The USA Men’s National Team looks to finish off their two-game series in June with Saturday’s clash with Russia in Sacramento.

USA Head Coach John Mitchell has made a few changes to the team that lost 24-20 to Italy last weekend in San Jose. James King will start at lock in place of Greg Peterson, who was injured in the game against Italy. Tony Lamborn, who made his debut last week coming on for Peterson, and scoring a try in the process, will start at flanker in place of Andrew Durutalo, who is now at Chula Vista getting ready to try out for the USA 7s team. And Mike Te’o comes in at right wing, where he played 76 minutes on Saturday after Taku Ngwenya left with a head injury.

Interestingly, Ngwenya has made a somewhat shocking recovery - his doctors were amazed and but cleared him to resume contact released him from the hospital. (Clarification: USA Rugby spokesperson Nick Sero contacted Goff Rugby Report and in no uncertain terms said that Ngwenya was never going to play after Saturday's injury. This jibes essentially with what USA Coach John Mitchell said - he had planned to start Te'o regardless. ) 

Top, Mike Te'o made an impression and gets a start. Below, John Mitchell still has a lot of pieces to put together. Colleen McCloskey photo.

So the lineup looks to be as follows:

1. Titi Lamositele, 2. James Hilterbrand, 3. Chris Baumann, 4. Nate Brakeley, 5. James King, 6. Tony Lamborn, 7. Todd Clever (C), 8. Cam Dolan, 9. Nate Augspurger, 10. AJ MacGinty, 11. Blaine Scully, 12. Shalom Suniula, 13. Thretton Palamo, 14. MIke Te’o, 15. Will Holder

there should be a couple of changes on the bench, too.

This stands as a bit of a vote of confidence from Mitchell, who said he was overall pleased with several aspects of the team’s performance against Italy.

“We were right in it and had an opportunity to win it with that chargedown in front of the posts in the 76th minute,” Mitchell told Goff Rugby Report. “To have got to that point against the 12th team in the world is a positive. But having said that, the guys were disappointed that it wasn’t a winning performance.”

Scrum penalties remain an issue, and some might point less to penalties called against the USA than the fact few were called against Italy when popping up or boring in were obvious. But Mitchell points more to the maul defense as something that the squad worked on during the week. 

“Our approach to it was foreign to the guys, and we expect it will go better,” said Mitchell.

But, on the good side, the coach was very pleased with the overall discipline.

“We’ve come in with a new team, and what we wanted more than anything was for them to stay on plan,” said Mitchell. “And they did, they stuck with the plan. Even late in the game they stayed with it and that showed a lot of discipline. We want to attack and we want to play an expansive game, but we can’t fall into that trap of playing loose or being cavalier with the ball, especially in certain part of the field. We’ve tightened that up and the players ave responded.”

Looking ahead to Russia, Mitchell said he expects a physical opponent, but also a challenge to retain that discipline.

“We’ve building pressure, and that’s what we want to continue to do.”