The USA men’s 7s team opens up its 2015-16 World Series season in a little more than a day, and it’s an important time for the Eagles.

Coming off a win in the last HSBC Sevens World Series tournament, the United States team won’t be able to sneak by anyone. And at the same time, the Eagles start their series at a tournament that has historically been very difficult for them. 

Opening up the Series in Dubai means playing in a city 12 time zones different - going to Dubai means you have to essentially reverse your body clock. Yes, the Americans have been in town for several days, but the adjustment is still very difficult. Mike Friday and Chris Brown will have been working extra hard to get the players to peak in the Dubai afternoon, rather than 4am.

For the players, there are some other adjustments to make, mainly in how players work with each other. Without two battlers in the breakdown in Andrew Durutalo and Danny Barrett, someone else is going to have to back up today’s birthday boy, Garrett Bender, in that role. Likely that will be Zack Test, who isn’t, or doesn’t have to be, the breakaway try-scorer he has been for years, but whose defensive ability and understanding of what does and does not go in the breakdown will be crucial.

Then we might see old man Swiryn do the same. Swiryn’s talents offensively have always been centered around slipping through and bouncing out of contact, but he’s always been a tenacious defender and understands how to poach ball.

Friday will be wanting at least one more player - ideally everyone - to find a way to create turnovers.

Because once the Eagles get a turnover, they will be very tough to stop. Yes they can ship the ball out wide to Perry Baker and Carlin Isles - and those two should be good for eight to ten tries between them if they get the ball in space once a game - but they also have players who can make defenders pay up the middle, with shifty Madison Hughes starting it all. 

A 7s team needs three tries to win a game, and this team - if they can fix their body clocks, get turnovers, and finish passes - can get that.

The USA faces Portugal on Friday, Dec. 4 at 1:52am Eastern Time (so that’s late the night of Dec. 3 for Mountain Time and west of that). The France at 5:36am, and New Zealand at 10:58am (both times ET).

They should beat Portugal, which always tries to out-muscle the Eagles and sometimes succeeds. In that game, avoiding penalties and being patient for opportunities will help the USA. Against France, it’s about defense. The games where France gets the edge on the Eagles is when they pull off a surprise. Usually the USA gets a small lead, and then gets over-eager, and Terry Bourahoua slides through a gap and scores a crucial try. Then the USA players get even more over-eager and give up another try.

So, play some defense, don’t get out of position if you think a turnover’s on, and if you’ve got a lead, be patient in putting the hammer down.

Then there’s New Zealand - time to put caution to the wind against New Zealand.

TV Coverage: Universal Sports has stopped operation. NBC Sports took it over and fired everyone, or almost everyone. NBC Sports is now handling the coverage of Olympic Sports and - big surprise - it’s not as good (We’ve seen this before with Prime Sports to Fox Sports World to Fox Soccer Channel; Outdoor Life to OLN to NBC Sports). We asked NBC Sports to confirm the coverage and despite follow up requests and a promise to get an answer, we don’t have anything.

There is no live streaming of the Dubai 7s in the USA at present. This might change. But right now the only coverage NBC Sports is giving the tournament is the final two hours to be shown in December 7 on Universal HD channel. No, seriously, that’s it. (Actually, there's a radio feed here. That might be interesting.)

So your best bet is to get a pirated online feed. We’ll have more on this soon, we hope.