The USA Men's 15s team continues the Nations Cup with a challenging match against Romania Saturday as the six-game tournament takes them to Bucharest.
The Eagles are coming off a win over Hong Kong that put them at 4-0 in the Nations Cup, but that is a tenuous 4-0 because the win over Hong Kong was anything but secure.
Struggles with the kicking game, which didn't yield the success the USA wants, and decision-making, with players not moving the ball to open players at key moments, didn't help.
There were positives, including the set piece, but some of those positives highlighted the issues. Dominating possession and field position was good, but should have yielded more than a two-point victory of 28-26.
"When you're sometimes not having a performance you're particularly happy with in the moment, maintaining that level of fight and belief to know that if we just stick to our process, we're going to come back and and put ourselves in a position to win this game," is a positive in itself, said USA captain Jason Damm. "And when we took the lead, we were confident in ourselves to to continue to defend it. And I think on the on the backside of that as well, like our our set piece had probably one of its best days this year."
Head Coach Scott Lawrence also saw a positive in the team not wilting when they had fallen behind 26-21 to a team they felt they should have been beating.
"The team fought for each other there to finish, and there were some positive set piece moments," said Lawrence. "I also think we created some variety through the middle third. That's something we've been experimenting with over the last couple of months, and so you saw you saw players seeing space and seeing opportunities that maybe they wouldn't have seen two three months ago, and they took their chances on it, and that's what got us the entries. And then after that, it was you know about respecting the ball after that. So I think we showed some some good variety there."
As for the lineup, there are three changes in the forward pack with three players coming in from French professional teams. Jack Iscaro comes in at loosehead for Payton Telea-Ilalio. Iscaro has been playing well at Stade Francais in the French Top 14. Kapeli Pifeleti c(Provence in France's Pro D2) omes in for Shilo Klein at hooker. Kaleb Geiger, who scored the try to tie the game (with Chris Hilsenbeck kicking the conversion that won it), is on the bench again. Nafi Ma'afu comes in at No. 8 for Jamason Fa'anana Schultz. Ma'afu, a product of Tempe Rugby in Arizona, has been playing in France for years and currently plays for Montauban in the Top 14.
The backline sees no changes, but the bench sees two notable additions, with 30-year-old Seattle Seawolves lock Rhyno Herbst, who qualifies for the Eagles via residency, comes in for potentially his first cap. Also set for his first cap is Spencer Huntley, who just 18 months ago was winning a Boys HS National Championships club title with the San Diego Mustangs.
Now at Hartpury University in England, Huntley was captain of the USA U20s.
Romania will be a massive challenge. This game is usually very tight and very physical. But if the Eagles don't finish on their chances, they will be in trouble.
