> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Seawolves Seal 14-9 Battle Over SaberCats, Keeps Playoff Hopes Alive - URL: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/seawolves-seal-14-9-battle-over-sabercats-keeps-playoff-hopes-alive/ - Published: 2025-05-24T23:02:40.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-08T06:20:13.000Z - Author: Callaghan Bluechel - Tags: Seawolves, Nick Boyer, Jesse Mackail, Rodney Iona \[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="3717"\] ![ Seattle Seawolves lock CC Mahoni is tackled during the Seawolves’ 14-9 win over the Houston SaberCats on Friday, May 23, 2025. Credit: Punkus Arnett/Seattle Seawolves. ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1d/f2/1df2f77b-83dd-4bc0-a6d2-6d1bb5df89a3/content/images/2026/10/image002--284-29-format-original-1.jpg) Seattle Seawolves lock CC Mahoni is tackled during the Seawolves’ 14-9 win over the Houston SaberCats on Friday, May 23, 2025\. Credit: Punkus Arnett/Seattle Seawolves. \[/caption\] Yes, it appears the Seattle Seawolves will keep getting away with it. It was another must-win match against a standout Western side – another late slugfest victory to keep the season alive. In Friday’s match against the Houston SaberCats, the issues and the heroes were a mix of likely and unlikely. But the biggest story of the night was the breakout game of hooker Jesse Mackail. Mackail, who had previously only seen 54 minutes all year, came on in the first half to replace a struggling Kerron van Vuuren and showcased his talents brilliantly, scoring the go-ahead try in the 75th minute. The match also saw another excellent showing from scrumhalf Nick Boyer, who continued to use his size and quick, creative thinking to great effect – notching a try of his own in the first half and driving his team forward throughout. Houston came into the match having sustained knocks both to hooker Seth Smith and flyhalf Davy Coetzer, two core players in their 2025 roster. At hooker they played Pita Anae-Ah Sue and then Wilton Rebolo, while the flyhalf was former Seawolf AJ Alatimu, back at his old stomping grounds. Alatimu’s three penalty goals were the only scoring the visitors achieved. ### Defenses Dominate in 7-6 First Half The first half started shakily for both the Seawolves and the SaberCats, as each side squandered opportunities in front of the posts with poorly timed penalties and knock-ons. Some of these turnovers were induced by the defending side, with Anae-Ah Sue taking it from a Seawolf breakdown twice during the half. Houston notched two penalty kicks to open a 6-0 lead before a Boyer try and Rodney Iona conversion brought Seattle to a 7-6 lead by the end of the half. Seattle had possession to begin the game, winning a first-minute lineout at the 22-meter line, but van Vuuren’s throw was off the mark and the SaberCats recovered. Then the visitors won a penalty and brought it ten meters out for a lineout. The maul found no progress, but the phases bore fruit, with a pick-and-go from scrumhalf Jay Renton bringing it nearly to the goal line in the late third minute – but then Houston failed to release. Then it was Seattle that failed to release during a breakdown in the attacking zone, losing a budding sixth-minute drive as soon as it began. Houston had another chance up top as right wing Rufus McLean broke the line and breezed past the 22 before fullback Drew Wild took the pill and ran to the try line. Wild fumbled it forward and Seattle won some space. Although the Seawolves got the ball back, they once again committed a not-releasing infraction. Alatimu went for the tee and drilled it through the uprights in the tenth minute for the first three points of the game. Van Vuuren’s lineout issues continued after play resumed and gave Houston another spell of possession before an errant pass from the visitors turned the ball over once again. Each team traded the ball back and forth, with an Anae-Ah Sue takeaway followed by a knock-on by Houston loosehead Pono Davis. Seawolf wing Mika Kruse had a 15th-minute breakaway opportunity off a touchline pass from fullback Duncan Matthews, but it ended up being his turn to knock it on. Then Houston knocked it right back, but Seattle did little with the possession. The SaberCats had another opportunity soon after, with an 18th-minute scrum turning into a drive up the blindside by Wild and McLean. The visitors crashed against the try line, but the Seawall held up against a pick and go by lock Nathan den Hoedt. Houston’s best chance of the half ended up resulting only in a penalty kick, with Alatimu going through the uprights to make it 6-0 in the 22nd. A minute later, the Seawolves had another opportunity deep within Houston territory, but a Kriel knock-on gave the visitors a scrum and a brief reprieve. Then Seattle came back forward with a series of lineouts, the last of which became a maul and then a run of phases – but Anae-Ah Sue had his second takeaway and ended the threat. Still, the home crew maintained possession, though it was closer to midfield for a few minutes before loosehead Cam Orr broke the line and made it past the 22\. He dumped off to Jesse Mackail – in at hooker for van Vuuren – and then Mackail was taken down. Boyer got it to outside center Divan Rossouw, who nearly broke free for a try but was stopped by a last-second tackle from Wild. Seattle phased through from five meters out but suffered a not-releasing penalty in the 31st that ended yet another red zone threat. Soon after, Anae-Ah Sue failed to throw a straight lineout and so Seattle had a chance in the opposing half once again. The team crashed forward in the center and then the wing, making it well past the 22\. But the Seawolves were pinged for another penalty and it came back to midfield. The home crew came back again for another attack, but this time, they landed it. Tighthead Juan Pablo Zeiss shoved past visiting eightman Tinashe Muchena and offloaded to Orr, who spun past a defender and then gave it to Boyer, who dotted it down as the 36th minute began. After turning it over countless times in front of the posts, the five points were a piercing moment of catharsis. Iona made the conversion to give the Seawolves a 7-6 lead. The game returned to the Seattle half, but Houston was unable to take advantage of their opportunities, such as a bad Mackail lineout throw that Anae-Ah Sue knocked on. And so the score remained 7-6 going into the half. ### Alatimu Gives Houston Lead, Mackail Takes it Back With the first half try-less for the SaberCats, the visiting side looked to get more action going in the back 40\. But the second half looked much like the first, with one of the few differences being that neither side had as many goal-line chances as in the first. Rather, the turnovers occurred further away from either try line as the low-scoring sides slugged toward the finish. Alatimu notched a 61st-minute penalty goal to bring the Cats up by two, but a late drive by the Seawolves ended in an unanswered Mackail try to win the game by five. The second half started with some immediate pressure from the SaberCats, as the play moved around Seattle’s half of the pitch during the first four minutes. Houston was penalized for not rolling away in the 44th and Iona launched it to the Cats’ defensive half. The teams traded possession in Houston’s half for a few minutes before the SaberCats won a scrum penalty in the 49th minute to gain space and have a turn at the ball in Seawolf territory once more. Houston gave the Seattle faithful a scare immediately after as Tautalatasi Tasi broke the line and made it within a meter of the try line – but he knocked it on after the desperation tackle by Rossouw. Kicks by Iona and then Matthews pushed the Cats back a fair bit. Play from both sides broke down during the following series of kicks. Houston won a 55th-minute lineout in Seattle territory but overthrew the lineout throw, and so the Seawolves began to put together phases around midfield. Then the Seawolves took advantage of a SaberCats penalty to take a lineout of their own deep in enemy territory – but it was another overthrow and Houston came back into the Seattle half. The visitors quickly threatened the try zone once again as flanker Dom Akina charged to the try line in the 58th. But once again, Seattle found a bit of luck as Akina knocked it on. But the SaberCats still kept the ball, phasing through a bit behind the 22 before winning a penalty off the Seawolves not rolling away. Alatimu set up the tee and took the shot right through the uprights for the third time, making it 9-7 Houston. Seattle got a brief spell of phases from the kickoff but immediately suffered a turnover and then two penalties that brought the ball down for a 64th-minute lineout deep in the home defensive zone. The visitors knocked it on and lost the immediate threat before Alatimu tried to kick and chase downfield – but it rolled past the try zone to give Seattle a scrum at the location of the kick. Boyer took a tap-and-go out of the scrum penalty and Rossouw brought it forward on the side, followed by wing Toni Pulu, who made it past the 22\. But progress slowed down on the blindside phases and soon Kriel knocked on a low pass from Boyer. The 69th minute scrum became a scrum penalty in favor of Houston and the ball passed into Seattle territory briefly – but the Cats immediately suffered a penalty that gave the ball away and soon after Tasi was sin-binned for a deliberate knock-on. Iona tried to score a penalty from within his own half, but his kick fell short, and so play continued. Houston won a scrum in the 72nd and it became a scrum penalty. Seattle recovered the kick and then Rossouw first broke forward to midfield and then sent a beautiful penalty kick to touch at the goal line. The Seawolf pack mauled forward off the lineout and gave space for Mackail to lunge into the try zone in the 75th. Iona converted to make it a five-point game with less than five minutes remaining. Then the SaberCats got possession of the ball off the kickoff with a final chance to edge ahead and score the victory. The ball slowly traveled and then was stalled in the 78th as the teams crashed into each other in the rucks. The SaberCats suffered a knock-on and the Seawolves recovered, but then Houston miraculously won a penalty and had a chance on the ball with just thirty seconds left. But old habits die hard – and Houston substitute hooker Wilton Rebolo’s lineout throw flew over his target and found the waiting arms of Jesse Mackail. The home crew waited out the last few seconds before Iona kicked the ball into touch to end the game with the Seawolves capturing a crucial 14-9 victory. ### Jesse Mackail Emphatically Enters Hooker Conversation For most of 2025, the Seattle Seawolves have split the hooker duties between Kerron van Vuuren and Dewald Kotze, both new additions to the club. Van Vuuren is an inch taller (6-2 to Kotze’s 6-1), but both weigh within ten pounds of each other (223 pounds for van Vuuren and 229 pounds for Kotze). Both, despite off days, are generally good at their roles – with their lineout throws giving Seattle one of the best lineout completion rates in MLR – but have sometimes lacked anything “extra”. Friday, Jesse Mackail showed the “extra” factor, barreling through defenders and grabbing key meters for the Seawolves. This can partly be attributed to his size – Mackail’s 240 pounds beats both van Vuuren and Kotze – but also the fact that Mackail uses his size well. This meshed well with the other forwards, who executed a crash-up-the-middle style of play on offense. Friday was Mackail’s fourth MLR cap, all of which have come in 2025 (although he was signed with the Seawolves in 2024, his only appearance that year was in a preseason match). However, his breakout had been building for some time. He scored two tries in his first appearance in the back half of Seattle’s opening loss to San Diego and slotted in nicely in the final minutes of the recent wins against Utah and San Diego. ### Seawall Keeps Team Alive The Seawolves’ famed defense showed its chops in Starfire on Friday. It is a rare sight for a team as powerful on the attack as the SaberCats to go without a try for all eighty minutes – and the Seawall earned that feat. Houston executed multiple strong attacks within Seattle’s 22-meter line, reaching the try line three times before the first water break, but the Seawolves found the right side of penalties the first two times before stuffing the third attack in its tracks. After that point, the defense mostly prevented the Cats from getting that far, but the visitors still reached the line once in the second half. Again, the defense did its job, with Rossouw inducing a knock-on. Although some of the Seawolves’ failed red zone drives were stymied by the team’s own errors in the breakdown, Houston’s defense also performed well. Several times, Seattle players such as Rossouw and Pulu had good looks up the touchlines, but these potential tries were always prevented by quick-reacting Cats outside backs. ### Scrum Issues? One area of play the Seawolves seemed to regress on was the scrum. The team has had one of the best scrums in MLR all season, but that was not apparent on Friday, with issues such as collapsing the scrum and the team’s pack breaking in the face of Houston’s forwards happening multiple times. Houston’s forward pack marginally outweighed the Seawolf pack at 2038 pounds (924 kilos) to 2012 pounds (913 kilos), but the Houston pack had previously been one of the weaker scrummaging units in MLR – and the Seawolves had a perfect scrum against them in their previous match early in the season – so Seattle’s struggles on the scrum were even more unexpected. ### Western Conference Race Continues After Friday’s game, just eight points separate the top and bottom teams in the West. Houston, despite the loss, sits on top with 48 points. Utah is in second at 43 points, Seattle in third with 42, San Diego in fourth with 41, and RFCLA last with 40\. Both Utah and RFCLA still have games left to play this weekend, so these standings could further shift. But regardless of the outcomes of those matches, it will still be incredibly close going into the final two games of the season for all five sides. Four teams get to make it to the playoffs and two will have the chance at a home playoff game – but one will go home. The odd man out will probably be Seattle, San Diego, or Los Angeles, but both the Warriors and the SaberCats have an outside chance at crashing out of their playoff spots. Seattle’s final stretch starts with an 11 AM June 1 contest on the road against the New England Free Jacks and ends with a home game against the Miami Sharks on June 8 at 6:00 PM. One thing is for sure, going into the final two matches of 2025: the Seattle Seawolves keep playing thrilling, nail-biting rugby.