North American Rugby Database

Report

The NOLA Gold visit Zion’s Bank for the Utah Warriors’ 2025 Home Opener. The Gold are looking to bounce back after a tough loss in Miami, while Utah are coming off a great win up in Chicago!

These teams have met 6 times, and the Utah Warriors have never defeated the Gold, currently at 0-6. Their most recent meeting came in Round 12 of 2024, a 21-14 NOLA victory in the Gold Mine.

It looked as thought it would be a hard fought contest judging from the first 20 minutes, with the Gold taking an early lead from the boot of Luke Carty, before the Warriors were awarded a penalty try, and the sides exchanged both tries and yellow cards. The Warriors led 14-11 after 26 minutes, before Liam Coltman dotted down for Utah’s 3rd, and the Warriors took a 21-11 lead to the sheds.

There was a stalemate to begin the 2nd half before Luke Carty added another 3pts to bring the score to 21-14 and shortly after this, the Warriors decided to step on the gas. Scoring twice through Jordan Trainor and Joe Mano’s 2nd of the game, with Joel Hodgson adding the extras both times as well as a penalty to extend the Warriors’ lead to 38-14. The Gold would hit back and grab their 3rd right on the hour mark, but this game was wrapped up as the Utah Warriors continued to capitalise on NOLA mistakes, adding 3 more tries including a 3rd for Joe Mano to complete the hat trick in front of a home crowd. It seems that the 7th time is the charm for the Utah Warriors, who earn their first ever victory over the NOLA Gold, by a convincing score of 55-21.

With 55pts scored to add to their 45pts from their first game, the Utah Warriors have equalled an MLR record for the fastest team to score 100pts, equalling the Austin Gilgronis’ 100pt effort in their first two games of the 2022 season. Additionally, Joe Mano’s hat trick is the 2nd of his MLR career, becoming just the 4th player in league history to score multiple hat tricks in the competition.