staller and Windsor would decide the game. Windsor slotted a penalty kick after Seattle was offside to lead 10-11. Minutes later, Staller put up three more points after Houston was offside – 13-11. Staller had two more penalty attempts but missed them.
After a Seattle player entered the loose ruck from the side, Windsor connected to put Houston up, 13-14.
And that was it for Houston as the Seawolves took over the last 10 minutes of the game. The forwards pushed the ball down to just short of the Houston try line before getting the ball out, spotting one well aimed pass and Sequoyah Burke-Combs got the ball down just inside the out-of-bounds pylon. Staller kicked the conversion from the corner.
Duechle made up for that dribble earlier, running beneath an up-and-under kick, gathering in a deflected catch and holding off tacklers before touching down. Staller’s kick was good for a 27-14 win.
Houston has only won one game, but for Seattle it has to feel good to win without some of their regular players. Phil Mack played for Canada Friday night against the USA national team at Starfire. J.P. Smith filled in well for him at scrum half. Kellen Gordon, Dan Trierweiler and John Hayden spelled Stephan Coetzee and Tim Metcher. Oli Kilifi, who had played Friday night for the USA Eagles, sat out until well into the second half. Ben Cima and Peter Tiberio shuffled the stand-off and fullback positions for missing Matt Turner, the usual fullback.
With four wins and two losses and 20 table points, the Seawolves are right behind the New Orleans Gold, who have only played five games to collect 21 points. Right behind Seattle is the Glendale, Colo., team with 20 table points and a 3-2-1 record.
The Seawolves are back at Starfire Stadium on March 31 against the San Diego Legion, who saw the Toronto Arrows score 24 points in the second half Sunday night to win 27-20.
Next Saturday, Seattle is at Austin, who have yet to win a game this season. The game will be on ROOTS-TV. Seawolves have a bye on the weekend of March 23-24.
When the lineout is won: Ball straight to jumper, then on to the scrum half.
