The USA Men's 15s team finishes off their 2025 with the Pershing Cup in Bucharest against Romania, hoping to improve their record for the year to 3-6.
The record overall isn't that important—the Eagles this year have had two main jobs: qualify for the Rugby World Cup 2027 (which they did by beating Samoa), and test bring together the team (including newer players) for the next two years.
Having accomplished that first one and made steps with the second, in some ways this game is a final exam for the year.
Romania is a game they should probably win. Yes the Eagles lost to the Oaks last year, but that is a rarity. Generally the USA wins this game:
USA vs Romania Historical Results:
1924, Paris: USA 37 Romania 0 (Olympic Games)
1988, Moscow: USA 17 Romania 7
1999, Dublin: Romania 27 USA 25 (RWC)
2005, Bucharest: USA 28 Romania 22
2012, Bucharest: USA 34 Romania 3
2014, Bucharest: USA 27 Romania 17 (Pershing Cup)
2016, Bucharest: Romania 23 USA 10 (Pershing Cup)
2018, Bucharest: USA 31 Romania 5 (Pershing Cup)
2023, Bucharest: USA 31 Romania 17 (Pershing Cup)
2024, Chicago: Romania 22 USA 20 (Pershing Cup)
Overall, then, the USA leads this series 7-3. Almost all the games have been competitive to really close—three of the nine have been within a try and three more have been within two tries.
Only once, last year, have these teams met in the USA.
Head Coach Scott Lawrence has named a slightly changed lineup for this match. Sixteen of the 23 return in the same position they played against Georgia.
The entire starting backline is the same, and since the Eagles scored 30 points that might make sense.
In the pack, Marno Redelinghuys moves back to lock, while lock and captain Jason Damm moves to No. 8.
Tonga Kofe comes in for the injured Pono Davis at tighthead prop. Cory Daniel, Maliu Niuage, and Mitch Wilson all come into the gameday 23 after missing the game with Georgia.
The USA is coming off a solid showing against Georgia, taking an early lead and holding a lead in the second half before losing 43-30.
"For me, we always talk about taking another step forward, and I think we absolutely did that," said Damm. "We pretty much put them to the sword, and then let it slip away from us a bit, but, in terms of the physical presence of the fellows, and the work rate, and sticking to the game plan, there was just absolute buy-in across the board."
For Damm, playing No. 8 is nothing new. He was a No. 8 through high school and college, but has been a lock only lately. Why"
"You get a little older, you got some dynamic back rows, and you start to find a new home in the lock. I like it in there."
So really almost his entire rugby career he has been a No. 8.
"And then I made him a #5," said Lawrence, adding directly to Damm: "and now you got stuck with being called a #5 after that."
"What I found when I transitioned from No. 8 to lock, is at 8 you have a lot of extra energy that you can pour into tackles, carries, getting around the corner, because you're not necessarily putting as much energy into set piece," explained the captain. "When I first switched to lock, I found myself, losing a bit of sting in my carries and tackles, maybe, and it's because I wasn't used to the amount of energy it takes to scrum at lock. And, I mean, in particular, tight headlock. Like, you're taking a lot of weight, and you're having to give, you know, even more."
What the Georgia Game Means
Damm called the performance against Georgia a step forward and Lawrence agreed. The scoreline, coming off a loss to Scotland that most would like to memory-hole, showed that with a few corrections and taking on a couple of lessons, the Eagles can score tries even against higher-ranked opponents.
GRR asked Lawrence and Damm about how much closer that was to what they think the Eagles can do.
"I would say the first 62 minutes ... it was pretty good to the game plan," said Lawrence. "I thought we stuck to the process . I think the yellow card was a bump in the road that let them back into the game. That's the margins in test rugby, and but other than that, I thought we were consistent."
Lawrence trotted out a couple of stats to back that up.
In the Scotland game, the USA kicked the ball 24 times with a 48% accuracy. Against Georgia they kicked 37 times—more than half as often—and with 68% accuracy.
"And that is the international game right now, so I think when we look at Georgia, Ruben [de Haas] was incredibly accurate. He was over 80% accuracy."
That's a stat that points to a basic tenet of the game—play in the opposing team's part of the field. But that doesn't just mean "kick." It means kick to where you want to kick. Against Scotland the USA's partial problem was how well the Scots found grass with their kicks.
"At the end of the day, I thought we stuck to the process," said Lawrence. You know, there's a better team that exploited us in a yellow card, but we stuck to the game plan through 60 minutes."
And once they got the ball in the opposing end, they were aggressive.
"We talked about keeping the ball in front of our forwards," said Lawrence, referring to Damm's comments about having the energy to carry hard after set piece.
"Marno was in the back row last week, and in the second row this week, and Jason was in the second row last week, and in the back row this week, you know, we want to make sure we use all of our weaponry, so to speak, as fresh as possible. We have proven what we can do when we can play on top, and we know where we're good. And where we're good is when we're going forward. And so, we'll continue to get opportunities as long as we do that, as long as we keep the ball in front of us. We'll be in a good position."
And the Eagles have been working on not overplaying their hand, said Lawrence.
"We don't play from our own half when it's not on, and that's a key part of international play, knowing when to play and when not to."
So now they get one more chance this year to build on that.
"If anything from last week taught us is that you never count an American out," said Lawrence. "We're going to show up. We're going into the last game of the year. It's been a very long year for everybody involved. But this is such a special place to be. We're so grateful to be a part of it, and we've got 80 minutes left."
USA vs Romania kicks off Saturday, November 15 at 10:00am ET, live on Paramount+
