Utah takes down San Diego on the road

SAN DIEGO — The Utah Warriors secured a thrilling 33-32 win over the San Diego Legion on Sunday for their first ever win on the road versus one of the premier Major League Rugby franchises.

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While winning for the first time ever in San Diego provided a notable notch in the belt for Utah, what the win means for the course of the season was perhaps that much more important.

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“You look at our season and we really haven’t been that far off,” said Utah Warriors Coach Greg Cooper. “There have been a number of disruptions, and it hasn’t been the smoothest start of the season. But what this does is give us a chance to launch from here.”

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The final minutes of Sunday’s win looked eerily similar to last week’s, when the Warriors took a brutal 20-17 loss to Dallas in the final minute. But this time things turned out different, with Warriors captain Bailey Wilson stripping the ball from San Diego in the final minute to secure possession and the win.

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“I think it was us really growing up today,” Cooper said. “It wasn’t pretty, but we’re obviously the first team to win here, which is something special, and I think we were clearly the better team, but we let them back in, so that’s a lesson for us.”

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Joel Hodgson provided the winning points for Utah, booting through a penalty kick in the 76th minute for a 33-32 lead, which proved to be the final. But as the score indicates, more than several back-and-forths occurred throughout what proved a very physical battle between the two rival teams with a lot of history against one another.

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Things started relatively poorly for the Warriors, with San Diego getting out to an early 10-0 lead which saw Saia ‘Uhila get issued a yellow card in the 18th minute, with the Legion scoring their first try shortly thereafter. But Utah dug in and persisted, causing several key turnovers deep inside its own territory to withstand what could have been an even bigger deficit in the first 28 minutes.

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“Our ability to get back and defend, and then at times steal the ball…our ability to (create turnovers) is a big thing for us,” Cooper said.

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Shortly after ‘Uhila returned from the sin bin, Utah snatched a lot of momentum in the form of Caleb Makene scoring a try in the 29th minute by virtue of a brilliant offload from Hodgson. It was the first time Makene had played since the season’s first game of the season and his presence was felt throughout.

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“He really provided some great direction,” Cooper said. “That’s his first game back in some time, so to play 80 minutes in this stadium against such a good team — that was really impressive, and he’s only going to get better.”

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Hodgson added a penalty kick in the 37th minute before Michael Manson finished off the game’s first 40 minutes in style, taking a well-placed off-load from Mika Kruse to score a try and give the Warriors a 17-10 lead at the break.

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San Diego squared things at 17-17 just three minutes into the second half before Utah grabbed back the momentum, scoring 13 straight points for a 30-17 lead after 53 minutes of play.

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Highlighting Utah’s short burst was again Manson, showing off all of his superior speed to score a try after a long run-out as the Warriors looked poised to take complete control of the match. Adding to Utah’s potential to finish San Diego off was a yellow card issued to the home team just prior to Manson’s score.

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But as the Legion often do, they came back strong after appearing to be all but out of the match.

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First off was former Warrior Mikey Te’o, taking advantage of a Warriors miscue in their try zone to touch the ball down and cut the lead to 30-22. The Legion then cut the lead to 30-29 after scoring a try in the 60th minute before taking a 32-30 lead in the 66th minute off a penalty kick.

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But Utah proved resilient, as mentioned, and battled up until the final minute, showing a level of execution that escaped it the week prior against Dallas.

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“We’ve been strategic to bring players that bring energy,” Cooper said. “The boys that came on — they added to our play, which is the important thing. They added that momentum we needed and the energy to bring us home.”

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With the win Utah improves to 3-4 on the season and will return home to take on Old Glory DC on Friday. San Diego drops to 6-2 on the season with the loss.

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