Match 6: Mack Masons Kick, Scores Seattle Seawolves Victory Against Dallas Jackals

Seattle Seawolves played the Dallas Jackals on Friday, April 5th in a home match that proved to be an exciting battle between two dominant teams, with the winner being decided in the final minute.

Adding some flavor to the night was the Kids Night theme that saw 100 kids participate in a pre-match Run With The Pack youth camp and even more take to the pitch at half time to get their hands full of candy filled eggs in the annual halftime egg hunt.

Match notes:

Seawolves opened up the scoreboard with 3 points from a penalty kick

Dallas responded with one of their own and scoring the first try of the night.

The first half was a back and forth battle with multiple tries scored from both teams. Dallas leading by 3 at the end of the first half.

Halftime; Seawolves 17 – Jackals 20.

Seawolves defense was stronger in the second half, dominating their scrums and lineouts and only missing 16 tackles compared to Dallas 67 missed.

Unfortunately Dallas’ kicking game was a miss also with 5 tries scored and only 2 conversions, losing out on a possible 6 additional points.  While Seawolves Mack Masons kicking game was back on track with 100% success rate.

All 5 tries from Dallas were scored by Dewald Kotze, earning him player of the match.

Seawolves were  awarded a penalty try, from a “no-arms” tackle on Captain Riekert Hattingh.

It was the boot of Mack Mason in the final minutes that clinched the win for Seattle with 3 points from a penalty kick ending the match with Seawolves 34 – Jackals 32.

Tevita Kuridrani played a sturdy 57 minutes for his first match as a Seawolf and Conner Mooneyham was welcomed back to the pitch after suffering an ACL injury last season and played a fast paced 18 minutes.

Try scorers for Seattle included; Dan Kriel (who had a stellar evening with 12 ball carries, 104 meters gained and 9 ball carries into breakdown), Pago Haini and Dewald Donald.

Movement in the Standings:

Both teams scored a bonus point for scoring 4 tries or more.

Seattle gets 5 points total – 4 for the win plus 1 bonus

With Houston on a bye week this week, that puts us above them at the top of the western conference standings.

Watch this post-match interview

Increasing Use of Technology:

Globant technology played its own role tracking the kicking game – see stats here; https://www.instagram.com/p/C5Z60mgg2sS/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Kids Night Fun:

Kids night theme was a success with 100 kids aged 3-12yrs turning up to learn the rugby basics in the Seawolves Run With The Pack Youth camp prior to the match. Kids were being guided and taught the tactics of rugby by none other than the professional coaching staff of the Seawolves, Valenese Malifa and Chris Latham alongside a handful of Seawolves non-rostered players.

Halftime was also a show of organized chaos as hundreds of kids took to the pitch to gather thousands of candy filled eggs as part of the annual egg hunt.