Richie Walker’s USA Women’s 7s team has a chance to sneak up on people. 

It’s no joke. Despite a poor 2015-16 World Series season, the Eagles have a shot at a medal - if Walker has got the chemistry right, and the selections right, and the plan right, then they can do it.

Let’s talk chemistry first. Team unity was all sorts of a problem this past season, in which the Eagles had three different coaches, and a real concern there’d be some sort of player revolt. 

Two of the players at the center of those issues - Bui Baravilala (Radford HS, Hawaii) and Kathryn Johnson (Hopkins, Minn.) - are on the team. Is that a sign that all is copacetic? Quite possible.

In addition, there’s a lot to be said for singularity of purpose. We’ve seen it going into many a Rugby World Cup - the team is the team and they come together because they have no choice. The Olympics … the first Olympics for women’s rugby … has to have that zeitgeist in spades. 

Our own observations during training in June showed a team that was working hard together. They seemed to look out for each other, but weren’t all chortling and goofy - they had a job to do, and were pretty serious about it. I liked what I saw.

Now let’s look at the plan. As many will say, 7s can be a simple game, or a complex game, depending on how complicated you want to make you life. On the simple side, it’s about winning the ball you should win, and stealing one or two possessions you shouldn’t be expected to get. It’s about creating mismatches - fast v slow, strong v weak, numbers v space - and exploiting them.

The problem I saw with the USA team in recent months was that they played too much on their own. There wasn’t the same feeling of trust - mostly because players weren’t running in support, and runners weren’t thinking offload as a result (previous coach Julie McCoy said all this, and while she was ousted, she wasn’t wrong).

So what I am seeing now is a team that is starting to execute on various levels. They are winning ball, and using that ball relatively well. I like that we’ve got Jill Potter (New Mexico), Carmen Farmer (Virginia Tech), and Johnson on this team, because they can win the ball in the air. That sometimes means lineouts, but it mostly means winning restarts. That’s where the Eagles can dominate a game. If they win restarts kicked by Baravilala or Alev Kelter (who both kick quite well), they can go from scoring to scoring again. That’s the essence of the plan that pulled Alex Magleby out of the coaching peloton and put him in charge of the Eagles and, now, USA Rugby’s HP efforts. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s some Magleby influence there, but really anyone with a functioning video device can see that winning restarts is gold for a 7s team. 

So they’ve won the ball, now what. I’d like to see the ball moved swiftly, which they are doing a better job of lately. And then once it gets to the dangerous runners, that’s where we need to see a different approach. Lauren Doyle (EIU), Jessica Javelet, Victoria Folayan (Stanford), and Richelle Stephens (Fallbrook HS) have to balance taking that gap and punishing missed tackles with holding onto the ball too long. If they have the faith that someone will be there to help, they might be able to take a promising movement and ship that ball back to the other side for tries.

It can happen, but they have to be on it all the time.

Up front, Ryan Carlyle (South Carolina) and Joanne Fa’avesi (Sacramento Amazons) are not overly imposing. They are strong and smart players, but probably give up some size to other teams. That means they have to work hard than everyone on the field. They need to be able to cover ground, get there early, get that body position perfect, and never, ever be in doubt. With a relatively small team, which the USA is despite those tall three, hesitation kills.

And that, of course, falls on the laps of the halfbacks and interiors backs Stephens, Kelly Griffin (UCLA), Baravilala, and Kelter. Those guys must be precise, quick, aggressive, and focused. They can be all of those things - we’ve seen it. But there can be no mistakes.

All of that creates a team that moves very quickly, moves the ball quickly, retains possession, and tires teams out.

But that doesn’t address defense, and there is where I am most worried. The size and acceleration of the major medal contenders - New Zealand, Great Britain, Canada, and Australia - is such that missed tackles are probably inevitable. But they have to keep those to a minimum and shut those chances down immediately.

More than anything, defense has to be a love for this team. If they don’t love playing D and making effective tackles - and we know at times only two or three players have appeared to feel that way - then they’re in trouble.

Still the USA Falcons won the London 7s with a lineup that was almost exactly the one they are taking to Rio (one or two differences). In doing so, they scored three tries in each of five of their games, and the other game won 7-0. They defeated Great Britain, Canada, Spain, and Brazil.

Can they do better in Rio? Maybe scoring four tries a game?

 

The USA WNT schedule is this:

August 6, USA v Fiji at noon ET, 9am PT. (NBC Sports Network) This is a game the USA should win, and will only lose if they fumble the ball and miss tackles.

August 6, USA v Colombia 5pm ET, 2pm PT. (CNBC) This is another game the USA should win and, in fact, would do well to win by a lot.

August 7, USA v Australia 12:30pm ET, 9:30pm PT. (USA Network) Right now you’d have to say Australia is favored here, but the Eagles have won this matchup before. They don’t have to win it, though - all they need to do is make the score respectable. We’ll be watching for that.

 

August 7, Quarterfinals 1pm or 1:30pm ET, 10am or 10:30am PT. (NBC Sports Network) Well this is about getting a good matchup. If they do, then a win puts them in the medal realm. This is the crucial one. Win this game and you’ve got two chances to win a medal.

 

August 8, Semifinals 1:30pm and 2pm, ET, 10:30am and 11am PT. (NBC Sports Network)

August 8, Bronze Medal Match 5:30pm ET, 2:30pm PT.  (CNBC)

August 8, Gold Medal Match 6pm ET, 3pm PT.  (CNBC)

 

Well we won’t talk about the medal stuff just yet. Let’s take care of business on August 6 first.

 

USA Women Olympic 7s lineup:

Bui Baravilala

Ryan Carlyle

Lauren Doyle

Joanne Fa'avesi

Carmen Farmer

Victoria Folayan

Kelly Griffin

Jessica Javelet

Kathryn Johnson

Alev Kelter

Jillion Potter

Richelle Stephens