Losing is losing, but USA Head Coach Gary Gold has to look past the scoreline when his team faces off against major contenders in the Rugby World Cup.

To lose 33-9 to France after being as close as 12-9 as late as 65 minutes in is worth something, and now the USA must look to Argentina and Tonga and hope for at least one victory, and, ideally, two, to finish off Japan 2019.

This was a better performance than against England, but when you're a team from a Tier 2 nation you need to be on-task for 80 minutes.

“When you play against teams of France’s caliber they have so many great playmakers who can hurt you if you make mistake," said Gold after the game with France. "Up until about 68 minutes in, we were asking a lot of questions of them, until 80 minutes in fact, but that’s what happens against a very good team. If you make mistakes in crucial areas of the pitch they punish you. You need luck but at the end our luck ran out, but I am very proud of the guys, it was very good performance."

Gold said that the performance was enough to perhaps restore the team's credibility as a good outfit. Really all of that comes from Gold's own comments after the 45-7 loss to England, when he said the Eagles were outplayed in every aspect of the game.

"I'm incredibly proud of this group of players..."@USARugby head coach Gary Gold speaks positively about his sides performance against France at #RWC2019#FRAvUSA pic.twitter.com/1dKBVoFZJf

— Rugby World Cup (@rugbyworldcup) October 2, 2019

"The only reason I was as harsh as I was is because we are a better team than we showed against England, and you saw that today up to 68 minutes. The guys stood up against a very good French team," said Gold. "I thought we contained them very well and were outstanding in so many areas of the game, we scrummed really well against statistically one of the best scrums."

So the thing about this World Cup is that it poses goals for everyone. You want to win all your games. OK, you lose, but you want to win the next one. OK, so you lose. Well, winning two games puts you in for an automatic spot in 2023. Great, go for that goal. If that doesn't happy, then you're just looking for a win.

So up next for the Eagles is a game in six days against Argentina. After that, five days later, it's Tonga. That's the reality for the USA right now. Target those two games, which they will play in the space of six days.

"We came here genuinely wanting to give ourselves a chance against all four teams," said Gold. "We had plans for each team, to exploit their weakness. It did not go well against England, it was better today, but I am really confident going into the Argentina game, even more confident given how my team rose to the challenge of the turnaround after the England game—I did not see their enthusiasm dip.

"There’s a lot to play for, for us, a huge amount.”

n the effort by USA:
"I'm incredibly proud of this group of players. I felt we went toe to toe, we did make some mistakes and when you play against a team of the French calibre, when you make mistakes they are going to make you pay. But we never gave up the fight, not the for the full 80 minutes.

"I'm just so proud of everybody, the reserves made a big difference when they came on, we worked incredibly hard for this today.

"A bit sad we didn't get a try for more on the scoreboard, but just a very, very good performance and really positive for the way forward."

On how close the USA are coming to the top teams:
"The gap is definitely closing quite a lot. If you look back a couple of years ago, a couple of World Cups ago, there were 70, 80-point drubbings for Tier 1s versus Tier 2s but now we are giving ourselves a chance 65 minutes into the game.

"But we just can't make mistakes against teams of this caibre and we'll learn from that. But I think the gap is slowly closing."

On not scoring a try in this game:
"When we gave ourselves decent opportunities we'd come under a little pressure and we'd knock the ball on or concede a penalty but that's part of the learning curve. That's why this Rugby World Cup is going to be a big learning curve for us because the more teams we play of this calibre, the French, and Argentina next week, we're going to get better and better."x