With the Rugby World Cup 2027 draw done, USA Head Coach Scott Lawrence and captain Jason Damm checked in with reporters on Wednesday to talk about it.
The USA will be in Pool E with France, Japan, and Samoa. The format, changed for this coming tournament, will see six pools of four teams. Everyone played three games, with the top two from each pool, plus the four best third-place teams making the Round of 16.
What that means is that getting one win puts you in the frame for a knockout round spot. Then it's a case of who has the most bonus points (four tries or loss within seven points), and then who has the better points difference, to find you best third-place teams.
"I think we want to get to the knockout round, that's a clear goal, [along] with probably everybody coming into the tournament that'd be sitting in band 3 and 4," said Lawrence. "And then anything can happen from there."
The pool matchups matter, but at the same time Lawrence shrugged off the particular group of teams.
"I don't have any feelings about it," said the coach. "It's a World Cup, all the games are tough. So, we were ready for whatever came out of it, and we'll prepare the same way."
The Eagles do play Samoa and Japan on a relatively regular basis. Lawrence did say that helps with Japan, but, he added, "Samoa, I think, will be different from what we saw before. So we'll see as we get closer to the World Cup, and the players become available, what Samoa is gonna look like."
The key, however, is to be close with every team. The goal for players is to win, but if you're not winning, you can't be blown out.
In the past, in the five-team pools, lower-seeded teams have sometimes changed their selections when playing the top-rated team in the pool, resting some players and, as a result, absorbing a big score.
Since the RWC switched to five-team pools, which was 2003 through 2023, the USA results against the top-seeded teams in their pools have been:
2003: France 41 USA 14
2007: South Africa 64 USA 15
2011: Australia 67 USA 5
2015: South Africa 64 USA 0
2019: England 45 USA 7
