EIRA Readies for Return Trip to Spain
EIRA Readies for Return Trip to Spain
Eagle Impact Rugby Academy is set to travel to Spain to play the Spanish U18s at the end of June in a rematch of a trip EIRA took a year ago.
Program Director Salty Thompson is taking 26 players, mostly from high school but also a smattering of college players, to assemble in Valladolid in Northwest Spain.
The city was founded exactly 950 years ago and has a rich history. It is also a place where local officials have invested funds in sports venues, and where the EIRA team was swept quite convincingly by the Spanish in 2021.
This year’s EIRA team will include players who learned some harsh lessons in Valladolid last year, and indeed Thompson learned them too. He has picked a squad that has a little more nous for the kicking game, and one with a bit more junkyard dog up front.
Spain defeated EIRA 61-15 and 55-15 in two games last year. This year the EIRA team will arrive on Spain on Sunday, June 26. They will work together the next two days and then play their first match on Wednesday, June 29.
The second game will be on Saturday, July 2. After that most of the EIRA players will return to the USA, but, by a pleasant coincidence, the USA age-grade teams will being their competition in Amsterdam on July 3, so some of the EIRA players will simply go to the Netherlands to join the USA squad.
Among the notables on the EIRA team are collegiate players Dougie Brown (Cal and formerly Aspetuck), Sam McMillan (UCLA and formerly SOC Raptors), Asher Hannon (Notre Dame College and formerly SOC Raptors), Lucas Ring (Michigan State and formerly Katy Barbarians), and Henry Duke, who played rugby with the Richmond Strikers and was a HS All American, but is currently trying to make the University of Virginia football team as a walk-on.
The team, said Thompson, has size in the right places and certainly Duke (listed at 6-5 but possibly a shade taller) and Regis Jesuit standout Alex Plank (also 6-5) fit the bill there.
Tempe’s all-everything prop, Luke Schaefer, Raleigh front-rower Paeden Keifer, Penn No. 8 Wally Kennach, and Woodlands lock Leon Best II all provide some pop.
Several of the players selected are team captains or key leaders for their high school team. At the top of that list of probably Bobby Voth, who captained St. Ignatius to a national single-school championship, was the player of the final, and the team’s MVP for the season. Brock Kluempers, who led St. Thomas Aquinas to one of its best seasons ever, Tommy Hannon, who captained Royal Irish, Saeed Kiruu, who helped lead Penn to a national Tier II final, and Bixby No. 8 Logan Franke, who has been a dominant player on a team that rolled through Oklahoma.
Thompson has some decisions to make about how he puts together his side, but don’t be surprised if you see Voth and Hannon on the field together, even though both normally play flyhalf. Expect gamebreaking center Aki Pulu from Tempe to have an active role, and look for Kiruu to be put in a position to express himself in open field.
Eagle Impact Rugby Academy Squad list for 2022 Tour of Spain:
