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Business views evident in RSL expansion

The Super League's Utah expansion breaks new ground by embracing a business-minded franchise.

Because a local real estate entrepreneur sees commercial opportunity, the Utah Warriors are to become the first team to join America's preeminent senior competition without having played a single game. Past expansion has turned more on technical merit and related operating criteria.

After rugby yielded to professionalism in 1995, the 14-year-old league was founded by 14 of the country's leading clubs in burst of enthusiasm for commercialization. But aside from USA 7s parent company American International Media, the game has not attracted outside investors, and RSL outfits have generally depended on well-heeled backers or the players themselves.

''This could be a mold for future expansion,' RSL president Sean Kelly said in an email.

In recent years, the Super League has been contracting as stalwarts such as Belmont Shore and OMBAC have concluded the nationwide competition costs too much. These exits underline that no new money has come into the game, whether from investors or sponsors.

Yet RSL has now succeeded where the North American 4 failed, almost by sheer persistence. The International Rugby Board-managed tournament explicitly aimed to win commercial backing, but has been overhauled several times and was last staged in Argentina.

The Warriors' unorthdox entry has created some anguish, not least in the Denver area, where the municipally run Glendale club has asserted the Barbarians, a rival Denver side, has acted to block its own admission application for fear of losing players. A Barbarians representative told Rugby Magazine the club is primarily concerned with the prospect of two teams in small market.

Warriors managing director Sean Whalen expects 'nearly all' of the team's 30-35 man roster to be players from Utah clubs -- the better to attract local supporters. The players will be unpaid, he added in an interview.

Utah's technical merits, which have been evident at the high school and college levels, figure to be evident soon enough.

The Warriors intend to play their home games in Salt Lake City's Rio Tinto Stadium, a 20,000-seat facility, joining the Barbarians in utilizing a Major League Soccer facility. Rio Tinto staged the successful 2010 high school championships -- which featured a local final -- but was less effective as a venue for the 2008 Uruguay international.

Local organizers have already been trumpeting a March 2011 clash between Brigham Young and the University of Utah, two entrants in the new College Premier League. The 2011 Super League schedule could be released as soon as next week, according to league officials.

Related:
    On the rise of Utah
    Belmont's RSL exit an economics lesson

Senior players favoring rec teams

Senior players in one of the country's more prominent regions are gravitating toward recreational divisions.

Northern California's coming season will see 5 new teams in the 16-club 3d division, as well as 3 that dropped down from higher levels. That's 1 less than the combined total of the 7-team 1st and 10-team 2d divisions, according to the union's referee society.

The shift suggests many senior players want to compete they live, not move to established rugby centers, and are turning out to be content with local rivalries, rather than pursuing nationwide competition.

America's troubled economy is undoubtedly an underlying factor: a struggling workforce has less time for quasi-professional pursuits. But straightened times do not engender growth.

In recent years, NorCal has added teams in its northern and southern reaches. This year sees the debut of Colusa, an agricultural town of 5,600 some 70 miles northeast of Sacramento.

NorCal is only 1 of 37 local unions, and fledgling teams typically start at the bottom of the rung. Yet many of the Division 3 competitors are from the region's outskirts and so aren't likely to soon move up to face the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento sides in the first grade.

Up until last year, the proportion of senior teams in lower divisions had also been growing in the southern half of the state, according to a review of Southern California's web site. But the total of senior teams is down from 2010 and 2009, and the more notable trend has been the retreat to Division 1 of Super League stalwarts Belmont Shore and OMBAC as well as Santa Monica.

In the youth sector, the Bay Area will grow to 25 clubs this season, not counting the more established Sacramento region.

Related: Belmont's RSL exit an economics lesson

OPSB nabs first 7s crown since 1992

(San Francisco) Filimoni Botitu's pair of tries paced Old Puget Sound Beach to a comfortable 26-17 win over defending champ Belmont Shore, earning the Seattle club its first national 7s title since 1992.

The tournament MVP first scored soon after the opening kickoff and again following halftime intermission, assisted by halfback Isimeli Daveta's dazzling right sidelide break.

Each time, Belmont responded with well-worked tries finished by Matt Hawkins to bring the contest within a single play, 12-7 and 19-12. But the veteran Southern Californians were always counterpunching. Belmont lacked the sustained possession or defensive pressure necessary to shut down OPSB's speedy backline.

Uncharacteristically, Belmont also had trouble with kickoffs. Twice in the early going, Hawkins' side let the ball fall to ground, and consequently fell behind 12-0 after 6 minutes. OPSB had targeted the potential weakness, coach Evan Haigh said after the contest.

OPSB also relied on speed, particularly on defense, rather than winning physical matchups, Haigh said. With its cover defense plenty capable of running down linebreaks, 'We wanted to be patient, to make them [opponents] play in front of us, to make the more physical teams come to us,' he explained.

As with many 7s tournaments, the plot was not immediately obvious. In Saturday's final pool match, the eventual champion needed a 26-10 victory over New York AC because 2009 finalist Aspen had downed OPSB 17-12 in the opening match. Daveta was ineligibile on day 1, serving a red card suspension from two weeks earlier.

Sunday's quarterfinals saw OPSB upend the Chicago Lions 24-12 behind two tries from Botitu; Belmont down Life University 19-5; the Denver Barbarians move past NOVA 26-19, having nearly squandered a 21-0 lead; and the Gentlemen of Aspen handle Atlanta's impressive Old White 12-10.

In the semifinals, replacement Blake Davidson's try lifted OPSB to a 14-10 comeback win over the Barbos, who have reached the final four seven times since 2001, but lost five semifinals and two finals matches over the course of the decade. In the other match, Belmont handled Aspen 26-0.

In the consolation match, Aspen scored two second-half tries, both apparently by players borrowed  from the tournament pool, to claim a 12-5 victory.

A pair of rugby celebrities in Fiji's Waisale Serevi and New Zealand's Murray Mexted attended the well-managed tournament, the last over the course of San Francisco Golden Gate's three-year contract with USARFU.

2010 7s Championship: Old Puget Sound Beach 26 Belmont Shore 17

Belmont Shore: Tony Fratangelo, Matt Hawkins (captain), Riaan Hamilton; Valenese Malifa, Tai Enosa, Peter Sio, Chris Frara

Old Puget Sound Beach: Mike Nelson, Allen Nolan (captain), Nu'ese Punimata; Isimeli Daveta, Filimoni Botitu, Patrick Curtis, Shane Moore

Referee: Tom Lyons (Mid Atlantic)
Attendance: 450 (estimate)

Related: 
    Belmont Shore nabs first 7s crown
    Aspen in last-gasp 7s victory

Clear run for club 7s championships?

The weekend's club 7s championship has a clear run: no summer 15s internationals in sight.

The fate of fixtures against Munster and Clermont is less important than whether the San Francisco event will now enjoy the entirety of USARFU's resources and attention. As they say in nearby Silicon Valley, is Boulder eating its own dogfood?

With Olympic 7s planning underway, the club finals represent the apex of America's 95,000-strong playing base. Some 9 of the 16 contestants are Super League outfits, with another 2 'alumni' also in the hunt. Whether the objective is competitive or commercial, this competition is USARFU's point of departure.

But Boulder appears in the habit of treating domestic championships as an obligation rather than an opportunity. Dozens of teams are aggregated in a single venue to reduce administration, and finals are subsumed under international fixtures. 

Moreover, the brass have been wont to skip these competitions; the board and congress are meeting next month in Dallas, rather than in conjunction with the Treasure Island tournament. The directors had been taking a pass on the USA 7s too, though lately the privately run tournament has become too influential to ignore.

American International Media has created a club 7s series culminating in conjunction with Las Vegas and launched a nationally broadcast college tournament, both making use of America's base in exciting but obvious ways. (For good measure, AIM stepped in to save the 2009 Collegiate All-American tour.) Has USARFU ever demonstrated such initiative on behalf of a competition created before the 2005-06 'restructuring'?

Back on the topic of events gone by the boards, last September chief executive Nigel Melville stated his expectation that USARFU would contract 7s players in the 2009-10 season. That never came to pass. It now appears that 15s Eagles players have not been paid Churchill Cup win bonuses.

New York Athletic Club 28 San Francisco Golden Gate 25 (halftime: NYAC 10-8)

(San Francisco, California) Three ties, four lead changes, and 80 minutes into a match of unbeatens, Pete O'Brien's 43-yard penalty goal lifted the New York Athletic Club to a 28-25 Super League championship win over San Francisco Golden Gate Sunday before 2,200 at Rocca Field.

Center Troy Hall's slashing scoring run started NYAC's 10-point, match-winning rally. With the defending champs ahead by a converted try just 2 minutes from full time, halfback Mike Petri darted weakside from a setpiece in his own end, dragging the defense wide before flipping the ball inside to Hall, who sliced past Hector Quiles and outstripped the cover defense for a centered touchdown.

Though staggered by a long-range try that could have come from its own playbook, SFGG might well have expected to survive until overtime, when it would have enjoyed another dose of Treasure Island's lusty winds. But O'Brien, whose 5 of 6 goalkicking included an opportunistic droppie and a sideline conversion, took advantage of a hands-in penalty to end the matter in regulation.

The upset win earned NYAC a third Super League crown over the past six years, while extending the title game's reputation for late drama. Tied at 18 with less than 10 minutes to go, the back-and-forth contest produced 2 tries and 17 points down the stretch.

Sunday's match wasn't particularly stylish. The two sides mainly played close to the forwards, mostly to good effect, as NYAC sought to limit turnovers and counterattacking opportunities, and SFGG struggled with losing 3 of 6 backline starters to injury, the consequence of last week's bruising semifinal with Life. Yet the game's twists and turns easily surmounted any lack of ambition.

Flyhalves Martin Cole and O'Brien traded early penalty goals, before busy Golden Gate hooker Chris Biller tallied the game's first try at 19 minutes. But despite the wind at their backs, Golden Gate would not score again in the first half. 

Meanwhile, a Petri tap move gobbled some 40 yards and earned a follow-on penalty, leading to a NYAC lineout maul and flanker James Denise's driving over the line. O'Brien's thus conversion gave the hosts a surprising 10-8 halftime advantage.

After intermission, O'Brien restarted by kicking deep, the ball rolling into SFGG's end zone. But referee Chris Henshall ruled that SFGG did not ground the ball without delay and so waived off the receivers' choice of centerfield scrum or rekick, instead ordering a 22 dropout. By result, NYAC immediately regained possession and O'Brien snapped a field goal that extended the count to 13-8.

In a finely poised, back-and-forth half, such a lead would not last long. Though NYAC returned to scoring territory, halfback Mose Timoteo seized a rare turnover to counterattack through replacement Jeff Colata to Cole for a converted try at 48 minutes and a 15-13 lead. Cole then added a 38-yard penalty shot, and the hosts held their line over a 6-minute stand around the start of the fourth quarter.

This respite too was momentary. With steady lineouts, reliable rucking, and lock Brian Doyle and eightman Ryan McTiernan prominent as ball carriers, NYAC once more took play deep inside the 22, forcing a rash of penalties. As was the case for most of the afternoon, they ignored 3-pointers for tap moves, and at 68 minutes flanker Frank Sharpe barged over. O'Brien's difficult two-pointer then tied the match.

Now it seemed NYAC, confidently recycling ball after ball, would have a dozen minutes to maneuver for the winning score. But Quiles swung momentum back to Golden Gate. Fielding a speculative kick, the wing-turned-fullback boldly took on the cover defense, driving ahead long enough for his teammates to arrive and secure possession, attack and recycle, and then strike down the left sideline through Biller and Albert Tuipulotu to replacement Tevita Okusi.

Most days, the 71st-minute try would have been enough to send Golden Gate's bumper crowd home happy. Yet the RSL final is not only a last-minute but also a relatively high-scoring affair: 25 points would have fallen short of victory 3 of the past 4 years, as it did in 2010.

New York Athletic Club 28 San Francisco Golden Gate 25 (halftime: NYAC 10-8)

San Francisco Golden Gate
Tries: Chris Biller, Martin Cole, Tevita Okusi
Conversions: Martin Cole (2)
Penalties: Martin Cole (2)

Jone Naqica (Jeff Colata); Hector Quiles, Mile Pulu (Tevita Okusi), Albert Tuipulotu, Seta Palamo; Martin Cole, Mose Timoteo (captain); Jason Bowden, Chris Bowden, Paul Fukufuka (Josh Vavao), John Thomas, Aaron Latzke, Neil Kern (Eoin Sheeran), Dan LaPrevotte, Samu Manoa

New York Athletic Club
Tries: James Denise, Frank Sharpe, Troy Hall
Conversions: Pete O'Brien (2)
Penalties: Pete O'Brien (2)
Drop goal: Pete O'Brien

Jamie Wood; Shawn Rafferty (Matt Williams), Tim Ryland, Troy Hall, Jackson Wagener; Pete O'Brien, Mike Petri (captain), Andrew King, Conor Coyne, Troy Bartley, Adrien Myers, Brian Doyle, Frank Sharpe, James Denise, Ryan McTiernan

Referee: Chris Henshall (Mid-Atlantic)
Attendance: 2,200 (estimated)

On the RSL final

As the perfect is often the enemy of the good, so it is fashionable to deride Rugby Super League.

RSL bears critique, as the forthcoming college premier league may soon make clear. But setting aside comparison of what it is and what it could or should be, there are three reasons to look forward to this weekend's San Francisco Golden Gate-New York Athletic Club final.

1. The Eagle pool is already settled, so the teams are playing for pride. 

This corresponds with the first principle of American rugby organization: The nucleus is the team, and its purpose is to provide competition for its members.

Having said that, 3 of 18 domestic-based Eagles will be on the field in SFGG hooker Chris Biller and flanker Dan LaPrevotte and NYAC halfback Mike Petri, as well as 4 others who attended springtime national team training camps. (NYAC prop Jacob Sprague and fullback Nick Edwards are not expected to play.)

2. The championship testifies to American rugby know-how.

Despite USARFU's jerking the final around, first asking for the match to be next week in Denver before settling on a major holiday weekend, the league looks to be mounting a credible event at a price it can afford. 

True, it's a home game for defending champ SFGG. But RSL's nimble decision making means club officials expect the season's travel and accommodations for its second-division 'Colts' team. competing in next weekend's final four, to exceed costs for the senior side. Life and OMBAC, which also boast divisional semifinalists, could be in the same boat.

The irony of a nationwide competition costing less than localized competition leading to a national final owes to responsible management. RSL clubs share costs and so are incented to manage their collective fate. 

By contrast, USARFU's playoffs in Austin last weekend coincided with graduation at the University of Texas, driving up prices. This past winter, the union initially looked to move the divisional championships to Memorial Day, until the clubs revolted, knowing short-notice airfare would be prohibitive and they would bear the costs alone.

3. RSL's championship has consistently been American rugby's best match of the year. 

No other fixture has produced a string of close results combined with high caliber of competition and four champs in four seasons.

2006: Will Hafu scores on the game's final play, capping OMBAC's 36-33 comeback win over archrival Belmont Shore.
2007: Francois Viljoen's 79th-minute try from an inside break lifts Belmont to a 27-21 victory over the Chicago Lions.
2008: Luke Milton's overtime penalty goal earns NYAC a 31-28 win over Belmont, which had rallied from a 25-11 deficit.
2009: Volney Rouse's 78th-minute penalty goal breaks a 13-13 deadlock, propelling Golden Gate to a 23-13 championship.

RSL: Off-field matters vie with playoff races

The Super League's 2010 campaign figured to be turbulent, yet off-field matters have remained front and center late in the season.

2006 champion OMBAC postponed this weekend's away game against the Chicago Griffins for personnel reasons, a rarity, if not unprecedented, for the 14-team circuit. Last week, the league rescheduled its championship, again.

As with last fall's unexpected withdrawal of past champion Belmont Shore and then Santa Monica -- the season's first blow -- such events don't make it certain the self-administered competition will collapse. So long as the teams are willing to foot the bill, the RSL is 'in business'.

It's safer to say the Super League is a delicately balanced operation that can't take much for granted, makes some good and some bad decisions, and perpetually faces unintended consequences. The silver lining is the league by and large controls its course, to a far greater degree than most of American rugby.

Moving the final to San Francisco Golden Gate's Rocca Field, for example, is a cost-saving measure for a league that evenly shares expenditure. But the shift from Denver could also create home-field advantage for unbeaten SFGG, should it qualify for the final.

Why change at all? Having agreed USARFU's request to stage its final the first weekend in June, the league then acceded to Boulder's wish that it bring the game forward to Memorial Day weekend, in order to accommodate the start of a national team assembly. 

Once it did so, the rationale for staging the title game in Denver fell apart, according to people familiar with the decision. No good deed goes unpunished.

OMBAC is already out of the playoff hunt, as are the Dallas Harlequins and the Boston Irish Wolfhounds, but Saturday's penultimate round looms important to the heavyweights vying for homefield advantage. An SFGG win over surprising 3-1 Old Puget Sound Beach would all but sew up three playoff games at Treasure Island, should the the defending champs advance that far.

Only the Denver Barbarians, who like SFGG have already qualified from the western conference, can overhaul Paul Keeler's troops for first place. The 4-1 Barbos, who fell to Golden Gate in week 2, travel to Seattle next weekend in a game that may determine the west's second home seeding.

In the east, Life and the New York AC, both unbeaten, are similarly guaranteed to be playing on May 15, both likely at home. They meet next week in New York.

Old Blue (2-2), which plays Life this Saturday in Atlanta, could catch Life if Old Blue logs two bonus-point wins and Life fails to register any more points. More probably, 3-2 Boston, which is inactive this weekend, will claim one of the remaining slots and next weekend's Old Blue-Charlotte (1-3) contest in New York will might settle the other.

On RSL and representative rugby

Friday I noted that America's best domestic players aren't all in the Super League, using the Australian and Hong Kong 7s roster as a data point as well as a literary transition to identifying the squad release that day.

Some pettifoggers fastened on 7s as irrelevant to identifying the source of international players. It's easy to bring more evidence to bear. In 2009's 5 tests, just less than half of all 15s caps awarded to domestic players -- 28 of 59 -- were from non-RSL clubs.

Moreover, 15s coach Eddie O'Sullivan was quoted at USA 7s as saying that 'there would probably be 9 or 10 [Eagle 7s players] in the [2010] 15s pool.' In February, only 2 of the 10 domestic-based 7s players were from RSL squads.

Yet when it comes to the topic of 'development pathways,' the heart of the matter is not RSL's role. It is that over the past four years, senior representative competition has almost completely collapsed.

Despite a wealth of IRB funding, the Roberts-Melville administration has canned the National All-Star Championship (ne Inter-Territorial Tournament). Simultaneously, it allowed the North American 4, feeble though it was, to be reduced to a pair of warmup matches for domestic-based Eagles, even as Canada fielded four teams in the same Americas Rugby Championship.

The purpose of representative rugby is to identify new elite players. Though it is a craft, not a science, we know that fewer opportunities for players equals lower yield for the senior team. In North America, we also know that players will finance their own way for the chance to compete, as the essentially player-funded ITTs demonstrated for years and years, and as Canadian athletes proved this last fall.

Thus, all USARFU really has to do is administer the competition. Yet not only are there no games, but there is nothing substantive in the so-called high-performance section of the union's strategic plan. (Note, however, that some territories are rekindling senior all-star activity of their own initiative. Like RSL but unlike Boulder, they understand that job one is to provide competition for members.)

Which brings us to a final point. Under the disingenuous if not dishonest title of 'USA Rugby Enhances its Operations of the Rugby Super League in 2010', on Friday Boulder put out a release release taking credit for Eagle coaches attending RSL matches, as if scouting is somehow a favor to the competitors, and for providing match officials, who are and have been paid directly by RSL teams for many years. Sordid.

What USARFU could provide is money to pay for its request to bring the RSL final forward to Memorial Day Weekend. O'Sullivan pitched the idea (no later than) in December; in response the league said sure, if you make us whole for traveling on a holiday with less than seven days' notice. Either the money is there or it isn't. It's now mid March.

On 14 years of the Super League

What is the upshot of five Rugby Super League teams leaving in the past two years?

RSL hasn't aggressively pursued commercial development for the most of the past decade, so it says little about hopes of professionalizing. That's simply not been one of the league's primary objectives.

Some of the teams, notably San Francisco Golden Gate and the Chicago Lions, have successfully embedded themselves within their communities. But Life University aside, the competitors obviously aren't tied to schools. Thus the turnover says nothing about the sports education model.

It's long been evident that the country's 'best domestic players' aren't all in the league. Just 3 4 of the 12-man USA 7s squad today named for the Australia and Hong Kong tournaments are Super Leaguers, with only Zach Pangelinan having logged substantial RSL game time. (Counting Belmont Shore's Matt Hawkins and Nese Malifa, the Super League would still claim less than only half, and most of the 7 who missed the cut are from non-RSL teams too.)

Notwithstanding that the league's membership is at its lowest point since 1997, the main takeaway appears to be that RSL's model of enhanced competition through semi-nationalized travel and cost sharing remains attractive if economically burdensome. Including Life, which exited and re-entered, 9 of 14 remain from the inaugural season, and there has generally been demand for admission.

That is reason enough to acknowledge the milestone of 14 seasons.

Rugby Super League champions
2009    San Francisco Golden Gate
2008    New York Athletic Club
2007    Belmont Shore
2006    OMBAC
2005    New York Athletic Club
2004    Belmont Shore
2003    Belmont Shore
2002    Gentlemen of Aspen
2001    Gentlemen of Aspen
2000    Life University
1999    Denver Barbarians
1998    Belmont Shore
1997    Gentlemen of Aspen    

United States to Australia and Hong Kong 7s
Marco Barnard (Kutztown Univ.), Mark Bokhoven (Gentlemen of Aspen Denver Barbarians), Nick Edwards (New York AC), Paul Emerick (Overmach Parma), Matt Hawkins (Belmont Shore), Valenese Malifa (Belmont Shore), Zach Pangelinan (OMBAC), Leonard Peters (Gentlemen of Aspen), Tom Saunders (Kansas City Blues), Shalom Suniula (Pearl City), Kevin Swiryn (captain Old Puget Sound Beach), Zach Test (Loughborough Univ)

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)