What I personally have a problem with is selecting players who will not contribute to the team much, and who will not have a lasting influence on the American game. I am not in favor of rewarding someone who plays a long time in club rugby (this is at odds with my esteemed RuggaMatrix colleague Bruce McLane, who is not in favor of giving a cap to just anyone; he’s got a point).

When he was working for USA Rugby, current Life University AD Dan Payne told me “I don’t want any more Dan Paynes playing in the World Cup.” What he meant was, no more players who got there just through grit, and hard work, but players like that who were also athletes. This was a bit too humble on Payne’s part, but the point remains, and the point also remains that we do still have Dan Paynes on the USA team - only they’re not as good as Payne.

If you’re going to have a USA team that is going to struggle to win one or two games at the World Cup, then use this World Cup to build for the next. Todd Clever’s first World Cup was when he was 20 years old. He didn’t play, but he got the taste of it, and became one of the USA’s top players over the next 12 years. Thretton Palamo was 18 when got his first cap, and while he went on to play football for a while, he’s back in rugby and playing great. Mike Petri got his first cap in the 2007 World Cup, and topped 50 in this year’s tournament.

It’s been done. But when Mike Tolkin had a hole to fill, with one or two exceptions, he went for a sure thing - a veteran, often foreign-born, who wasn’t a risk. Now I’m not interested in complaining about this guy or that guy, but I can name you a few players who could have been looked at for this World Cup:

Hanco Germyshuys

Valdemar Lee-Lo

Michael Reid

Nick Civetta

Kalei Konrad

Patrick Blair

Stephen Thomasin

John Cullen

Ben Landry

Malcolm May

Will Holder

Kyle Sumsion

Alec Gletzer

Mike Shepherd

JP Eloff

Brendan Daly

Jojo Tikoisuva

Nick Wallace

 

There’s two flyhalves and a scrumhalf in there, plus a couple of tight five guys. Seeing as Titi Lamositele was on the 2013 HS All American team with a couple of those guys, it’s not as if I am advancing the timeline too badly. This list is just a short list, and might miss some guys or might include someone who is injured or something. I find myself wondering whatever happened to former Kutztown hooker Jamie Gregory, for example, or Brian Doyle.

I would put Danny Barrett and Brett Thompson in that list for all the time they got. (Not so much Cam Dolan, pictured above; as much as I complained about his lack of starting, he played about 50% of the time.)

Now you may say just picking a bunch of good young players hands a cap to someone who doesn’t deserve it. But at least you might get some long-term payback from giving some of these players the experience. You know there are some players on the recent Eagles who will say “thanks for that, I’m done.” What about “thanks for that, I’ve got the hunger even more now.”

And remember, we’re talking about players who wouldn’t get many minutes. In this Rugby World Cup, 18 players played about 77% of the minutes. So you’ve got 13 players who could each get about a game’s worth of minutes. Would that not be worth it? Could we spare some time to prepare the next generation?

Well, we dont, and sometimes it's because familiarity breeds comtempt. Someone doesn't think much of Salty Thompson's player assessments. Or maybe we've seen a guy around for a long time, and know what he's not good at (listen to Pat Clifton display this nicely in the recent  RuggaMatris Podcast ) without taking everything into account for all candidates. But what we should know is where all of tomorrow's Eagles and the 2017 Eagles are playing, and whether they need help.