It’s fair to say that the USA Falcons men’s team exceeded expectations at the EAAST 7s tournaments in France over the past two weeks.
Playing against almost-international teams and professional touring sides, the mostly collegiate group, brought together just a few days before the first tournament, were up against it.
But they showed steady improvement, going 5th in the 1st tournament and taking 2nd in the follow-up.
Head Coach Ben Pinkelman said the key was how quickly the team learned and applied those lessons.
“It was clear quite a few did not have a ton of 7s experience but they were able to adopt the game quicker than what I have experienced the last couple of years,” Pinkelman told GRR. He credited some of the players who have had some USA 7s team experience, such as Uluamu Niutupuivaha, Jake Broselle, Porter Goodrum, and Peter Sio Jr., for helping the newer players along.
But, he added, there’s “also a higher overall rugby IQ among the players are coming through now that are receiving better coaching at younger ages.”
Some of the things the players had to learn quickly was to keep scanning on defense.
“It’s very rare that a player comes into 7s and is not ruck-watching,” explained Pinkelman. “The constant scanning that needs to happen around that area to follow offload runners and get aligned on your man is far too slow. Playing NZ really highlighted this issue for us.”
University of San Diego player Paul Habeeb, who has played quite a bit of 7s, did well in this area and Pinkelman said “that’s a testament to Charlie Purdon's coaching.”
The other aspect they had to learn was to hustle on defense and make sure that defenders aren’t turning to the sideline to get outside more quickly—this leaves them open to a cutback of some kind.
“Almost every try scored against us the first week, which was a lot, was off of a switch or the first or second short-line runner off of a switch,” said Pinkelman.
