Warriors fall to Seawolves at home in Round Three

HERRIMAN, Utah (16 March 2024)— Not a lot went right for the Utah Warriors on Saturday in taking a 23-13 loss at home to the Seattle Seawolves.

Penalties at inopportune junctures, sloppy scrum execution and too many lost line-outs, among several other factors conspired to hand the Warriors a rare home loss. And considering the opponent, there wasn't a lot of margin for error.

“We didn’t get a lot right today,” Cooper summed up when running down everything that plagued his team on Saturday.

Things did start well for the Warriors, however, after forcing a turnover after Seattle received the opening kick to take a 3-0 lead off a penalty kick in just the second minute. Indeed it was the Seawolves with most of the miscues through most of the first 10 minutes before the momentum started to swing heavily their way.

Things swung decidedly the Seawolve's way shortly thereafter, however.

Seattle responded with its own penalty kick in the ninth minute to tie things at 3-3 before inching ahead 6-3 following another successful penalty kick in the 18th minute.

Seattle scored the first try of the match in the 23rd minute after a Utah turnover, and then repeated the feat in the 30th minute off of a maul following a successful lineout. The consecutive tries gave the visiting Seawolves a commanding 18-3 lead, which Utah did manage to close to 18-8 at the half following a try by Frank Lochore which was unfortunately followed by a missed conversion kick.

Whatever momentum Lochore’s try gave Utah in the halftime locker room was quickly squandered, however, as Seattle scored another try in the 42nd minute to push its lead to 23-8.

Utah rarely threatened to score throughout the second half, up until Phil Bradford scored a try as time expired for the 23-13 final.

“If we can’t get the momentum up front it makes it pretty hard — particularly with a little reshuffle of the back line,” Cooper said. “So basically we were beaten across the park today — scrum-wise, line-out, they got a little bit of width and we didn’t shut them down — We just didn’t get any momentum today.”

Indeed Utah had to make do with several players making their first starts of the season due to a rash of injuries to standout players such as Joe Mano, Mika Kruse, Sione Mahe and Spencer Jones, among others.

Given the bevy of injuries the Warriors are dealing with, on top of Seattle traditionally being one of the top teams in Major League Rugby year-in and year-out.

“I think they played really well,” Cooper said of Seattle. “They have a good scrum, a good line-out, and there’s really no weaknesses across the park. So we’ve got to be absolutely at the top of our game to beat those guys…and we weren’t on the top of our game. No excuses and we’ve got to be better than that.”

Utah won’t have much time to lick its wounds as they travel to take on RFC Los Angeles a week from Sunday. The Warriors drop to 1-2-0 on the season with the loss while Seattle improves to 3-0.