MLR Preview – Seattle Seawolves vs NOLA Gold

The most anticipated rematch of the season takes place at Starfire Stadium on Sunday evening. Ranked No1 and No2 respectively heading in, the NOLA Gold will take on the Seattle Seawolves in hostile territory, with a 10-point victory over their hosts in their previous meeting at New Orleans.

After a red-hot start to their campaign, NOLA’s form has cooled slightly in recent weeks with fortunate wins over Austin and Toronto sandwiched around a one-point loss at Glendale. The Gold defeated the Utah Warriors at home last weekend but even that wasn’t entirely convincing.

Nate Osborne has made four changes in an effort to spark his side, three coming up front. An impressive effort as a replacement against Utah sees Matt Harmon starting at tighthead prop in place of Cam Falcon, while Kyle Baillie returns from a week off to start in the second row. Moni Tonga’uiha is named on the blindside flank with Nikola Bursic lining up in the unusual position of openside.

There is one personnel change in the backs and one positional switch. Taylor Howden starts at outside center with Tristan Blewett moving to the left wing. Nick Feakes is the odd man out, the versatile Australian instead offering plenty of options from the bench.

Seattle stumbled against San Diego and needed a strong second half to get past Utah. Another slow start against Houston was erased with a dominant second forty and the 52-10 victory has seen the entire match day 23 retained with no alterations from Richie Walker.

This match has the pundits split and for good reason. On paper neither side has an appreciable advantage in the scrum and there are attacking threats in both back divisions.

NOLA’s lineout was poor against Utah and Seattle has home field advantage, the latter of which could be significant with a sold-out crowd assured. A win over the Gold would give the Seawolves a big shot of confidence as they take aim at another title run.

Kickoff is set for 7pm local time, 9pm Central, 10pm Eastern. The match will be broadcast on CBS Sports Network with a live stream on Facebook available to those outside the USA.

SEATTLE SEAWOLVES
1 Kellen Gordon, 2 Stephan Coetzee, 3 Tim Metcher, 4 Jérémy Lenaerts, 5 Apisai Naikatini, 6 Brad Tucker, 7 Nakai Penny, 8 Riekert Hattingh, 9 Phil Mack, 10 Ben Cima, 11 Sequoyah Burke-Combs, 12 Shalom Suniula (capt.), 13 George Barton, 14 Brock Staller, 15 Mat Turner

Replacements: 16 Dan Trierweiler, 17 Djustice Sears-Duru, 18 Ryan Youngman, 19 Taylor Krumrei, 20 Eric Duechle, 21 JP Smith, 22 Roland Suniula, 23 Dion Crowder

NOLA GOLD
1 Hubert Buydens, 2 Eric Howard (capt.), 3 Matt Harmon, 4 Ignacio Dotti, 5 Kyle Baillie, 6 Moni Tonga’uiha, 7 Nikola Bursic, 8 Cam Dolan, 9 Holden Yungert, 10 Scott Gale, 11 Tristan Blewett, 12 Con Foley, 13 Taylor Howden, 14 Tim Maupin, 15 JP Eloff

Replacements: 16 Kavika Peniata, 17 Cam Falcon, 18 Kevin Sullivan, 19 John Sullivan, 20 Zack Stryffeler, 21 Michael Baska, 22 Joeli Tikoisuva, 23 Nick Feakes

Date: Sunday, April 21
Venue: Starfire Stadium, Seattle
Kickoff: 19:00 local (21:00 Central, 22:00 Eastern)
Referee: Sam Grove-White (SRU)
Assistants: Scott Green (USAR) & Brett Johnson (USAR)
Broadcasts: CBS Sports Network, Facebook