Selects Named to Face Fiji Warriors
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay - The USA Rugby Selects lineup to face the Fiji Warriors on Saturday has been picked.
Head Coach Ray Egan has named Joe Taufete'e as starting hooker and gameday captain, choosing a capped Eagle and World Cup veteran who also played for Egan in the Belmont Shore U19s and senior men's club system.
The Selects managed to get to Uruguay before Hurricane Matthew his Florida - where they had been training - and are now looking to face the Warriors, who won the 2016 Pacific Challenge tournament, defeating Tonga A and Samoa A in the process.
Saturday's Americas Pacific Challenge action begins at 11:30am ET with Canada A v an Argentina XV. Then the USA Selects face the Fiji Warriors at 1:15pm, and finally Samoa A plays Uruguay A at 3:30pm.
Mitchell Negotiates Assembly Challenges with Eagles
USA Men's National Team Coach John Mitchell has been getting a complete lesson in the difficulties of assembling a USA team of late.
As reported earlier in Goff Rugby Report, the Eagles are having to work around World Rugby Regulation 9 - the regulation that requires clubs to release players for international duty. With the USA v Maori All Blacks game falling outside the November test match window for World Rugby. As a result, some professional players won't be available for that game, or, as has happened in previous years, they might be made available if they get to return to their pro clubs during the other weekends in November.
Eagles Confirm November Test Matches
USA Rugby has confirmed what Goff Rugby Report reported earlier this fall, that the USA Men's National Team will play Romania and Tonga following their The Rugby Weekend clash with the Maori All Blacks this November.
Some Questions and Answers for USA 7s Camp
As the USA Men’s 7s team starts camp to kick off the 2016-17 season, some questions need to be answered.
Most of the squad from last season is back, but not everyone, and that leaves some holes and some roles to fill. In addition, as Mike Friday told USA Rugby last week, with several established 7s players also pushing for spots in the USA 15s team leading into 2017’s World Cup qualifiers, Friday will need a large group of players available to play.
Not getting picked for the opener December 2-3 in Dubai doesn’t mean you’re out for the season.
So, on to the questions, and perhaps a few answers:
Is College Rugby supplying enough talent?
It looks that way. Of the 25 players invited to the current High Performance Camp, 19 played college rugby, and seven are either in school now, or recently graduated.
Selects Coach Egan Has Several Goals in Mind
Ray Egan will be coaching the USA Selects competing in the Americas Pacific Challenge October 8-16 in Uruguay, and he's got a big job ahead of him.
Egan will be working in conjunction with the senior USA coaching staff and will take the mainly domestic-based team to Florida for a training period before going to Montevideo for the actual tournament.
"We're trying to increase the player pool for the Eagles," Egan told Goff Rugby Report. "We're a development side, that's clear, and the team has very few of the boys who have caps. But it's a way to create and expand the depth chart for the USA senior team, and implement playing strategies and terminology."
USA Rugby Hiring WNT Positions
USA Rugby is looking to fill four positions with the women's national teams.
Click on the links to apply or see more.
Head of Physical Development - Application closes Oct 2
Oversees strength and conditioning for all of the WNT programs with direct responsibility for the sevens program. Will manage volunteers and interns to support all programs. Expected to bring the latest approach in sports science to both the national and age-grade teams.
Likely USA Selects Squad for Americas Pacific Challenge
The USA Selects team that will go to Uruguay to play in the Americas Pacific Challenge will be a team of college players and young up-and-comers, led by a few players with a small number of caps.
USA Rugby has not released the roster, but Goff Rugby Report has obtained a player list we are fairly sure is close to the final roster.
Malon Al-Jiboori. Union HS (Okla.) and now Lindenwood University. Mostly a No. 8, he was D1A Player of the Week in late January, and is in his second season with Lindenwood. He players for the HS All Americans and the USA U20s. He is
Demecus Beach. Toledo U19 (Ohio) product who went on to play for Davenport, Beach is a powerful prop who made his USA debut Feb. 20 against Chile.
Dubai 7s Draw Announced
The USA Men's 7s team kicks off the 2016-17 Sevens World Series season in Pool B of the Dubai 7s with South Africa, Scotland, and the 16th team to be determined.
Rugby sevens returns after its debut in the Olympic Games, with Gold Medalists Fiji drawn in a tough pool with Argentina, Canada, and Wales.
Pool A: Fiji, Argentina, Canada, Wales
Fresh from claiming their country's first-ever Olympic gold medal, 2015-16 series champions Fiji will return to The Sevens Stadium as they seek to defend their Dubai title in Pool A. The Pacific Islanders will enter the competition with a new head coach after Ben Ryan's decision to bow out after Rio, but they will still be hot favorites to come away with silverware following back-to-back series wins.
Eagles Have More Games in November than just Maori
The Rugby Weekend game between the USA and Maori All Blacks on November 4 isn't the only game the USA Men's 15s team will play this fall.
The Eagles will use that non-test game in Chicago as a jumping-off point for a two-game series in Europe. On November 12, the Eagles will play Romania in Bucharest. This is a rivalry game played between the two nations for the Pershing Cup. The Pershing Cup is named after former USA Army General John J. Pershing, who commanded the US forces in World War I and is the only American to be promoted to the rank of General of the Armies while still alive.
He was considered a hero in Romania, as well, and was awarded the Order of Michael the Brave. That is why the trophy is named after Pershing.
GSHAA 3-0 in France
The Girls HS All Americans powered by Atavus went 3-0 in ay One of the Girls European U18 7s Championships, beating Ireland, Russia, and Germany to win Pool C in Vichy, France.
The GHSAA team beat Germany 29-5, Ireland 33-5, and Russia 40-0 to make the quarterfinals.
In the QFs, the Americans will take on Wales, which finished 2nd behind Spain in Pool B.
England won Pool A with Italy 2nd - the English did not allow a point all day. And in pool D, France won and Canada took second - in the final game of the first day the French pummeled the Canadians 46-7.
England will play Canada, USA will play Wales, France takes on Italy, and Spain will face Ireland in Sunday’s Quarterfinals.
Against Germany the USA players took a while to get into the flow, and in fact Germany scored first after a long period of possession.
Americas-Pacific Serves Important Purpose
The Americas Pacific Challenge is the latest venture backed by World Rugby to give Tier 2 nations a step between pro/provincial/domestic competition and full internationals - this time, it might be the right fit.
The first efforts - the NA4, and then the different iterations of the Americans Rugby Championship through 2014 - often ran into issues because the existing USA coach needed game time for his current national team players. And while Mike Tolkin, USA Coach from 2012-2015, worked hard to try to blood players in the ARC, he was also hampered with the problem that many domestic Eagles were lacking game time.
So the USA Selects in the old ARC were teams that had lots of experienced national teams players on their rosters. This time, things will be different.
7s Eagles Latest - Contract Time
Eight of the 12 USA men's 7s players from the Rio Olympics have been offered new contacts for the coming season, with an additional four who were not initially on the squad for Rio also getting contracts.
The pay scale, however, is expected to be markedly reduced. USA Rugby does not yet know what kind of grant the US Olympic Committee will give the program for the upcoming season, and, in addition, had paid players a little more leading up to the Rio Olympics. So money is tight at present, and reports are that the contracts are all at base pay of about $1,700 a month - although there will remain a bonus structure. For some players, this will be a significant drop, as much as 50%, from what they were making per month in the first eight months of the year.
OTC Changeover Might Spur Change for Eagles, Too
Life could be changing at some point for the USA Men's and Women's 7s teams that train at Chula Vista, Calif.
The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) will, in 2017, be handing over administration of the Olympic Training Center at Chula Vista to the City of Chula Vista, and the City has outsourced the administration of the facility to Point Loma Nazarene University.
That change in and of itself is not reason to think that the Eagles will move out of their Southern California digs. But there's some indication that the cost of using the facility - for some years offered to USA Rugby at a discount - will rise. With several other sports having decided to run their Olympic programs off-site, as it were (the USA Field Hockey team opened its Home of Hockey facility in Pennsylvania in 2013), it might be time for USA Rugby to look at options.
A-Side Level Internationals Return for Fall
World Rugby has confirmed the schedule for the Americas Pacific Challenge 2016, a new "A” team tournament funded by the game's governing body.
The inaugural event, which includes two teams each from the Pacific Islands, North America and South America, will be hosted in Montevideo, Uruguay, from 8-16 October, 2016.
The Americas Pacific Challenge has been introduced to boost the high-performance pathway for the test arena and supports the Americas Rugby Championship and Pacific Nations Cup as well as November international test window preparation. This basically replaces what was the old Americas Rugby Championship held under various formations from 2009-2014. The ARC then morphed into a full-cap international competition at the beginning of 2016.
Eagle Men at RIo - Thin Margins
This is an opinion column by GRR Editor Alex Goff - It was always going to be a disappointing Olympics finish for some men’s rugby 7s teams.
It’s fair to say that Australia and New Zealand had higher expectations than 8th and 5th, respectively. And certainly the USA team was looking for more than 9th; as USA Head Coach Mike Friday said on the RuggaMatrix America podcast, the goal begins with G. They wanted Gold.
They didn’t get Gold, or Silver, or Bronze. In fact they didn’t make the quarterfinals. And they got to watch another country from outside the traditional powers, Japan, shake things up instead.
I think very few begrudged Fiji their first-ever Olympic medal in any sport, but US fans wanted to see a little better from the Eagles.
So why didn’t we see better? Some thoughts:
