Balancing Urgency and Patience in Age-Grade National Teams

01.20.2026Eagles

Author: Alex Goff

The USA men’s age-grade camps have wrapped up and the U20 team is looking ahead to an expanded and challenging World Championship.

The U20s will play in June and are in a pool with Argentina, England, and Ireland, which is just about as Pool of Death as you get. But that’s not the point. The point it, if the USA men’s senior team is to get better, they need their newer players to have been in the fire beforehand. Playing those teams helps that. And, in fact, playing more than one helps.

Men's U18, U20 Camps Attendees Announced

Previous World Trophy events have seen the USA play beatable opponents only to get that one chance against, say, Scotland. Repeatedly GRR has asked players at the U20 or U18 or senior level, “if you had a chance to play that game again next week, what would you do?” The players always say they’d like another shot.

So the upcoming World Championships is that multiple shot chance. Certainly the USA team wouldn’t be favored in those matchups. But think of how they might play Argentina, get exposed in some areas, five days later play England, get exposed somewhere else, and five days later play Ireland. What that would do for the players is so much more useful than, say, playing a country that doesn’t have a rugby tradition. If they have the right attitude, it could be enormously beneficial.

And many in the USA Rugby pathway environment look at this class of U20s as an important piece of the Rugby World Cup 2031 puzzle. With the players in 2026 being 19 and 20, they would be 24 and 25 in time for the Rugby World Cup held on US soil. At least some of them will be on the USA team.

That doesn’t mean it is ONLY the U20 World Championship squad that they will keep an eye on. Head of Pathways Brendan Keane said the USA is always looking at players.

“There’s a danger in concentrating your identification on younger and younger levels,” Keane told GRR. “You have to be careful you don’t get caught up in confirmation bias.”

Basically he means, you identify a player who is outstanding at 15, but while he doesn’t quite hit that growth spurt or doesn’t develop exactly how you hoped, and another player emerges at 18 who has some other attributes, you stay with that first player because you’ve invested so much time and attention.

So the message has to be, if you’re identified early, you still have to prove yourself each time. And also … if you’re not picked for the USA U18s or the U20s, that doesn’t mean your name is crossed off the list. Keep playing, keep making strides, and advocate for yourself.

“Some positions take time,” said Keane. “Do you want the Eagles always picking a 21-year-old prop? No, you might want that player to go through the U23s and MLR and then be with the Eagles. You can’t really know until a player physically matures.”

USA Rugby will be holding some talent ID sessions around the country. And, really, while those are about talent ID, they are also about showing players what is expected of them and what standards they have to reach.

Some players might reach those standards at 17, some might need a few more years. But if you don’t get picked for an age-grade national team now, you can still play your way in later.