San Francisco Gets the Monkey off Their Back

By Josh Fredlund

Beautiful game day conditions at Boxer Field. Blustery wind going right to left on screen. Sound was a second off from the stream, but I’ll put the blame for that on the wind messing with the signal.

First Half

San Francisco kicks off the game into the wind. Some back and forth phases for the first two minutes until a San Francisco penalty puts them on their try line for close to ten minutes when Sebastian Kalm finally scores off a pick and go, Davies bounces the conversion off the upright. Mils Muliaina with the thrills, as he scores a try on his debut off a beautiful scrum set piece; Reid with the quick pass to Rouse, who offloads to Muliaina for the try and Rouse converts. Ohio gets a word from the ref for repeated infringement at the breakdown. Ohio steals the ball from a San Fran maul and earns a penalty, which Davies converts getting Ohio the lead back at 8-7. Minutes later Bill Fukofuka with the pick and go try; San Fran gains the ball after a big hit on Ohio, a couple nice runs from Pila Iongi and Patrick Latu lead to the try. A yellow card is given to Shaun Davies for repeated infringement at the breakdown, which Ohio was warned for earlier. Rouse kicks for touch and sets up a SF lineout about 22m from the try line. San Fran wins the lineout and Jay Finau with the quick score as the Ohio defense opened like the parting of the Red Sea, Rouse with the conversion. San Francisco must have surprised themselves to be out in such a big lead because they had a 6 on 1 on the outside, but Tameilau held onto the ball too long which resulted in a knock on. Little scuffle to end the half with Brendan Daly and Jamie Mackintosh introducing themselves to each other.

Halftime score: SF 21-8 Ohio

Second Half

San Francisco gets on the scoreboard to start the second half with a Rouse PK. On the restart, San Fran taps the ball back but let it bounce around and it ends up in the hands of Matt Hughston who makes a run towards the try line, but is brought down just a meter short, Filippo Ferrarini is the beneficiary of that run as he finishes the try, Shaw conversion good and Ohio is back within 10 at 24-15. The Ohio midfield starts to look like swiss cheese as San Fran is making some good runs through the middle. Rouse converts another PK to extend the lead. Rouse and Kurt Morath are both important parts of their teams, but I argue that Rouse is more important as San Diego has more weapons. San Fran earns another penalty, which Rouse converts and now San Fran double Ohio at 30-15. San Francisco is playing a good possession game, taking a long time to get to the restarts, and using the wind to their advantage with the kicking game this half. Mils Muliaina gets another welcome to PRO Rugby from Spike Davis who absolutely flattens him on a nice run to get the ball into San Francisco territory for Ohio. Ohio is putting together nice long phases but they can’t finish them. San Fran with the long run and try from Pila Iongi to basically put the game away; off the scrum, Rouse gets the ball and makes a nice skip pass to Muliain, passes to Talapusi and makes an offload to Iongi who makes a beautiful step on the last Ohio defender and finishes with the try. Rouse proves he’s human in the wind as he misses the conversion with the wind. San Francisco’s set piece has been 50/50 all game, when it works they either gain a lot of territory or score, but when it doesn’t it could have cost them if Ohio didn’t make their own mistakes. Ohio get one last try from Dylan Fawsitt who scores off a rolling maul, missed conversion from Shaw. Talapusi almost had a breakaway try minutes later, but the ref ruled the pass that looked flat was instead forward. In the dying minutes of the game, San Francisco had a nice counter ruck and a few phases but ended with a knock on. Some back and forth action between the teams to end the game and give San Francisco their first win.

Thoughts

Finally a breakthrough for San Francisco; many had written them off after week three. But San Francisco started to show signs of life in the game against San Diego, many thought they would finally pull through against Denver, but Denver pulled it out in the end. This game was a beautiful result for both mind and body for San Francisco. They got the monkey off their back and they can finally stop worrying about whether or not they were going to win a game. San Fran did what they needed to do in this game, the cut down on the mistakes and capitalized on Ohio’s mistakes. Mils with the thrills in his debut; one in scoring his first try and two getting run over by Spike Davis. Welcome to PRO Rugby Mils Muliaina. Ohio started this game strong but looked flat as the game went on. They couldn’t capitalize on San Francisco’s mistakes and when it looked like they were about to, they committed their own mistakes.

Ohio is off for a week until they welcome San Diego to Obetz on June 12th. San Francisco is off for two weeks until they travel down to San Diego on June 18th. This next month should be interesting as the international test matches start up. Both Ohio and San Francisco lose a few players and we will see how they compensate for those loses.

Scoring

Ohio

Tries: Kalm, Ferrarini, Fawsitt

Pens: Davies 1/1

Cons: Davies 0/1, Shaw ½

San Francisco

Tries: Muliaina, Fukofuka, Finau, Iongi

Pens: Rouse 3/3

Cons: Rouse 3/4