The USA Women’s Under 20s are in South Africa to mirror the senior team with a two-match series in that country.
The U20s had been training at Mount St. Mary's University and that time together before the trip was pretty important.
Now the team will be in the High Performance Center in Stellenbosch as they get set to play the South African U20s July 17 at the Markotter Sports Field.
This is a very important tour for a number of reasons. One of them is that we're at a period of change within the women's international game. South Africa s a rugby nation has not, for some time, been a massive supporter of women's rugby, at least at the international level.
But in the last few years they have put more support behind it, and that has been helped along by better performances from the Springboks. With enthusiasm and funding behind the Women's Springboks, South Africa could be a world power from now on.
Meanwhile, the USA, once the best team in the world and for many years one of the top three, has struggled of late in a period of change within the program and the women's game in the USA.
And we are seeing more changes coming. The time of the good club player is disappearing, and the time of the professional (paid or not) who is used to being in a daily training environment, is here.
The younger players on the USA National Team are, as a whole, fitter, more skilled for their age, and have more high-level experience than their predecessors.
The college game in the USA, notably the NIRA teams but with also Life, BYU, and some other school-supported programs in there, too, is producing players who understand quickly what is needed from them.
We can see this in the current U20 group, too. Every single player has played high school rugby, with top-performing programs such as Majestics heavily represented.
And of the travel squad of 27, one is still in US high school rugby (Majestics) and one is in high school in New Zealand. The rest are all either in NIRA programs are at Life University, which has nine players on the team including capped Eagle Bella Vogel.
Three-time NIRA champs Harvard has six players on the team.
This is a squad that understands a professional approach, and this group of 19- and 20-year-olds, when the 2033 Rugby World Cup rolls around, will be 26 or 27, right in the prime of their careers.
