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| Seattle celebrating their Shield win. |
New York
New York had a tough ask in their Cup quarterfinal match against eventual runners-up Auckland. The New Zealanders were one of the elite teams of the weekend and it showed early with two tries putting them up 12-0 early. Like the All Blacks, Auckland were very good at punishing mistakes as proved on their second try where they took advantage of a poor pass from Garrett Bender to quickly turn the tables and score. Rocky Khan finished off the scoring for Auckland in the half when he took the ball out of a scrum and found no one home on the blindside.
Take the jump to read more.
Auckland started the second half nearly the same as the first with a quick try. The only New York try came through Carlin Isles. He came on as a late sub but immediately made the impact when he burned the defense. However, he seemed to pull up with an injury right after the try. Auckland scored once again at the final hooter to make the final 36-5.
The loss put New York into the Plate semi-finals against the Blue Bulls. New York got out to a bright start when Isles scored another try after getting the start. However, a misplay from Isles trying to make a tough pass a minute later allowed Clayton Stewart to equalize for the Blue Bulls. The try seemed to energize the Blue Bulls and they earned another try, this time through Ryan Nell. But New York weren't done and when Isles scored his second try of the half off great passing New York went into the break up 14-12. Unfortunately the second half was all the Blue Bulls with Andre Warner scoring twice to make it 31-14 at full time. Any hope of a New York comeback was snuffed out by a late yellow card to Seamus Kelly.
Despite the two straight losses on day two New York finished on a high note with a blowout 34-7 win over Russian side Enisei. It didn't look good at the start when Denis Simplekevich scored too easily but after that the New York defense stepped up and stopped every Enisei opportunity. That defensive pressure soon paid off as Garrett Bender scored for New York. Derek Lipscomb scored the first of his three tries at the end of the half when he poached on a spilled ball in the try zone.
Enisei were their own worst enemy in the match as they saw yellow early in the second half. That allowed the space needed for Seamus Kelly to recover a Nate Augspurger chip. Another card to Enisei put them in an even further hole that Lipscomb too full advantage of with two tries. Credit should go to Isles during the sequence as he chased back and held up a try from Enisei. Augspurger finally recovered one of his own chips late in the match to seal the victory.
Seattle
Seattle were unlucky to be in a very tough pool on day one and that meant that they found themselves in the Shield on day two thanks to point differential. The difference between Seattle and their Shield opponents on day two was obvious. First up was Gloucester, who were dreadful on day one. Seattle scored tries through Danny Barrett, Mikey Te'o, John Cullen, and Miles Craigwell to win 22-12.
That win meant they faced the Harlequins in the final. The Quins were much improved on the day from their day one performance although it didn't appear that way when Craigwell was able to put in an acrobatic move for the first try. With the conversion Seattle led 7-0. Eventually that improved play from the Quins showed through when they used very patient play to find their speedy winger Gavin Dampies to level the score. Seattle would finish the half after Barrett collected a pass and raced untouched for the try. The play only happened because Craigwell did well to hold on to a hospital pass.
Dampies scored first in the second half for the Harlequins to once again level the match but after that it was all Seattle. Craigwell scored his second of the match and then Mike Palefau sealed it with a steal at the breakdown and run in for the try. Final: Seattle 28-14 Harlequins.