Tag: Toni Pulu

A Seawolves win to dispel all doubts

Reasonable doubts were had about this past weekend – round one in the Seawolves’ campaign to reach the playoffs. With fourth-place team, RFCLA, facing 0-11 Anthem and Seattle against 8-3 Utah, some doubters may have thought Seattle, fifth place in the Western Conference of the Major League Rugby and parked outside of the playoffs, might fall further behind.

Those doubts were not dispelled until the 80th minute of the Monday night’s game. Despite tries by Malembe Mpofu (under the post for seven points), Lauina Futi and Toni Pulu plus two successful conversion kicks by Rodney Iona (in winds gusting up to 50 miles per hour), the Seawolves were down 21-24 going into the last two minutes of the game. Just before time expired, Rhyno Herbst picked up the ball from the back of a goal line ruck and dived over for a try, giving Seattle a 28-24 win, with another conversion by Iona.

That leaves Seattle still in fifth place, two points behind LA, who notched a 45-17 four-try win over Anthem on Saturday. Anything but a four-try Seattle win would have left the Seawolves further behind LA, like seven points behind in the standings if they had lost to Utah.

Round 2 starts at 6 p.m. Saturday at Starfire Stadium when Seattle meets San Diego, who are 7-6 including a 40-26 win over Seattle in the first game of the regular season back in February. They are in third place in the Western Conference.

LA follows up on Monday against the Chicago Hounds, who are 8-4 and in second place in the Eastern Conference behind New England.

Looking for a win and a loss, no doubt about it.

A bye, then many games in few days for Seattle

Let’s pause slightly to applaud Toni Pulu and Riekert Hattingh for scoring tries and to Eduard Fouche for making one of two conversion kicks in the 29-12 defeat at the hands of Old Glory DC. Then let’s move on to what’s ahead for the Seattle Seawolves.

This coming weekend, Seattle has a bye, which means they will fall further behind as other teams in the Western Conference all have games. The Utah Warriors found out what a bye weekend can do: They fell behind the RFCLA in the standings and are right now the team Seattle needs to top in the standings if the Seawolves want to see playoff games this summer.

While Utah was resting at home last weekend, the LA club beat Houston Sabercats, 24-22, allowing them to climb two points better than the Warriors in the Major League Rugby standings – 23 to 21.

Seattle is six points behind Utah, in fifth place, the non-playoff spot in the Western Conference. A win by Seattle and a defeat by the Warriors will not be enough for Seattle to gain a fourth-place spot in the standings; they’d be at least one point behind. They will need more than that, and there are many – maybe too many – opportunities coming up in the rest of April and beginning of May.

Let’s start with the needed rest the Seawolves will get in this coming bye weekend. On Saturday, Utah will play LA, the loser relegated to the fourth-place spot in the standings – the team Seattle needs to overcome.

Starting Friday, April 18, the Seawolves will play four games in the next 15 days:

Friday, April 18 at Starfire against Chicago Hounds, the No. 1 team in the Eastern Conference. 7:30 P.M. (PDT)

Rest five days.

Wednesday, April 23 at Anthem at 4:30 p.m. (PDT)

Rest four days.

Sunday, April 27 at NOLA Gold at 1 p.m. (PDT)

Five days after that, on Friday, May 2, Seattle will get a rematch against LA at Starfire.

Fifteen days, four games. Lots of games to catch up, to climb over whoever is in fourth place in the conference.

Also, lots of games to stay healthy, uninjured. Trainers and conditioning coaches, do your stuff.

Esdale’s try keeps Seattle from sinking further

Malacchi Esdale

The game’s not over until Seattle winger Malacchi Esdale scores. Saturday night against Anthem Rugby Club that did not happen until 73 minutes into the match. Esdale’s try was the fourth for the Seawolves, giving them a bonus point plus the four for the 25-17 win.

The four-try win keeps Seattle from falling further behind the RFCLA team, which beat Old Glory DC, 54-44, in a game with six yellow cards and a red. That game finished before Seattle and Anthem kicked off at Starfire Stadium, and any Seattle fan who knew of LA’s four-try win – no, make that eight – must have felt uncomfortable with Seattle’s first half when Rodney Iona’s lone penalty kick put them behind, 7-3, at halftime.

Sinking deeper in the standings of Major League Rugby’s Western Conference looked like a very real possibility until Toni Pulu found open space on the wing for a try at 50 minutes and Iona connected on the only conversion of the night for Seattle. Game tied 10-10.

Toni Pulu

Then Divan Rossouw had his five minutes of fame, scoring two tries between the 60th and 65th minutes for a 20-10 Seattle lead. Three tries, one penalty kick and one conversion. Not enough to keep from falling further behind LA, who stood at 18 in the standings.

Divan Rossouw

Esdale had not scored; the game could not be over. In the past two games, he scored the try that beat New England and helped Seattle to stay within seven points against LA a week ago, a bonus point that left the Seawolves three points behind LA. A fourth try would keep them there. That came with seven minutes left in the game when a long pass out to the wing put Esdale over for the fourth try.

Seattle is still out of the running for the playoffs, fifth in the Western Conference standings, behind 3-3 LA, 18-15. Four teams advance, vying to play in the championship. One team stays home when the season ends in June.

The Anthem team is 0-6, well out of the playoff chase in the Eastern Conference. But on Saturday night, Anthem fielded a team with all American players, a first for the MLR.

Next Saturday, Seattle plays 3-3 Old Glory in Maryland while LA faces 5-1 Houston Sabercats. If LA can beat Old Glory, 54-44, can Seattle, now 2-4, do something similar to keep pace with LA? Or, maybe put LA back in the cellar?

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.

Seawolves down 26-0 when the lights came on

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.