All to play for in US Super League

With two weeks remaining in the regular season, nearly every match on Saturday’s USA Rugby Super League slate has serious play-off implications.

Nowhere will the pressure be felt more than in Denver and Washington, D.C.

Both the Denver Barbarians and Potomac Athletic Club face tough roads to the post season if they aren’t able to pull off wins this weekend.

The Barbarians, with 10 league points, host defending champion Old Mission Beach Athletic Club and can ill afford another loss in the extremely competitive Red Conference.

Old Mission Beach Athletic Club, on 15 points, and it’s eleven National Team candidates seem to be firing on all cylinders, having exploded for 88 points last Saturday against Old Puget Sound Beach. Yet Denver knows Old Mission Beach Athletic Club has also tasted defeat this season at the hands of San Francisco Golden Gate, a team the Barbarians beat in March.

Potomac Athletic Club, currently lying with 13 points, finds itself in a similar boat, having lost their last two outings and falling to third place in the Blue Conference. A loss to visiting Boston (8 points) could drop the Washington, D.C. side to fourth place and almost entirely out of the play-off picture.

However, a win, coupled with a Chicago Griffins win over Old Blue of New York, would move Potomac Athletic Club to second place and back into the thick of the play-off hunt.

Meanwhile, the Old Blue-Chicago Griffins match is among the weekend’s most intriguing. The New Yorkers churned out 62 points Saturday against the St. Louis Bombers to get their third win while the Griffins (Twenty points) won convincingly over Potomac Athletic Club, 31-13, to stay on top of the Blue Conference.

In the White Conference, the Boston Irish Wolfhounds (Nine points) need a win against the Dallas Harlequins who sit with fourteen points to keep alive any hope of appearing in the post-season. The same is true for Philadelphia-Whitemarsh (Nine points), which hosts a tough New York Athletic Club squad at the New Jersey shore.

In the end, the match between the Red Conference’s top two squads – undefeated Belmont Shore (25 points) and league newcomer Santa Monica on eighteen points could turn out to be the weekend’s most exciting.

Week five Super League fixtures:

All times are local

Old Mission Beach Athletic Club v Denver Barbarians, 15:00, Dicks Sporting Goods Park, Victory Lane, Commerce City


San Francisco Golden Gate v Old Puget Sound Beach, 14:00, Marymoor Park, 6046 West Lake Sammamish Parkway Northeast, Redmond

Santa Monica v Belmont Shore, 15:00, Cal State Long Beach, Palo Verde Ave. & Rendina St., Long Beach, California

New York Athletic Club at Philadelphia-Whitemarsh, 14:00, Stone Harbor Recreation Center, 80th and Dune Drive, Stone Harbor, New Jersey

Dallas Harlequins v Boston Irish Wolfhounds, 14:00, Irish Cultural Centre, 200 New Boston Drive, Canton, MA

Washington v Chicago Lions, 15:00, Northeastern Illinois University, Foster & North St. Louis Avenues, Chicago, IL

Old Blue v Chicago Griffins, 13:00, Schiller Woods Forest Preserve, Irving Park and Cumberland Roads, Chicago, IL

St. Louis Bombers v Charlotte Rugby, 13:00, Skillbeck Athletic Grounds, 2911 Bellhaven Circle, Charlotte, NC

Boston Rugby at Potomac Athletic Club, 14:30, 15th and Independence Ave., Washington, DC