NEWS

Colton’s Corner: W10

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

AER Goes Toe-to-Toe With RUNY

Major League Rugby’s bonus point for losing by seven points or less has shown us that close doesn’t only count in horseshoes and hand grenades. Unfortunately for Austin Elite Rugby, they weren’t close enough in their loss to Rugby United New York on Saturday, but the effort they’ve shown over the last two weeks in a 35-33 last-minute loss to the first place NOLA Gold and a 19-11 loss to the second place Rugby United New York gives them plenty of reason to hold their heads high. “I think it just shows that we play 80 minutes,” Austin captain Ben Mitchell said after the match. “We never give up. We’ve obviously played two very, very good sides in the last couple of weeks and stood toe-to-toe with them for a good 75, 76 minutes and the results just haven’t gone our way. It’s going to come. That result is going to come any week. We can take a lot of confidence from playing well against two of the better sides in the league.” RUNY ultimately proved to be too deep on Saturday. They continue to show the rest of the MLR that they are here to stay as we make our way towards the playoffs.

Arrows Explode for Historic Victory Over Warriors

You don’t often see the home team on the wrong side of a blowout score 31 points, but that’s exactly what happened to the Utah Warriors on Saturday afternoon. A 64-31 score would lead you to believe otherwise, but this was actually anyone’s matchup until about halftime. If you are a fan of high-flying offense and non-stop action, this was the match for you. The 64 points that the Arrows hung on the Warriors, along with the 14 combined tries, are the most ever in a Major League Rugby match. The Arrows have shown that they could very well work themselves into a playoff spot as they close their season out with eight-straight home matches. Utah, on the other hand, is an example of a handful of mistakes and bad breaks can do to a season. A draw with Glendale and losing on a walk-off try to NOLA Gold have left them in an awkward position, but anything can happen with nine games remaining on their schedule.

Raptors Win Thriller Over Gold

I think a majority of people had an idea that this match was going to be one of the better ones of the weekend, but I doubt anyone could’ve predicted how wild and crazy this one turned out to be. The final 10 minutes of the match summed it up perfectly. Two NOLA Gold tries seemingly put the game on ice before the Raptors flipped the field position and forced NOLA into a penalty deep into their own territory with only a few seconds to play. An eager Chad Gough quick-tapped the ball instead of electing to go for points and the Raptors scrambled to salvage the situation. It eventually led to another NOLA penalty right in front of the posts and ultimately a Robbie Petzer penalty goal in stoppage time. To make it more interesting, Glendale did all of that down a man as Zach Fenoglio was sent off with a yellow card. The win was a big one for Glendale as they moved up a spot in the league, but the loss isn’t one that should worry Gold fans. Their ability to overcome a two-score deficit so late in the match is a representation of what they’ve done all season. They simply came up on the wrong side of a wild match.

Legion Shock Seawolves at Starfire

A lot has to go right for a team to go into Starfire and knock off the Seawolves. A lot went right for the Legion on Sunday evening. Seattle wing Brock Staller was uncharacteristically inaccurate in the kicking game and that ultimately spelled doom for the Seawolves despite the fact that they scored one more try than the Legion did. Every team has an off game, and that seemed to be the case for the Seawolves on Sunday. Credit where credit is due, though. San Diego capitalized on just about every chance they had to score. Sunday’s result created even more congestion in the middle of the table than it already was, and that should make for an exciting two months.

Unpredictability

As with any sport, it’s impossible to look at a set of fixtures and not make assumptions about what’s going to happen. The beauty of any sport is that anything can happen at any time. One of the things I enjoyed about this weekend is the way in which the matches were played. There were a few close matches, a match that got close towards the end and an offensive explosion that resulted in a blowout, and I’d be willing to bet that none of those results occurred in the matches that people assumed they would prior to the weekend. It’s fun to see north of a dozen tries in one match. It’s fun to see drama that really can’t even be scripted like we saw in the Glendale-NOLA match. It’s fun to see the bottom of the table go 12 rounds with the top. I hope you all are enjoying it as much as I am.

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.