USRN

Seattle Seawolves 22 – San Diego Legion 28

A bruising encounter between Seattle Seawolves and San Diego Legion which saw the referee issue 4 yellow cards and a red card. San Diego will be concerned with Pietersen going off injured in this hard fought battle however moving to within 2 points of the Raptors in 3rd place will put them at ease.

The Legion opened the scoring after 6 minutes gathering their lineout and the forwards did the rest of the work to maul over the line and touch down in the corner. Pietersen that struck a great kick to land the conversion from right by the touchline leaving the score at 7-0.

San Diego were showing enormous energy both in offence and defence with their line speed and aggression in the tackle seemingly taking the SeaWolves by surprise as they looked a little shell shook in the opening minutes.

San Diego Legion looked incredibly dangerous on the counter attack. Nate Augspurger broke from inside his own half before passing the pass with a great floating pass to winger Matyas who was stopped just before the try line with a great try saving tackle to stop what would have been a fantastic individual counter attacking try from inside Legions own try line.

The Legion on the 18th minute pushed their lead to 14-0 after Stanfill intelligently touched the ball down against the base of the post.

Joe Pietersen was winning the tactical kicking battle for the Legion as he was pinning the SeaWolves back in their own half and with the SDL defence as aggressive as it was, this proved to be an excellent tactic which the Legion employed at will throughout the first half.

The Seawolves needed to get points on the board as the SDL looked to be in flying form and they did on the 29th minute. The Seawolves gathered their lineout and formed the maul but for once the SDL defence did not hold firm and the Seawolves went straight through a gapping hole in the SDL maul to touch down and make the score 17-5 to San Diego Legion.

The talking points of the first half occurred on the 34th minute when Veremulua was sent to the sin bin for San Diego and 4 minutes later Keni Nasoqeqe was sent off for a dangerous tackle at the ruck, leaving San Diego down to 13 men.

Second Half

On the 43rd minute the Seawolves received a yellow card of their own as Cam Polson tackled Augspurger without the ball but it seemed to spur the SeaWolves on rather than curtail them. The Seawolves thought they were in over the line on the 52nd minute only to be held up by a terrific try saving tackle to get under the ball.

The Seawolves kept probing and after a number of phases on the 56th minute South African hooker Stephan Coetzee went in the corner to claw back 5 points and make the score 23-10 with just over 20 minutes to play in the second half.

The Seawolves showed great grit and determination to claw their way back into the game and on the 64th minute the struck again through a terrific team try with Jérémy Lenaerts finishing it off.

In what was an action packed 5 minutes with three tries being score. San Diego hit back on the 66th minute as a fumble by Seattle left Veremulua to run in unopposed to make amends for his yellow card earlier in the game. The Seawolves hit back moments later on the 69th minute as Mat Turner who is just back from injury showed how much the Seawolves miss him when he is out. Turner showed exceptional footwork to glide through the gap and dot down for a 7 pointer and bring the score 28-22 in San Diego’s favor.

Seattle just needed a converted try to win the game and threw everything they had at San Diego in the final minutes but San Diego showed their experience and game management by just picking and going in a controlled manner to see out the final 4 minutes.

The game ended 28-22 to San Diego Legion.