North American Rugby Database

Report

The Seattle Seawolves host the California Legion at Starfire Stadium for a Sunday Night Rugby marquee matchup to mark the final game of the 2026 MLR regular season, as well as the 2nd leg of the Pacific Coast Clash.

The 2nd placed California Legion enter this game 3 table points ahead of the 3rd placed Seattle Seawolves, with the winner of this game deciding who will host their semifinal match up next week. In an unusual twist, these team will face each other two weeks in a row as they have been locked in to facing each other in the playoffs for a while.

The visiting Legion were quicker off the mark, opening the scoring after only 5 minutes through Gonzalo Bertranou, after the Seattle Seawolves went down a man through an early yellow card to Ezekiel Lindenmuth. Despite being a man down however, the Seawolves stayed close with the Legion, and opened their own account right at the end of the Legion’s man advantage with Paddy Ryan crossing for his 7th of the season, with Davy Coetzer adding the extras to give the Seawolves a narrow 7-5 lead. Somewhat unfairly, the Legion were handed a yellow card of their own just after the first hydration break, with Ed Timpson having played it on the floor per referee Luke Rogan. After holding off the Legion with a man down, the Seawolves really took advantage of their numerical superiority, with both Duncan Matthews and Dan Kriel crossing with Timpson in the bin to give the hosts a strong 21-5 lead, before Timpson himself was able to hit a huge gap and score himself to pull the score back to 21-12 at the half-time break. As things stood at HT, these two teams would be back here at Starfire for the semifinals next week.

While the Legion got the best of the start of the first half, the Seawolves started the second half far better. A close quarters passage of play on the Legion line saw Mason Pedersen find the try line to extend the Seawolves lead to 28-12 in the 43rd minute, and with the try BP locked up, they seemed in complete control with forward momentum. After a period of stop & start play littered with reviews, the Seawolves were faster off the mark once the game got going again. A perfect floated pass from Davy Coetzer finds Dan Kriel on the edge who finishes for his second of the game, and Seattle lead 33-12 with 20 minutes remaining. From here, the Legion really starting to struggle after having very little possession and less than 10% of the territory in the second half. It was really only after the 75th minute when the Legion were able to string any sort or phases together. They would claim a consolation try off a line break from Cassh Maluia, finished a few phases and penalties later by Legion prop Justus Tavai. In this quick passage of play, the Seawolves were handed two yellow cards to go down to 13 men. The Legion were unable to shift the scoreboard any further however, and fall 33-19 in Seattle.

With this well earned victory, the Seattle Seawolves finish 2nd in the standings and earn a home semifinal next week in an exact repeat of this fixture against the Legion once again, next Sunday night.