The luck of the Irish geared the New England Free Jacks up for their nail-biting win in their home opener against NOLA Gold on Saturday.
Veterans Memorial Stadium was electrified with live music, food, beverages and St. Patrick’s Day spirit. With their West Coast run behind them, the banner unveiling and 4,200 fans in the stands, the home opener was a sellout success.
The match kicked off with a heavy possession by NOLA Gold with the first try of the game scored by Ed Fidow at 10 minutes. A conversion followed by Luke Carty, starting the game off 7-0 in favor of NOLA Gold.
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The Free Jacks found their momentum after NOLA scored, firing back with a gritty try at 16 minutes by Wian Conradie, who notched his 50th cap with the Free Jacks during this home opener. Jayson Potroz locked in the conversion to bring the Free Jacks to a 7-7 score.
Le Roux Malan followed suit by splitting the NOLA Gold defense and popping through for a single-handed second try. Following a conversion by Potroz, the Free Jacks were ahead 14-7 at 19 minutes.
With 20 minutes gone from the match, three tries were scored with two of them being back-to-back courtesy of the Free Jacks.
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As they did throughout the match, NOLA answered when Alex Lopeti slashed a fiver off the back, bringing the score to 14-14 following a conversion by Luke Carty.
At 37 minutes, Jed Melvin blew through for a beautiful try, packaging the first half up with a conversion by Potroz . With a score of 21-14 at the half, the Free Jacks dominated possessions (58 percent), territory (60 percent) and 191 carrying meters against NOLA.
The New England Free Jacks stole the keys to the second half, revving its engine with a try by newcomer Jeronimo Gomez-Vara (Potroz conversion) at the 44 minute mark, scoring the team a bonus point for four or more tries.
With the score at 28-14, NOLA crept closer with a try by Captain Jonah Mau’u and a conversion by Carty to bring the score to 28-21. Joe Taufete’e trucked through at the 58 minute to the corner to score another try (Carty conversion) for NOLA, bringing the score to 28 all.
The energy in the stadium was palpable. New England dominated the pitch with 67 percent territory, 330 carrying meters and 65 percent possession.
With just 14 players on the pitch, NOLA’s Carty scored three points for NOLA with a penalty kick from 45 meters at 73 minutes With just seven minutes left in the match, NOLA led 31-28.
All was not lost even as the game went past 80 minutes. The Free Jacks converted a must-win line out from 20 meters, pushing the ball across the try line with a lengthy maul to score the game-winning try by Melvin and wrapping up the home opener with a stunning win.
With a conversion to cap off the home opener from Faletol Peni, the stands went to their feet screaming “HUZZAH!” for the Free Jack’s home opener win with a final 35-31.
Riding the high of his two tries, one of them game winning, Melvin was excited to ride the energy of the home opener win towards DC. “Coming off of two losses, we wanted to kind of reset and get some momentum back. We want to carry that momentum into the next few games,” said Melvin.
After the match’s wrap up, Coach Ryan Martin said, “We actually did one of those mauls against New York in 2021 and we showed it to the boys during Thursday’s training, so maybe there was inspiration.”
The Free Jacks are now tied for second with Miami with a 2-0-2 record and 11 pts. Watch the Free Jacks take on Old Glory in DC on Saturday, March 22 at 5 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Boston.