San Diego Legion coach and director of rugby Danny Lee refers to Snapdragon Stadium as his teams fortress.

And indeed, a 33-20 win over NOLA Gold on Sunday afternoon improved the Legion to 11-0 at Snapdragon dating back to the start of last season when, the club made the move over from USDs Torero Stadium.

However, in a prime example of a final score not necessarily reflecting a games flow, the Legion needed to overcome a shaky start and 17-0 first-half deficit to improve to 5-1 overall and 2-0 at home this season.

Renewed energy following what Lee called a stern halftime discussion led to a second-half turnaround. So did better passing and increased physicality.

The scoring tries came from Tomas Aoake, Connor Tupai, Cyrille Cama and Tiaan Loots; the Legion were awarded one seven-point penalty try as well.

The turnaround led to the clubs fifth straight win since a season-opening road loss at Seattle on March 2.

There were some stern words said about the way we were playing in the first half, said Lee, who is in his second season guiding the club. We didnt really play the way we trained or the way we talked about playing. It went right off script in the first half. It was about coming in at halftime, regrouping and saying: 'Look, lets go play the way we planned.' The character of this group, the energy they showed, came through. We had possession of the ball a good amount and ended up scoring some tries. So, pleased with the second-half effort.

The play of the day came in the 53rd minute, when Greg Peterson found a seam midfield at the 22-meter line, broke a tackle, kept his balance and flipped a perfect pitch to an on running Tupai who then raced free for the try.

Earlier in the second half, Aoake got the Legion on the board after he took a pitch out wide from Lincoln McClutchie, and then beat NOLAs defense to the front corner of the goal line.

Camas 7-point try box came in the 74th minute and was a result of the Legion muscling their way to a series of successful scrums, mauls and rucks before Cama punched it over inside the 5-meter line area.

McClutchie connected on two of three 2-point conversions.

The big upside was us just carrying it hard and direct, McClutchie said. That opened up space for our outside zone. Once we got the ball there, we had space to do anything.

Lee will look for a better start next Sunday, when the Legion host the Utah Warriors (2-4).

The Legion were able to overcome a 16-point deficit en route to a 22-21 win at Miami in their last outing on March 31 and a bye week didnt prevent another slow start.

Still, the Legion have allowed a MLR-low 118 points with a healthy differential of 32 and are one of six clubs with a 5-1 record.

Also, showing an ability to take an early punch and still come back swinging is a nice trait for a team that turned over half of the roster after last seasons 15-0-1 finish and appearance in the MLR championship game.

Its good to know we can overcome that but Id prefer not to: its too hard on my heart, Lee said. Id rather us punch first and keep punching but its just the nature of whats been happening early on this season. I cant really complain about the effort. The efforts there and Im proud of the result but were still just a bit off from where we need to be.