Tag: LARFC

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.

Seawolves’ next foe: 4 yellow cards and 1 red

Old Glory DC 22, LA RFC 22: In this tie game, the Los Angeles club, the next one on the Seawolves’ schedule, racked up four yellow cards including a second one against Alex Maughan, which makes that second card turn red. LA opened the scoring but got down 22-10 while playing short-handed. Then in the 66th minute, LA started coming back with two tries and a conversion to tie at 22. Not a team that the Seawolves can let up on for anything short of 80 minutes when they play Sunday, April 14 at 3 p.m. Game will be televised on FS2.

Chicago 38, New Orleans 21; I stopped watching this game at the 45-minute mark when NOLA was ahead 21-12 and well on their way to victory. But Chicago turned to mauls to push over 26 points while keeping New Orleans scoreless. James Scott, a huge lock ran in two tries for Chicago (who needs mauls when the second rows run like backs). Nice to see former Seawolves Ben Landry in his usual white scrum hat out there playing as well as Brad Tucker (wish he’d come back). Larome White, who was a Seawolves in their first year, is also with the Hounds.

New England Free Jacks 25, Miami Sharks 3: Besides an early penalty kick by Felipe Etcheverry, the Miami Sharks did not show up in the scoring column. New England, who lead the Eastern Conference only had three tries, not enough for the extra bonus point. With 15 points for the tries, Jayson Potroz added two penalty kicks and two conversions for 10 points for the 25 total. The Free Jacks stay on top of the Eastern Conference with 19 points, ahead of NOLA with 15.

Utah 44, Anthem 19: Anthem ahead at the half, 19-15, but never scored in the second half while Utah ran in 29 more points.