Now that the USA U20 men have won their series with Canada they look ahead to the World Rugby Trophy in Scotland.
The goal, of course, is to win the Trophy and qualify to make the U20 World Championships in 2025. but perhaps another goal might be to exceed last year’s frustrating 7th place, a tournament where they lost two games by less than a penalty goal.
Those goals have been part of the plan for a while. The potential U20 players have been in contact with the coaching staff through the Winter Camp and through the winter and spring.
“Not all the players were able to make the Winter Camp but we knew we’d see them somewhere,” said Head Coach Neethling Gericke. “We would get them together and talk about what our purpose is and what we’re trying to achieve; what their mentality is going to be, and how we want to play. We wanted to cover all that before we got together. We sort of knew what the puzzle looked like, so then it was a case of how we could fit the pieces together.”
The plan for Canada was to shift around the lineup regardless of how the first game went, and indeed even after winning the opening game Gericke made changes. There was a reason for that.
“If you’re going to go to the World Trophy, you play every five days—four games in 20 days; you cannot win the Trophy with just 23 players,” Gericke told GRR. “You need all 28. We had 32 players in Canada and we had to test our squad depth. I am very happy with the choices we made and really there is not a lot of difference between the guys who started the first game and the guys who started the second game. We will have 28 strong players in Scotland.”
