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The last match of the inaugural Major League Rugby regular season takes place at Torero Stadium where the San Diego Legion host the Glendale Raptors on Saturday evening. It’s also the site of the MLR Final in a fortnight. These two sides could very well meet again soon pending Saturday’s results.
Upsetting the unbeaten Raptors – even on home turf – will be a tough ask for the Legion. Asked to accomplish the impossible is a team that shows five changes to the pack that started against Austin Elite last weekend.
Sione Tu’ihalamaka takes over at loosehead prop with former Connacht Academy hooker Pat O’Toole handed his first start after two matches as a replacement. Devin Short and Sam Peri form a very mobile but lightweight second row, and there is an MLR debut for Eagles openside Tony Lamborn.
Glendale have cemented their spot at the top of the table and have one more task on their list of things to do. A victory in San Diego would give them a perfect 8-0 record for the regular season. It’s something many thought could happen heading in but would be an impressive accomplishment nonetheless.
Only two personnel changes are made to the starting roster but there are a handful of positional switches. Nick Kwasniewski earns his first start of the season after an excellent performance off the bench in the win over Seattle. Sam Figg returns from a week’s rest to resume at No8.
Connor Cook shifts from the flank to the second row, Brian Wanless switches to the blindside, and Peter Dahl slides to openside. In the midfield Chad London and Mika Kruse swap jersey numbers, and Georgian loose forward Grigor Kerdikoshvili is poised to make his regular season debut as a replacement.
To defeat the Raptors ahead of the playoffs would be a stunning result for the Legion, but that is very much easier said than done. Even without their Eagles stars Glendale have looked a class apart. Expect them to live up to their standards once again against a tricky San Diego side.
Kickoff is set for 7:30pm local time, 10:30pm Eastern. Viewers in Canada and the USA can watch on CBS Sports Network. All others can access a live stream on the official MLR Facebook page.
SAN DIEGO LEGION
1 Sione Tu’ihalamaka, 2 Pat O’Toole, 3 Nathan Sylvia, 4 Devin Short, 5 Sam Peri, 6 Alec Barton, 7 Tony Lamborn, 8 Drew Gaffney, 9 Nick Boyer, 10 Tadhg Leader (capt.), 11 Nick Evans, 12 Anthony Salaber, 13 Ryan Matyas, 14 Taku Ngwenya, 15 Conor Kearns
Replacements: 16 Gil Covey, 17 Faka’osi Pifeleti, 18 Aaron Mitchell, 19 Lance Lamprecht, 20 Pat Blair, 21 Ben Cima, 22 Kyle Rogers, 23 Maceo Brown
GLENDALE RAPTORS
1 Blake Rogers, 2 Zach Fenoglio (capt.), 3 Nick Kwasniewski, 4 Casey Rock, 5 Connor Cook, 6 Brian Wanless, 7 Peter Dahl, 8 Sam Figg, 9 Jake Christmann, 10 Maximo de Achaval, 11 John Ryberg, 12 Chad London, 13 Mika Kruse, 14 Harley Davidson, 15 Seth Halliman
Replacements: 16 Luke White, 17 Kelepi Fifita, 18 James Del Bozque, 19 Devin Vaughter, 20 Grigor Kerdikoshvili, 21 Mickey Bateman, 22 Siale Maka, 23 Nick Johnson
Date: Saturday, June 23
Venue: Torero Stadium, San Diego
Kickoff: 19:30 local (22:30 Eastern)
Referee: Scott Green (USAR)
Assistants: Paul-Henri Courbier (USAR) & John Neiss (USAR)
Broadcasts: CBS Sports Network, Facebook
