Tag: Jayson Potroz

Too soon to talk playoffs? Seawolves are in

With 13 season games to go and a long way until the last of them on June 8, talk of playoffs may seem premature. But right now, the Seawolves are in.

Major League Rugby is using the same playoff format as in 2024. Top four teams in each division are in the playoffs. The No. 1 team plays the No. 4 team. No. 2 vs. No. 3. The No. 5 and 6 in the Eastern Conference and the No. 5 team in the Western Conference are eaten by the Bear, as in  . . . when running away from a hungry grizzly it’s not as important to outrun the Bear as it is to outrun the slowest person trying to escape the jaws and claws of Mr. Griz.

Right now, Mr. Bear’s Happy Meal is the Rugby Football Club of Los Angeles in the Western Conference. Seawolves (seven points) are ahead of RFCLA (three points) by four points in the standings. This is setting a low bear for the season, and I doubt coach Allen Clarke is promoting it.

But the Seawolves will have a chance to push RFCLA farther down Mr. Bear’s throat when Seattle visits the Southern California club at 7 p.m. this coming Saturday, March 15.

Right now, Coach Clarke should be feeling happy about having captain Riekert Hattingh, out for a year with a torn Achilles tendon, back on the playing field and about the team finding the right moment to take the lead in the March 8 game against New England, and the right man to do it.

That moment did not come at the start of the game against the Free Jacks, the team that beat the Seawolves in the 2024 MLR’s championships. By 11 minutes from the opening whistle, Seattle was down, 0-14.

Cam Orr tried to be that man who could gain the lead, scoring two tries, but missed conversions left Seattle down, 10-14. Three minutes after Orr’s last try, the Free Jacks were up another three points on a penalty kick by Jayson Potroz, who returns to the Free Jacks for the first time this season. Half an hour into the game and a try by Divan Rossouw had Seattle within two of New England. A conversion would have tied it, but it was not the right moment.

The kickoff back to the Seawolves after Rossouw’s try was a lesson in why a kick should be caught and not left to dribble, tempting someone to try to grub it through the oncoming defenders. Which is what happened. That ricochet ended up in the hands of a New Englander who cruised on for another try, topped by another conversion by Potroz. Anything set on a tee, Potroz can kick it through the uprights: three conversions and one penalty kick for a halftime score of 24-15.

But that was it for New England. The return of the Seawall defense kept the Free Jacks from scoring in the second half, which included a rare missed penalty kick by Potroz.

A try by Mikaele Kruse and a conversion kick by Rodney Iona (yes!) came close to a lead, 22-24. A Seattle penalty kick would have meant a one-point win. It went wide.

The right moment and the right man came with less than two minutes left in the game when sub Malacchi Esdale rumbled down the sideline for a try (no conversion), the only Seawolves’ lead of the game, a win (27-24) and we’re on the way to the playoffs.

Seattle scored five tries (worth one bonus point in the standings) and one conversion.

Seawolves win, Houston loses, Seattle on top

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.

NE Free Jacks: I was wrong, wrong, wrong

I was wrong, wrong, wrong on the New England Free Jacks. No one in the Eastern Conference of the Major League Rugby could beat them, I predicted. They would surely be in the July championships against the Seattle Seawolves. And if beaten in regular season play it would come from Western Conference teams, and maybe, just maybe, from the New Orleans Gold in the East.

Then on Saturday, the Old Glory from Washington, D.C., beat them, 35 to 34.

The first half hour went as I expected: Free Jacks dominant and ahead 17-0 with a try from Fijian winger Paula Balekana, a penalty kick from New Zealander Jayson Potroz and then a heads-up retrieval by another New Zealander, fullback Reece MacDonald, off a high kick from Potroz.

After that, it became obvious that the Free Jacks did not know how to stop a maul, or how to stop Martin Vaca, a 22-year-old Argentine hooker, who scored three tries in various fashions: filling a spot in the back line, from a maul and then off a ruck at goal line.

Four minutes into the second half, New England had regained a 10-point lead (watch the highlights of the game on The Rugby Network at that point to see some excellent back plan and amazing offloads).

Jason Robertson, another New Zealander playing scrum half for Old Glory, reaches backhanded into the try zone to bring the score to 29-21.

More great back play at 53 minutes brings the Free Jacks to a 15-point lead.

But at 61 minutes, Vaca gets his try off the back of the rugby right next to the post. The conversion is good, and Old Glory is within a converted try to win the game, 34-28.

That try doesn’t come until 83:13 on the clock, another pushover maul (this time with Vaca out of the game – he could have had four tries!). At 84:222 on the clock, Robertson kicks the conversion, and Old Glory wins, 35-34, and my previous predictions look like yesterday’s whine.