The USA Men’s National Team is looking ahead to playing Romania this coming weekend in Bucharest, and will try to put into practice lessons learned from Friday’s loss to the Maori All Blacks.

Eagles Head Coach John Mitchell called the Maori the best non-test team in the world during the post-match press conference, and indeed the Maori are finally finding a long-term identity as a high-performance identification program for the world champs. Of course the Maori All Blacks are good.

But, having said that, Mitchell added that with such a good team, you shouldn’t be helping them.

“The way I look at it is … what did [the Maori] create, and what did we give them? And we gave them a fair bit,” said Mitchell. “I’d rather play a side of that quality and learn from it. There are certainly some things we can fix.”

Mitchell said he and his coaches could have done better to help the players defend the lineout and drive - the Maori scored several tries from that platform. And there were things that were on the players too - they didn’t convert some crucial chances, and their kicking out of their own 22 wasn’t consistent. 

“Certainly in the first half we were stuck in our back 50,” he said.

The USA didn’t have a ton of scoring opportunities, but they did have a few. Early in the game Matai Leuta was almost over, but was a little high in his running and was stopped. However, he did well to recycle and set up another chance for his backs, and it was a curious choice by captain Todd Clever not to give that final pass to an unmarked Danny Barrett. Clever opted to engage two tacklers and was tackled and dispossessed. 

Later on, Martin Iosefo came very close to scoring, and there were a few more opportunities, but that first one hurt, because a few minutes later the Maori scored their opening try.

“The one thing when you play New Zealanders, if you don’t convert or you knock-on or make a poor decision, they’ll punish you,” said Mitchell. “They didn’t really build a huge amount of phases against us; they didn’t need to, because we were soft in first phase.”

So that’s it right there. You can talk about execution on tackles (and the missed tackle count against the Maori was not good), but it’s more about better kicking from hand, being smart when the chances are there, and getting out of your own way.

This will be the job against Romania, a team the USA has beaten twice in the past four season. Romania is one of the USA’s oldest rivals, as they first met in the 1920 Olympics. The Eagles have won six times, and lost just once. The two teams have, curiously, never faced each other on US soil.

Mitchell was clear about what he expects from the Mighty Oaks.

“They are a bloody big side, they are huge,” said Mitchell. “They’ll already started their scrum and lineout driving and that’s where they’ll come. They are are organized defensively and generate line speed.”

Mitchell said he still needs more depth, and he wants to see his players fitter and stronger. He needs more consistency in skill execution, especially in making the ball available, retaining the rucks, and kicking … so much kicking.