North American Rugby Database

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The New England Free Jacks host the Seattle Seawolves at Veteran’s Memorial Stadium during Round 6 of the 2026 MLR season, marking the first leg of the 2026 ‘Coffee Cup’ and ‘Multi-Shield Melee’!

Both sides enter this game with 1-3 records, with the Seattle Seawolves in 6th place, and the Free Jacks in 5th. The Seawolves have been hit hard by the injury bug and are on a 3 game skid following an enormous home defeat to the Chicago Hounds last week, conceding 59pts in total, the most ever by the team. The Free Jacks on the other hand, opened the season with a 3 game losing streak before starting to click and picked up their first win over Anthem RC at home last week.

The opening minutes of the game were very stop/start, which didn’t really allow either team to gather momentum. it took until just before the 15 minute mark for the opening points, which came from the hosts through a long floated pass from Oscar Lennon to Nathan Salmon on the wing, a stand-out on the Free Jacks so far in 2026. Joel Hodgson pushed the conversion wide so the hosts led by 5, but not for long. In almost a carbon copy of the Free Jacks’ try, Seattle openeing the scoring with a long floated pass oout to MIchael Hand, who finished in the corner. The Seawolves also couldn’t convert so the sides went into the first water break tied at 5-5. The stop/start that was present in the opening minutes of the game returned for the rest of the first half, despite a pair of deliberate fouls from New England putting them down to 14 men for significant time. The only changes on the scoreboard came from the boot of Joel Hodgson, who made up for his earlier miss with a pair of penalties to give the New England Free Jacks a 11-5 lead heading into the half.

The second half still opened with what seemed like an even contest, but it was the Seawolves who opened the scoring roughly 5 minutes in with a Divan Rossouw penalty, then got their first try of the half 5 minutes later as Paddy Ryan went over in the corner for his 3rd of the season. There was a question on the grounding of this try despite both the ref and AR being in great position to see and award the score. New England challenged but as there is no close angle of the corner in question, there was no definitive evidence to overturn the onfield desicion, and the try stood. This seemed to dent the Free Jacks’ morale, and the Seawolves started to gather momentum. Michael Hand crossed for his second of the afternoon about 8 minutes later despite chances for New England, but the Sea Wall held firm in defence. The Free Jacks would be unable to shift the scoreboard in their favour at all in the second half in fact, while Seattle slowly but surely pulled away, and secured the try bonus point at the death, with MLR Draftee Tiai Vavao spotting a gap in the line and darting through for his first pro try.

Of all people, Seattle Seawolves stalwart Riekert Hattingh stepped up to convert Vavao’s score, and the big man smashed it, becoming the first forward in MLR history to score a conversion, also reaching 250pts in his MLR career. The visiting Seawolves snap a 3-game skid and pick up their 2nd win of the season with a 11-27 victory. The Free Jacks fall to 1-4, and fail to pick up any bonus points this week. Despite a win last week, time is running out for the reigning champs.