USRN

In what was a beautiful southern Californian day San Diego Legion played host to Glendale Raptors. It was Glendale who started out the best with two impressive breaks from center Chad London in the opening 10 minutes of the game. It was one of these breaks that led to Glendale’s opening score as they forced a penalty at the ruck, which Will Magie slotted over.
However, San Diego Legion then settled into their grove and started to apply more pressure to the Glendale defence.

Discipline was proving to be a concern for the Raptors inside the opening quarter of the game. Pietersen slotted over San Diego’s second penalty to make the score 6-3 to San Diego Legion after 15 minutes.
Almost immediately after the water break a loose lineout was pounced upon by winger come second row Veremalua. Veremalua burst through the Glendale defence and showed incredible pace to finish underneath the posts for a seven pointer for the Legion, making the score 13 – 3 to the Legion.

4 minutes later Mike Te’o ran an incredible line to burst through the Raptors defence after gathering a beautiful flat pace from Pietersen. Te’o showed great pace to finish off the try under the posts as he still had plenty to do to finish off the move.
On the 32nd minute, in what was San Diego’s most dominant period in the first half, Nick Boyer got on the score sheet to make the score 27-3 to the Legion. Boyer who usually plays as a scrum half but was starting on the wing today for the Legion pounced onto a loose pass as Glendale looked to force the play. Boyer showed great pace to beat Glendale’s pacy back three, running the length of the pitch to touch down under the posts.

Glendale had their purple patch towards the end of the first half after an initial break by (center) led to a period of sustained pressure. Phase after phase by the raptors eventually led to a gap at the edge of the ruck and they got over for their try on the 44th minute leaving the score 27-10 to the Legion going into half time.
Mike Te’o also received a yellow card just before half time due to an illegal tackle as he was defending as the last man in a one on one situation.

Second Half

The second half started off a little slower than the first half with the opening score not coming until the 57th minute. It was San Diego Legion who struck again and pounced on Glendale’s mistakes as they were looking to force the play from a dangerous area inside their own half. Glendale out-half Will Magie threw a speculative pass which was never going to a Glendale player. The impressive Mike Te’o was first to react and gathered the ball before offloading in the tackle to substitute Pat Blair for an easy run in under the posts bringing the score to 34-10.

San Diego were running riot at this stage in what looked like a training game for them. 4 minutes later on 61 minutes, Psalm Wooching finished off a flowing move from San Diego which included multiple offloads between backs and forwards.

The Legion introduced several of new players as they emptied the subs bench but they were not finished yet and scored their sixth try of the game on the 68th minute.
A well structured training ground move saw Mike Te’o score his second try of the game as he dove into the corner, leaving the score 46-10 with just over 10 minutes to play.

The Raptors still had pride to play for if not a bonus point. John Ryberg showed terrific strength to touch down in the corner despite being tackled. A TMO could potentially have ruled in San Diego’s favour but for today it was a try to savour. The angle for the try made it a difficult conversion and so the game ended 46-15 to San Diego Legion.

The Legion gathered the maximum 5 points from the win with the bonus point meaning they move up to second place until Sunday at least.

Try Scorers

22′ Veremalua (San Diego)
26′ Te’o (San Diego)
32′ Boyer (San Diego)
44′ Fepulea (Glendale)
57′ Blair (San Diego)
61′ Wooching (San Diego)
68′ Te’o (San Diego)
75′ Ryberg (Glendale)