SaberCats Take on Seawolves in Playoff Rematch: ‘We owe them’

SaberCats (10-6) square off against Seawolves (12-4) after falling to them twice during regular season and during playoffs last year.

By Aaron Wilson

There’s a lot of history between the SaberCats and the Seattle Seawolves.

A year ago, the Seawolves defeated the SaberCats in Houston in the playoffs to win the Western Conference championship.

One year later, the 10-6 SaberCats travel to the Pacific Northwest for a playoff rematch.

On Saturday, the SaberCats face the 12-4 Seawolves at Starfire Stadium in a Western Conference eliminator match in the Major League Rugby championship series.

“We owe them,” SaberCats coach Pote Human said. “Seattle has a very good side, really well-balanced, good coach. Their defense is awesome. We’re in the playoffs. Anything can happen.”

Should the SaberCats defeat the Seawolves they would advance to the Western Conference finals to face the division champion San Diego Legion. The SaberCats are the only team to defeat the 15-1 Legion this season.

“San Diego is a different kettle of fish,” Human said. “We’re only looking at Seattle right now. Our first aim was to reach the playoffs. Now we’re there and we know it’s going to be a difficult task.”

The SaberCats lost twice to the Seawolves during the regular season, including a 34-17 defeat at home and a 24-12 road loss.

“I think we go into it like any other game,” Rob Povey said. “Seattle is a really good team. We’re just going to focus on ourselves and we’re going to show what we can do.

“It’s a really tough battle up front. We’ve got to be organized and watch out for set plays. They can stress you in different ways.”

The Seawolves lost consecutive matches to close out the regular season, falling to the Legion and the Eastern Conference champion New England Free Jacks. That was preceded by a six-match winning streak. Seattle was swept by the Utah Warriors during the regular season.

“We like it,” Nick Boyer said. “Seattle is one of the toughest places to play in Major League Rugby. We embrace the challenge. We expect them to bring a lot of physicality. We need to play tactically and take them out of their comfort zone.”

The SaberCats, led by leading scorer Davy Coetzer, set a franchise record with 10 victories this season. They’ve made a lot of improvements all-around.

They outscored opponents 484-413 and finished the regular season with 53 points in the standings, six less than Seattle.

“It’s a big challenge for us,” Axel Zapata said. “We have the opportunity. We are so excited and ready for that challenge. We learn from our mistakes and we fix them. We’re going to go play our best on Saturday.”

While this has been the most successful season in franchise history, the SaberCats aren’t satisfied. They want to extend their season and keep it going. Their goal: winning a championship.

“Absolutely, don’t want to overlook the fact this has been the winningest season the SaberCats have had,” Christian Dyer said. “So, we can definitely be proud of the efforts all season long, but the job is not done. Our goal is to win the shield.”

*Photos by Nicolas Romero