So we wanted to know what Mike Friday and Chris Brown would put together as a USA 7s team, and we got hints early on. Now we know.

The hints were that Friday looked for a few more athletes who required some grooming. He looked for height, and rangy runners. One guy he didn’t pick, Garrett Brewer, is still almost the perfect example of the kind of athlete he wanted to look at.

And he opened the door to the disillusioned, the misunderstood, the under-used, and the developing. So many of the players going to the Gold Coast 7s are players who were lost for a time. It’s telling that they are back.

So what type of team did Friday pick?

Tall. Garrett Bender leads the team at 6-4, with Danny Barrett and Zach Test just behind him. Only Madison Hughes, Peter Tiberio, and Carlin Isles are under 6-0.

Rangy. When in doubt, pick a guy with long legs, pace, and the ability to get in the air. Nic Edwards fits that description somewhat. Test epitomizes it, and Unufe and Perry Baker are very much of that mold. (Think Tim Mikkelson of New Zealand)

Powerful. This is a team heavy with forward types. You’ve got your potential DJ Forbes types (Pat Blair) - not super tall but solidly built and the type of guy you expect to get a lot of work done around the field. You’ve got your big rocks like Bender and Barrett. But really eight of the 12 players can play in the forwards. This harkens back to the days when the USA really pushed for a place in tournament finals, when Kevin Swyrin and Todd Clever and Paul Emerick and Chris Wyles were on the team - when even the backs could play as a forward.

Fewer playmakers. This USA squad has a three-player rotation for halfback/flyhalf in Hughes, Niua and Tiberio. That’s it (although who knows? you might see Carlin Isles nab the ball from the ruck), and that’s because while small, distribution-focussed players are nice, international 7s is about more than that. Size matters.

The disaffected. Garrett Bender got injured and kind of stayed away for a while. Pat Blair left the OTC. Folau Niua and Carlin Isles went to Scotland, one to play pro, and the other, in part, because he felt he wasn’t wanted. Tiberio left mostly for business reasons. Unufe left the OTC for personal reasons. Baker has been around for nine years slowly working his way up. But he is a gangly-looking guy from Florida, and it took a long while for him to get noticed. (Never mind that this writer has been covering him since the start: http://www.erugbynews.com/goffonrugby/archive/member/2005/7srankings0628....) He could have gotten frustrated, but he didn’t.

So in this squad of 12, half had some sort of falling out with the program. And they are back. Certainly that says that Friday is open-minded if you are good athlete, and it says that the change in the program lured those disaffected ones back in.

This USA team will be good in the air (or at least try to be), it will be powerful in contact (we expect), and the big guys will be expected to run. In addition, I think we will see a lot more of Carlin Isles.

Said Friday: “There is a good balance of physicality and power, as well as obvious pace in this squad, and I am looking forward to seeing where we are on our journey from participants to contenders on the Sevens World Series. We know it’s going to be immensely tough with the traditional super rugby powers on the sevens circuit of New Zealand, South Africa, Fiji, England, Australia, and Samoa, and our immediate aim is to become an opponent that these teams are nervous to play against.”

He wants them to be physical and imposing, and he looked for athletes to do that.

And finally, there’s the Madison Hughes choice as captain. You know I’ve written that I didn’t think Nic Edwards was the right guy to be captain, and despite being the best player on the team most of the time, Zack Test isn’t the guy, either. Friday wanted a player who is rugby smart, not afraid to speak up, will likely play a lot, be in the middle of the action, and has experience.

Well Hughes doesn’t have a lot of experience in international 7s, but he’s led Dartmouth and the Collegiate All Americans to major championships, and was a crucial member of the USA U20 team that won the 2012 Junior World Rugby Trophy. He has won everywhere he has played, is articulate, and in being the shortest man on the team, has to be able to stand up for himself, which he does.

In picking Hughes, Friday said he was making his own decisions; said he is not afraid to shake things up; said last year was last year.

One final note. This is increasingly becoming a USA-developed team. Andrew Durutalo and Nic Edwards learned and developed in rugby overseas, but that’s it. Hughes played in school in England, but was in the USA system from a relatively early age.

Bender, Test, Blair, Barrett, Baker, Niua, and Unufe were in rugby as high-schoolers in the USA (some more intensely than others). Tiberio took up the game as a collegiate at Arizona, and Isles was a convert taught rugby by the USA 7s system.

Blair (Central Washington), Hughes (Dartmouth), Tiberio (Arizona), Bender (St. Cloud State), and Barrett (Cal) all played American collegiate rugby. Others took a different USA path to this team, from crossovers (Baker, Isles) to age-grade national teams (Test) to club development (Baker, Niua).

That’s how this team will be put together in the future, too.