New York win Major League Rugby championship game against Seattle

Warming-up for the Major League Rugby championship game, Rugby New York wore t-shirts proclaiming themselves “Iron Workers”, a team identity built on the blue-collar battalions who built New York City itself.

The small crowd at the Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey indicated the work ahead if MLR is to become a major player on the US stage, never mind the world, before the Rugby World Cup arrives in 2031. But then, the city back over the Hudson wasn’t always full of skyscrapers. Someone had to put them up.

Someone has to show America rugby. New York and the Seattle Seawolves, twice champions before, gave it a very good go. Both teams showed plenty of attacking intent, both sets of fans made noise.

Seattle struck in the first moments, working left and right until AJ Alatimu, their Samoan fly-half, saw an overlap for Martin Iosefo. The wing, a US sevens Olympian, cruised over the line.

New York’s response was rather more, well, blue-collar, a series of pugilistic raids setting up the Kiwi flanker Will Tucker – whose brother Brad was on the Seattle bench – to smash over. After that the teams swapped penalties for high tackles, Alatimu hitting and Jason Emery missing for 8-7 Seattle after 20 absorbing minutes.

That was the moment for the first hydration break, as the temperature pushed 90F (32C) at pitch level, and if the consequent breaking of the game into four quarters seemed very American, it also seemed entirely fitting.

Next, a penalty try. The New York pack drove from a line-out, the maul went down in a flurry of bodies and limbs and the referee ran to the posts. Rhyno Herbst, Seattle’s enormous and appropriately named South African lock, was sent for 10 minutes off the field. So it goes: 14-8 New York.

Seattle