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San Francisco Golden Gate 31 Olympic Club 29 (halftime: SFGG 24-8)

(San Francisco, Calif.) Mile Pulu scored twice in the opening half hour as San Francisco Golden Gate built a decisive 21-point lead in besting the Olympic Club 31-29.

The 22-year-old center further assisted Jeff Colata's 14th-minute try and would have claimed a hat trick in the second half, but for off-the-ball foul play. A US regular during the first half of the 2009-10 Sevens World Series, Pulu exemplified SFGG's dangerous open-field and support running, instantaneously capable of overwhelming well-positioned defenders.

With SFGG jumping to a 24-3 edge, Saturday's contest lacked suspense. O Club were purposeful in attack and may have enjoyed a statistical edge in possession, but their all-international backrow provided no advantage at the breakdown while service and backline passing wanted speed and precision. Short those vital seconds, they struggled to pressure their opposites, particularly in the crucial early going.

Despite February's lack of match practice and several personnel changes from a year ago, the hosts played a lot like 2009's Super League championship edition. Routine plays routinely become dangerous. Though flyhalf Volney Rouse has gone overseas, Jone Naqica's return to pair with apparently healthy Mose Timoteo portends experienced steering of an explosive offense.

Still, this was Northern California's preeminent rivalry match -- caricatured by one observer as San Francisco's Marina district (O Club) versus the Sunset (SFGG) -- and the visitors made no quit in claiming three tries from the final 24 minutes. If skipper Kort Schubert is no longer able to take a game over, he remains a busy, canny playmaker who deserved his try at game's end.

Just 2 minutes in, Pulu jaunted 40 yards down the left sideline, finishing a counterattack springing from a blocked kick. After Chris Gurecki converted 1 of 2 penalty chances, Colata struck with a second try from behind the midfield stripe, making the count 12-3.

Then followed SFGG tries by wing Hector Quiles, set up by Dan LaPrevotte's downfield thrust in the 27th minute, and Pulu's second, launched in the 29th by a bruising run from Samu Manoa, rarely stopped this Saturday by the first defender. 

O Club responded with a five-pointer from young loosehead Kevin Herrera, cutting the halftime lead to 24-8.

As the forwards came more into view on a pleasant Treasure Island afternoon, hooker Chris Biller knifed through at 48 minutes for the opening score of the second period -- and SFGG's final points of the game.

Gurecki goaled at 56 minutes, following a line break from industrious Rob Weedon. Following a nondescript 20 minutes, prop Jon Kollerer nabbed a try at 74 minutes to bring the count to 31-22. Then, after Pulu was whistled back, O Club mounted a final surge, pressuring SFGG into a series of penalties, and Schubert's tap move proved too quick and powerful to stop.

The non-league match was played to benefit the Kathleen Ann McClenahan Foundation for breast cancer. A portion of the gate is to be donated to the charity, as well as the proceeds from an auction of the Olympic Club's match-day pink jerseys.

O Club, 5-0 in Northern California's first division, next hosts the Sacramento Capitals. Golden Gate travels to Denver for a Super League opener against the Barbarians, felled by the San Franciscans on the final play of last year's semifinal.

San Francisco Golden Gate 31 Olympic Club 29 (halftime: SFGG 24-8)

San Francisco Golden Gate
Tries: Mile Pulu (2), Jeff Colata, Hector Quiles, Chris Biller
Conversions: Jone Naqica (3)

Olympic Club
Tries: Kevin Herrera, Chris Gurecki, Jon Kollerer, Kort Schubert
Conversions: Chris Gurecki (3)
Penalty goals: Chris Gurecki

Referee: Joe Androvich (Northern California)
Attendance: 250 (estimated)

Eagle spur to Super League video program

A stalled Super League video initiative could regather steam at the national team's behest.

RSL teams will be newly spurred to upload match footage to a central repository, as Eddie O'Sullivan's crew looks to systematically assess and compare Eagle squad candidates. Announced two years ago, the league's program initially aimed to facilitate opposition scouting, but has been hindered by teams struggling to deliver usable material.

O'Sullivan's push offers the inducement of having one's players regularly evaluated, a prospect that has been otherwise reduced by the disbandment of the Inter-Territorial Tournament and the narrowing of the USA Selects to a squad of 30 that competes in the fall. 

Most of the primary domestic sports share game footage, with the organizing body facilitating swaps and enforcing compliance. USARFU's high-performance program hasn't really pushed the matter since Tom Billups left, although most of the national teams now film and study their own matches. 

Some Division 1 and college teams also will be encouraged to participate, but the footage likely won't be available for sharing because there's little expectation of broad participation, according to Eagle assistant Dave Hodges. That could be seen as penalizing the contributors. 

The Eagle forwards coach, who recently left his Denver Barbarians post to focus on national team responsibilities, will take charge of the video and statistical analysis.

RSL revamps for 2010 season

Rugby Super League's 2010 schedule, including Old Blue after all, shortens the season by one match and omits interconference games.

Without four-time champ Belmont Shore and Santa Monica, both surprise departures this fall, organizers have reverted to a two-conference format and returned the Dallas Harlequins to the west. Eight of the 14 competitors will advance to the playoffs, which culminate Friday, June 4, in Glendale, Colorado.

The eastern division, contested among teams in Boston, New York, Washington, Charlotte, and Atlanta, takes on a regional character reminiscent of the old Eastern Rugby Union. Meanwhile the west, which has produced most of the 14-year-old league's champions, ranges from Chicago to Dallas and Seattle to San Diego but encompasses fewer Californians.

The abbreviated season and more concentrated Atlantic seaboard grouping could help reduce costs, significant because of the league's approach to sharing expenditures. On balance, however, the slate underlines that many of the country's most prominent teams maintain a regular national schedule is more valuable than local opposition leading to the rococo Division 1 playoffs.

The rub is the strain on club fabric: frequent travel is a semi-professional undertaking that has often worked to distance top XVs from the rest. For most of those half dozen or so who have exited the competition, the game has not been worth the candle.

Having thought twice, Old Blue decided it would instead shed it Division 1 commitments and take other steps to bridge its members. Interestingly, both Belmont and Santa Monica have sought to leave the door open to return, as Life College did earlier this decade.

The season opens March 13 with defending champion San Francisco Golden Gate visiting the Denver Barbarians, nipped on the last play of their May semifinal on Treasure Island. Finalist Life, whose new personnel includes coach Dan Payne, who led San Diego State to last year's college final four, swings into action against the Potomac Athletic Club on week 2.

Related: Top clubs on their own

Top clubs on their own

Whether or not Old Blue joins Belmont Shore and Santa Monica in exiting the Super League, it's clear that elite clubs are looking out for their own interests.

Fair enough, for they owe USARFU no favors. Boulder has never made club competition a priority.

Some 15 years ago, teams across the country banded together to create a more challenging regular-season schedule. Now, weary of heavy first-team expenses and the opportunity costs to the whole of their organizations, leading lights in California and New York are choosing different objectives.

The idea that the country's top players all compete in RSL, assuaging the IRB and its consultants, has never been supported with union monies or substantive third-party sponsorships. To the contrary, this decade Boulder has gone to court against RSL's championship and also scheduled internationals on top of the normally exciting final, among other slights.

By contrast, the Super League has agreed to run its income and expenditures through USARFU's books, embellishing the union's turnover.

If it is fair to say that there's not much Boulder could have done to slow the steady stream of clubs who have left the Super League, it's also legitimate to ask why its test-centric strategy should not be accountable for the state of the so-called top league. After all, Boulder has also (and surreptitiously) disbanded the All-Star Championship (nee Inter-Territorial Tournament). What else is there by way of player development?

Describing the North American 4-turned-Americas Rugby Championship as substitutes is laughable. Both are far smaller and alien to the way rugby is played in the US.

Related:
    Time to cut the Super League loose?
    Belmont's RSL exit an economics lesson
    Bombers withdrawal reiterates state of club game
    Division 1, Super League revamp arrives amid decreased interest

Belmont's RSL exit an economics lesson

With Belmont Shore's surprise withdrawal from Rugby Super League, practical economics again trumps Commonwealth models.

The RSL founding member, whose multiseason unbeaten streak and 3 championships from 7 consecutive finals appearances qualify the Long Beach, California, club as America's team of the decade, Saturday became the latest to back away from the nationwide competition's heavy spending requirements and opportunity costs to reserve and youth sides. No less than 3 different titlists, with a collective 8 championships under their belts, have left since the league got underway 13 years ago.

The takeaway is not that America's top clubs are badly run. It is that the game's competitive aspirations are finely balanced with its economic structure. Lose a key benefactor or two, and even the most successful outfit is forced to retrench.

This delicacy stands at odds with USARFU's supposition that representative candidates should be playing in the Super League. Though the idea appears sensible and works well enough in 'developed' rugby countries, it doesn't account for RSL's fluidity, combined with the union's own lack of financial support for elite players or clubs.

Strategically, it is not given that Boulder should underwrite the RSL; however, if you are not paying the piper, you should not expect to call the tune. Thus it is rational for athletes to consider their test ambitions in light of their personal well-being. That often means playing for a nearby Division 1 team.

Belmont won its premier 7s title this summer, and several of its players were subsequently invited to an Eagle trials camp. Their prowess did not degrade the moment management decided to leave RSL. Similarly, Aspen, Life, and the Olympic Club snapped back to national stature within a season or two after departing.

But it is perhaps most interesting that college teams, the third major source of Eagles, are inherently more stable than clubs, better resourced, and comprise younger athletes without professional and family obligations.

RSL is expected to consider replacement candidates, accord to people familiar with the matter.

Separately, the league elected two new managing directors in Sean Kelly and incoming president Tony Nash. Greg Rocca continues as the third member of the key steering committee. The transition concludes the tenure of Keith Englebrecht, whose long service established the Dallas-based businessman as a pivotal figure rivaling the stature of Bob Watkins.

Refs in jersey pact

A British sportswear maker has agreed to supply match jerseys for America's leading referees, in a bit of good news for USARFU on the equipment front.

Akuma, one of a newer breed of vendors that specializes in made-to-order kit which buyers design online, will underwrite the union's 'national panel' referees and be the exclusive supplier to other officials in Super League matches during the 2010 season, Boulder said last week in a press release. Top officials contract with the club competition to cover the slate of 63 matches.

Though one could argue pact is a splinter deal that complicates the overall apparel strategy, arrangements for national team gear have not well at all. USARFU has been sued by Kooga, its partner from 2004-06. Then, having jumped to Canterbury, the union found its supplier declared bankruptcy this summer; in August Canterbury was purchased for $11 million by a British clothing and footwear retailer, which ironically had earlier snapped up Kooga. Meanwhile, 2007 jersey sponsor Bravia did not renew.

National team equipment is considered one of the easiest categories of inventory that sports organizations have to sell, and also one of the most lucrative. Beyond fees for licensing the mark, agreements usually include a percentage of gear sales, which means the manufacturer is using its distribution channels to market one's brand and products.

Akuma's North American operations are managed by Steve Winyard, once a prop second row in England's premiership competition.

Belmont Shore nabs first 7s crown

(San Francisco) Two first-half tries from Peter Sio paced Belmont Shore to a 34-15 victory over the Gentlemen of Aspen and the national 7s championship.

The decisive win brought the Long Beach club its first 7s crown while gaining a measure of revenge for last year's finals upset, when the Coloradans rallied to snatch a 26-24 contest on the game's final play. Belmont has been America's winningest 15s side but less focused on the abbreviated game.

Sio, an Eagles 7s trialist who collected the tournament's MVP honors, twice scissored to exploit defensive lapses for converted tries. Ironically, Belmont's defense primarily sought to prevent Aspen  from 'stepping' through gaps, in the belief that the frustrated Gents would kick away possession.

So it was that Belmont enjoyed all the field position and much of the possession during the first period, and tacked on a fifth try before Aspen's Ryan Nichols contributed two in a three-try comeback, making the count 29-15. But Sinapati Uiagalelei broke the momentum with a try on the last play.

In the 3d-place match between two past champions, Matt DeGutes rang up the second half's only score to earn the Chicago Lions a 14-7 win over Old Blue. Both had been edged in the semifinals: Aspen trimmed Old Blue 17-12, while Belmont topped the Lions 14-0.

San Francisco Golden Gate, 21-10 quarterfinal losers to Aspen, captured the consolation bracket with a 26-21 win over Atlanta Old White, the difference being Danny Barrett's notable try at the close of the first half, when the 19-year-old twice plowed over would-be tacklers despite running down the right sideline.

Six of the eight quarterfinalists were Super League teams, while two more RSL teams failed to advance.

2009 7s Championship: Belmont Shore 34 Gentlemen of Aspen 15

Bemont Shore: Corey Blair, Riaan Hamilton, Nick Hawkins, Dallen Stanford, Iopu Sanonu, Peter Sio, Tony Fratangelo (Sinapati Uiagalelei)

Gentlemen of Aspen: Hayden Horsford, Spencer Scott, William Martin, Brian Naqica, Jason Pye, Mike Palefau, Ryan Nichols

Referee: Tom Lyons (Middle Atlantic)
Attendance: 400 (estimate)

Clubs frustrated by scarce fall details

Club officials looking ahead to the fall season are frustrated that details of the revamped North American 4 haven't been released, blocking their planning.

In the renamed American Rugby Championship (ARC), top players are to compete on four all-star teams in a September round-robin that effectively replaces the quietly shelved Inter-territorial Tournament. But the union has yet to outline assembly times, player pools, and other vital details of the International Rugby Board-sponsored competition.

USA Rugby had intended to make an announcement in May. In Canada, British Columbia has already named its management team and presumably is setting plans in motion.

Autumn matches remain important to championship competitions in almost half the territories. Eastern Super League clubs hope to limit the 'head start' that warm weather XVs gain in December and January.

The uncertainty is a reminder that USA Rugby's 2006 strategic plan called for a competitions review, which three years later has yet to be completed, and that competitions director Dan Payne is leaving the union. Additionally, the September-October schedule is open to criticism that standout college and high players can't compete because it falls at the start of the school year.

Clubs have also been frustrated the union has scheduled test matches at the same time as domestic 7s and 15s championships.

Related: Diluted North American 4 set for fall

San Francisco Golden Gate 19 Denver Barbarians 16 (halftime: SFGG 12-3)

(San Francisco) Prop Jason Bowden's winning try on the last play of Saturday's Super League semifinal hardly encapsulates San Francisco Golden Gate's season, but dramatically extends it.

All but throttled by a Denver Barbarians defense which limited SFGG's 46-points-per-game attack to just 12 after 80 minutes, the western conference champs muscled over the line with no time on the clock for a 19-16 comeback win.

Milemoto Pulu's best run of the afternoon, an inside break capitalizing on a Denver midfield injury and most inopportune lapse, set the stage for Bowden's heroics. Though a second-phase knock-on ended the immediate threat, the Barbos' clearing kick gained little ground, and the home forwards set to work in a patient maul-and-ruck sequence interrupted solely for a Denver penalty, the game's penultimate whistle in 49 minutes of second-half running time.

'You keep the ball that long at the end, you deserve to win it,' disappointed Denver lock Mike Mangan said afterward.

The do-or-die score foiled Denver's 13-0 second-half run, good enough to move from 9 points down to 4 ahead, but not quite enough for a second consecutive playoff upset. Golden Gate moves onto to face Life, surprisingly comfortable 25-3 winners over Belmont Shore Sunday in Atlanta, for the championship this Saturday in Denver.

In a notably hard-hitting match, Chris Moreno had lifted the Barbos to a 13-12 lead through a 58th-minute 5-pointer that foreshadowed the clincher. With Golden Gate fullback Jone Naqica sidelined for tripping and set to return at the next whistle, the visitors stubbornly recycled possession time and again before the prop drove over near the posts.

Flyhalf Max de Acheval, the 2008 Colorado All-American who did not play in SFGG's 45-10 season-opening win over Denver, then stroked a 33-yard penalty goal at 65 minutes, taking the lead out to a 16-12 count which forced Golden Gate to touch down. But de Acheval left the door open, mishitting a close-range drop goal and falling short with an ambitious penalty shot from halfway.

In the opening half hour, Golden Gate's Faimalo Tapui and Samuela Manoa scored a pair of tries on the right sideline, the first set up by a Kevin Erskine run and the second launched from a weakside scrum move. De Acheval interceded with an 8th-minute penalty goal.

Though falling behind 12-3, the Barbos contained line breaks and counterattack chances, limiting opportunity for those thrusting support runs characteristic of SFGG's 2009 edition, and slowed recycled ball, enabling the defense line to reset. Indeed, the afternoon's back five battle was perhaps the best Rocca Field has seen this season, diminished only by blustery lineouts and game-ending injuries to Barbo eighthman Pat Quinn and SFGG flank Dan LaPrevotte.

De Acheval's second penalty goal, at 46 minutes, immediately followed Naqica's ten-minute binning. Though obviously derailing a Denver kick-and-chase triggered when the 7s Eagle misplayed a lineout to himself, cover defense easily could have stopped the scoring opportunity -- clearly ruling out a penalty try and, more important, a crippling red card.

Still more peril lay in SFGG's second-half slew of mindless penalties and even sniping at the ref, signs of diminished focus and being forced to play outside the comfort zone. For the hosts, the shift to a vertical game came just in time.

'I said to the forwards, "This is our season right here,"' halfback Mose Timoteo said of the winning drive.

San Francisco Golden Gate 19 Denver Barbarians 16 (halftime: SFGG 12-3)

San Francisco Golden Gate
Tries: Faimalo Tapui, Samuela Manoa, Jason Bowden
Conversions: Volney Rouse (2)

Jone Naqica; Faimalo Tapui (Toshi Palamo), Tevita Okusi, Milemoto Pulu, Seta Palamo; Volney Rouse, Mose Timoteo (captain); Jason Bowden, Saimone Lauaupaleau (Dillon Horne), Conor Coyne (Josh Vavao), Kevin Erskine, Samuela Manoa, Darryl Lamborn, Dan LaPrevotte (replacement unavailable), Josh Merliner

Denver Barbarians
Try: Chris Moreno
Conversion: Max de Acheval
Penalties: Max de Acheval (3)

David Yavala; Ben Haapapuro, Jake Humphrey (Pete Barclay), David Laidlaw, Jody Kramer; Max de Acheval, Sam Gillam; David Maddock, Tim Russo (captain), Chris Moreno, John Van der Giessen, Mike Mangan, Nic Johnson, Justin Stencel, Pat Quinn (Andy Post)

Lineups unconfirmed

Referee: David Ardrey (West)
Attendance: 250 (estimated)

New York's AC-Old Blue match key to RSL playoffs

Tomorrow's New York AC-Old Blue clash looks pivotal to the Super League playoff picture, as it may settle second place and homefield advantage.

The winner of the match between 3-2 teams will control its destiny heading into the season's final weekend. Charlotte, also 3-2, would be forced to log bonus-point wins against 5-0 Life this Saturday and Old Blue next week in hopes of claiming the East's runnerup spot.

For NYAC, the defending champions, home playoff games could be particularly important because head coach Mike Tolkin is a busy man. His Xavier team, unbeaten on a spring-break tour of Northern California, looms as a national high school contender, while Tolkin himself recently signed on as national team defense coach. The high school finals overlap the RSL quarterfinals, while the RSL finals overlap the Ireland friendly.

Making the most of Tolkin's limited attention would be easier if the team were in New York. Super League teams did not play inter-conference matches this season, which means their cross-country travel systems may not be tuned.

In the west, leading-leading Belmont Shore (4-0-1) visits the up-and-down Denver Barbarians (3-2). Golden Gate and the Chicago Lions, the other likely Western playoff teams, meet next week in San Francisco.