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Colton’s Corner: Major League Rugby’s First Great Rivalry

Colton’s Corner will be a weekly feature on five topics from around MLR.

SaberCats Stun Gold, Muddy Playoff Picture in Process

The Houston SaberCats stunned the entire league when they handed the NOLA Gold their second consecutive home loss on Saturday afternoon. I’ve written this sentiment plenty of times in this very piece this season, but anytime Sam Windsor scores points the SaberCats have a chance to beat anyone in the league. Windsor scored a try, successfully kicked all three of Houston’s conversions and nailed two of his three penalty goals to lead all scorers in the match with 17 points. Houston also got a big boost out of inside center Josua Vici who gobbled up a whopping 174 meters on 13 carries. Despite being well out of the playoff picture, a strong finish would do the SaberCats a tremendous amount of good heading into the 2020 season. NOLA learned the hard way that anything can happen on any given week in Major League Rugby. While they currently sit in second place, they have yet to lock up a playoff spot and will face two tough opponents in Rugby United New York and the San Diego Legion to close out their season.

Raptors’ Playoff Chances Take a Hit With First-Ever Home Loss to Seawolves

There is a first time for everything, but Saturday afternoon was the worst time for the Raptors to drop their first-ever match at home. I felt pretty good about Glendale’s chances to win this one considering they hadn’t lost a match at Infinity Park since the MLR was formed. With their playoff chances on the line and their biggest rival in town, I thought Glendale would find a way to pull it out. Unfortunately for them, they ran into the buzz saw that is the Seattle Seawolves. To the Raptors credit, they fought hard for about 60 minutes, but Seattle’s depth and resiliency eventually wore them down and it showed on the scoreboard. The 53 points that the Seawolves scored are the most that the Raptors have given up in their two years in the MLR. Glendale isn’t officially out of the playoff picture just yet, but they no longer control their own fate. Seattle is playing some of their best rugby of the season at the right time. They are in prime position to defend their Championship Shield.

San Diego Secures Playoff Spot With Win Over Utah

The San Diego Legion became the first team in 2019 to secure a playoff spot with their 31-21 victory over the Utah Warriors. It is absolutely bananas that it took until Week 17 for that to happen. That just goes to show how competitive the table really is. There are still three playoff spots up for grabs with only two weeks left to play. It took 11 wins for San Diego to secure their spot in the MLR Championship Series. In my opinion, San Diego has looked like the most determined team throughout the entire season. They’ve picked up at least one point in the table in every match that they’ve played this year and they are winning games on both sides of the ball. They host the second place Gold – a team they beat just a week earlier down in Louisiana – to close out the regular season in a match that could very well be a preview of the MLR Championship.

RUNY Secures Bonus Point Victory Over Austin

The lack of bonus points has been the thorn in RUNY’s side in 2019, but they took care of business with their bonus-point victory over Austin Elite Rugby on Sunday afternoon. The victory bumped them into the fourth and final playoff spot with two matches remaining. The road to the MLR Championship Series will not be an easy one for RUNY. They’ll face two playoff hopefuls in the Gold and the Toronto Arrows over the next two weeks. They’ve shown that they can beat anyone in the league up until this point. If they can handle their business for two more weeks, they’ll take one of the three remaining spots at the table.

Major League Rugby’s First Great Rivalry

It’s so fun to watch the MLR’s first great rivalry evolve before our eyes. I love it.

For a league that isn’t even two years old, it’s a great thing to have a rivalry in the making. The stakes couldn’t have been more perfect for the fifth matchup between these two teams. With the all-time series tied at 2-2 and both teams battling for a playoff spot, the fifth chapter of the rivalry was going to be memorable regardless of the result.

While I consider the Glendale-Seattle matchup a rivalry, I wanted to check in with a few players on both sides that have been around for the last two seasons and have seen the dynamic between the two teams evolve to see what they thought about it.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive brutally honest answers. There was no sugar coating involved. This is the early stages of a true rivalry, and it’s only going to be intensified when the MLR splits into conferences in 2020.

The answers I received from a few key members from both teams are included below.

Eric Duechle, Seattle

“Yes. I know that their team owners and just their players last year really wish they had won. I mean everyone wished they had won. This was their chance to keep us out of the playoffs. It was a big day.”

Brock Staller, Seattle

“I would definitely say that. Coming here, playing at altitude, it’s a bit different for everyone. It’s a bit of a challenge. We look forward to playing Glendale home and away especially after beating them in the final last season.”

Luke White, Glendale

“Yeah, it definitely is. They are my favorite team to play against because they are always so tough. Obviously, we wanted to get revenge on them for last season, going down in the championship game. We knocked them off twice last season and they’ve done that to us this season, knocked us off twice. It just didn’t go our way today, unfortunately.”

Shaun Davies, Glendale

“Yeah definitely. They are a really good team. I look forward to playing them every time. I think we kind of let ourselves down a little bit today, but the good thing is its rugby and we’ve got two more games. We can get excited for those two.”

Will Magie, Glendale

“Yeah, I mean there definitely is. I’m not sure, based on current results this year and the performance they just put in there, it’s not much of a rivalry if we’re getting beaten by 20 points. I think they are doing a lot of things right over in Seattle. They’re building an unbelievable squad. You look at the guys they are bringing on the bench, they are a proper professional rugby squad. Hopefully, we don’t fall too far behind them.”

Any match between these two teams will always be something to circle on the calendar.

What did you think about this week’s action? What did I miss? I would love to hear from any and all MLR fans as the season moves along. Feel free to shoot me an email at colton@usmlr.com with any MLR related topic that might be on your mind. I’ll address any emails in the next week’s Colton’s Corner.