No surprises for who from the Seattle Seawolves made the Top 15 in Week 7: Riekert Hattingh and Sam Windsor. They have been around the Major League Rugby since it began and they are still turning in tries and scoring kicks.
Here’s what MLR said about them:
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.
Simply put, Chicago scored 26 unanswered points in the first half hour of the game against the Seattle Seawolves on Saturday. Then Seattle scored 34 unanswered points to win 34-26.
Seattle scored five tries (Jade Stighling, Mack Mason, J.P. Smith, Sam Windsor and Toni Pulu) for the extra bonus points keeping them within four points of Houston, who lead the Western Conference. Mason added three conversions and a penalty kick, which put the Seawolves ahead 27-26 for the first time in the game at 75 minutes. Pulu’s try with a minute remaining and Mason’s conversion kept Chicago from getting a bonus point for losing within seven points.
A remarkable turnaround from the first half hour compared to the time that followed. At the beginning, the Seawolves missed tackles, let Chicago’s backs get outside their back line, gave up an intercepted pass that was run in for a try and had a forward power over them for Chicago’s fourth try (a bonus point).
Then someone turned on the lights. A great pass out to Stighling who touched down in the corner, Mason converted his own try, a show and go by Smith to drop over the Chicago goal line, Windsor’s try from not at the end of an overload (he had another man outside of him – and man inside if he wanted to offload that way) and great back and forth passing by Riekert Hattingh and Ina Futi, ending in Pulu’s try.
You can’t have unanswered points without solid defense, which the Seawolves had after the first half hour. Best defensive play? Gotta be Jean Droste’s holding up a would be try by Chicago at 70 minutes.
Seawolves are back at Starfire on Friday night, April 5, at 7:30 against the Dallas Jackals, who were respectable against Houston this weekend losing, 30-27.
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.
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.
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.