NOLA returns home and beats Utah 28-19

The Gold held off the Utah Warriors 28-19 at home on Saturday afternoon and remain atop the Major League Rugby standings.

NOLA also earned a bonus point in the win by scoring four tries and move to (8-2, 43 points). The Gold are followed by Seattle (7-3, 37 points), San Diego (7-2-1, 36 points) and Glendale (5-3-2, 33 points) in the standings.

NOLA opened the scoring in the first two minutes when Tristan Blewett anticipated and intercepted a Utah pass, returning it the opposite way for the score.

This was Blewett’s eighth try of the season and the third time this year he’s taken back an interception for a try.

“I think it was their hooker who went to the scrumhalf position and probably had a bit of inexperience and I just got the jump on him. I think it was just two rights for me and a wrong for them,” Blewett said.

“With our defense, we actually want to get up into their face and we want good line speed. So, if the team is not looking up, they don’t see you coming up and you get a lot of those opportunities with that.”

Pick 5 from Gold’s Blewett!

7-0, Gold, 4′#NOLAvUTA pic.twitter.com/WD3QImy7jw

— Major League Rugby (@usmlr) April 13, 2019

In the 22nd minute, the Gold formed a maul on their lineout inside Utah’s five-meter line. They then recycled the ball to Cam Dolan who scored, extending NOLA’s lead to 14-0.

Just before the half, Hubert Buydens was sent off with a yellow card and Utah capitalized.

After getting a scrum inside NOLA’s 10-meter line, Johnny Ika took a quick ball and powered in for a score in the 39th minute. The ensuing conversion was missed and NOLA went to half time with the 14-5 lead.

In the 50th minute, the Warriors struck again as Josh Whippy found an open gap in NOLA’s defense and scored, cutting the lead to 14-12.

Just a few minutes later, Blewett made a line break and offloaded to Eloff who cruised in for the eventual game-winning score.

“That was part of our set-piece, to suck some of their backs in so that we could get a bit of an overlap. The forwards did a good job in that, so their defense sort of sat off me, which gave me a bit of space to get a half-gap and JP (Eloff) ran a perfect line short and he got the score,” Blewett said.

---

Blewett ➡️ Eloff to dive in for the try.

21-12, Gold, 54′#NOLAvUTA pic.twitter.com/2GkaDyraDS

— Major League Rugby (@usmlr) April 13, 2019

Utah’s Lance Williams scored in the 65th minute, pushing the score to 21-19, but Taylor Howden closed out the final score of the game in the 71st minute, as the score sealed the bonus point and 28-19 win for the Gold.

Gale with the line break and ultimately Howden dots it down.

28-19, Gold, 73′#NOLAvUTA pic.twitter.com/iK221yQpkA

— Major League Rugby (@usmlr) April 13, 2019

Head coach Nate Osborne said although the team got the win, he felt the Gold gave Utah opportunities to stay in the game.

“We put a lot of pressure on ourselves rather than putting pressure on them. That was kind of the biggest key is that we let them play in the game when we really shouldn’t have. The couple of times that we held onto the ball and put pressure on them, we were able to exploit them and score tries, but we didn’t do it for long enough today. That was a game that I feel like we could have won by a lot more, but I’m happy to take the win and move on,” Osborne said.

“I think today we didn’t play our best rugby. We got the five bonus points, and we’re still on top of the table. We’ll take it. We’ll move on and we’ll improve for next week when we come up against Seattle.

The Gold look to improve as they head on the road to face the Seattle Seawolves on Sunday, April 21 at Starfire Stadium at 9:00 p.m.

“I think we can clean up everything. I don’t think we’ve played a perfect game yet. I think every week we’ve got a new thing to work on. It is looking a lot better. It’s coming together but you can never really stop working, so I think we’ll just go back to the drawing board and go from zero,” Blewett said.

---

Scores:

NOLA Gold:

Tristan Blewett: 2′

Cam Dolan: 22′

JP Eloff: 53′

Taylor Howden: 71′

 

Utah Warriors:

Johnny Ika: 39′

Josh Whippy: 50′

Lance Williams: 65′