Round 1 : Houston SaberCats

Rugby season is here.

When the ball is kicked to start the Colorado Raptors’ match against the Houston SaberCats on Saturday morning, it will also signify the beginning of Major League Rugby’s 2020 season. Seeing as how it’s the first match of the MLR season, all eyes will be on the Raptors and the SaberCats.

Saturday’s match between the Raptors and the SaberCats will be feature two of the original seven MLR clubs. Not counting any preseason matches, the Raptors and the SabeCats have squared off three times with Colorado holding 2-1 record over Houston.

The Raptors won the first and second clashes with the SaberCats 37-24, and 52-44, but dropped the third meeting with Houston 32-17 in Colorado’s last match of 2019.

Both teams will head into their fourth meeting with optimism about the 2020 season. After a less than ideal start for the SaberCats in 2019, they made the decision to part ways with head coach Justin Fitzpatrick and that proved to be one of the things that turned their season around. After the change, the SaberCats rattled off four-straight victories to close out the season and thanks to an unfortunate rescheduling snafu related to Hurricane Harvey, they won those four matches in just 15 days.

Those four wins consisted of two teams above them in the table in the NOLA Gold – who were in first place at the time – and the Raptors who were trending downward after being bounced from the playoffs.

In the Raptors and SaberCats’ first meeting of 2019, Houston jumped out to a 32-0 lead in the first half before eventually falling 52-44 in the highest-scoring match in MLR’s short history. Whenever the Raptors and SaberCats play, it’s always a competitive match. Saturday should be no different.

Like Houston, the Raptors also made a coaching change ahead of the 2020 season. Saturday’s match will be the first one that the Raptors will play under new head coach Pete Borlase and there is a palpable optimism around the club heading into their third season.

A victory on the road would be the best way for Borlase to start off his head coaching career but it will not come easy. The SaberCats have put together a strong roster ahead of the season opener.

One player that the Raptors will have to be mindful of is SaberCats’ fly-half Sam Windsor. When the SaberCats score points, it’s usually because of the work that Windsor has done.

He scores. A lot. His 263 points in two seasons make him the second all-time leading scorer in the MLR behind Brock Staller of the Seattle Seawolves.

Windsor can hit penalty goals from all over the pitch and is an excellent distributor of the ball. The first step to slowing down the SaberCats will be to keep Windsor under control.

As for the Raptors, they’ll look for some of their key contributors to pick up right where they left off last season. One of those players is wing John Ryberg whose 13 tries in 14 matches ranked first in the MLR alongside Rugby United New York’s Dylan Fawsitt.

The match will kick off at 10 A.M. on Saturday, February 8 and will be broadcast on ESPNews or on Major League Rugby’s Facebook page for international viewers.

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