The Gold’s last minute-loss to the Gilgronis

NEW ORLEANS, LA—On Saturday, the NOLA Gold took their first loss of the season (15-18 ) after Austin Gilgronis winger Rodrick Waters snuck into the try zone with one minute left on the clock. Prior to the Gold—Gilgronis matchup, the Toronto Arrows, and L. A Giltinis took the field at the Gold Mine—Los Angeles defeated Toronto 43-16.

The Gold’s 15 points marked their lowest-scoring performance of the 2021 season. Only one try was scored in the first 40 minutes after New Orleans dropped the ball in the and Austin found themselves running down an open field (5’).

After an Austin conversion and penalty-kicks from both sides, the score at halftime was 10-3 in Austin’s favor.

The Austin Gilgronis got on the board first in the second half after a penalty kick from Mack Mason (58’) but NOLA bounced back, scoring 7 points after  Julian Dominguez barreled his way into the try zone (62’) and Carl Meyer kicked in the conversion. Joeli Tikoisuva added on another 5 points for the gold with a try (72’).

Although there was little to separate the two teams throughout the match besides the penalty count, (Austin–15, New Orleans–4) the match had a completely different tempo in the second half.

When asked what he told the team during the break, head coach Nate Osborne said:

“Do I need to remind you guys about your energy?”

Osborne went on to say:

“I felt we did a much better job taking care of the ball [in the second half]…but we were lacking in certain parts of the game, and that showed in a lot of turnovers and dropped balls which we need to fix up for next week.”

NOLA Gold captain Kyle Baille left the game in the first half due to injury. His status for next week’s game is still unknown.

By: Arto Kazakov