Round six of the Pacific Rugby Premiership is here, and there are three midseason questions to ask ahead of Saturday's games.

Watch the PRP Midseason Clash (March 31) LIVE on FloRugby!

Life West at Santa Monica 

1 PM PDT | Comet Stadium (Playa Del Rey, CA)

Question: Can Santa Monica win a game? No, well, probably not this one. Life West was vulnerable for a time but has started to get back some injured players. What the Dolphins want to do is move the ball quickly and stretch defenses and thus score tries. It hasn’t worked, as Santa Monica has scored only three tries and hasn’t scored any in the last 200 minutes of rugby.

Somebody—preferably more than one person—has to take on the physical game and do better at winning rucks and making meters after contact. In a game in which rucks and contact continue to increase, you’ve got to be able to handle that part of the game.

Olympic Club at OMBAC

1 PM PDT | The Little Q (San Diego)

Question: Can OMBAC be beaten? Yes, sure, it can be beaten. OMBAC isn’t invincible, but if you’re going to beat the San Diego team you have to match up against its power runners such as Tai Tuisamoa. Stop these guys early. Having said that, OMBAC has to be heavily favored against O-Club. At the same time, Olympic Club continues to improve.

Coming off a 44-31 loss to SFGG, Olympic Club head coach Ray Lehner said he felt like that was the best OC performance against his team’s crosstown rival in several years. 

“I haven’t walked off Golden Gate’s field in maybe 10 years feeling like, 'Wow, that was a really competitive game. The guys played out of their skin,’” Lehner said.

O-Club accomplished all of this with one of its strongest players, flanker Bruce Thomas, switching to OMBAC (How that is facilitated is another matter. But basically Thomas jumped clubs, and OC had no choice but to approve it). The players learned of the shift, and with no specialist locks to play, the team responded by putting in its best game.

SFGG at Belmont Shore

1 PM PDT | Cal State Long Beach (Long Beach, CA)

Question: What’s so great about playing for second? We’ll tell you. May 5, that’s what’s so great. Even if OMBAC runs the table, the San Diego club still has to play a final on May 5, and that game is against the No. 2 team.

So the three-team cluster for second place (SFGG 3-2 and 16 points, Belmont Shore 3-2 and 16 points, and Life West 3-2 and 15 points) is the main drama right now. The drama increases this week because Life West has an excellent shot at a bonus-point win, while SFGG and Belmont Shore, both teams that can play decent defense, might play a low-scoring game on the campus of CSULB. The loser of this game will be on the outside looking in for a bit.

Last week, Belmont Shore gave up a 17-0 lead to lose 19-17 to Life West.

“Where I come from in Ireland, a 17-point lead pretty much sews up the game,” Belmont Shore head coach Ray Egan said. “You can control the game from there. But here in California, it’s a high-scoring league and really 21 points is the cutoff. If you’re up more than 21, then maybe a coach can breathe easier. But 17 points was shown not to be enough, and we have to work hard to put teams away.”

SFGG, meanwhile, gave up 31 in a win over Olympic Club, and head coach Neil Foote wasn’t overjoyed with that.

“We’re not too stressed out about it; we’re kind of where we want to be,” Foote said. “But one of the problems we really need to solve is our defense. We’ve always had that ability to be able to score, but we have to find a way to stop the other team. So we’ve been putting a lot of work into it.”

Upcoming PRP events LIVE on FloRugby:

March 31: PRP Midseason Clash (San Francisco)
May 5: PRP Finals (San Diego)