Whether the Rugby Americas North U19 Championship will see the CRAA U19s compete or another team represent the USA, the tournament itself carries much value.
As GRR has mentioned, sometimes the reason to play is to be a good citizen of World Rugby. The United States often argues to have top-tier nations to play against, but there are events when the USA is the high-tier team to offer challenges to others.
That's why the USA, in one form or another, has participated and, more often than not, won.
For this year's team, Head Coach Sean Duffy definitely saw the value.
"I agree that it's important to be there," Duffy told GRR. "World Rugby said it was important that we were there, and I think if a USA team chose not to go it would be a bit disrespectful of what the other nations are trying to do. Yes, we weren't a true USA team, it was similar, but it was a CRAA team. Even so, what we were able to do was get high school and young college players used to international rugby. Everything from the preparation to playing for your country to the post-match handshakes was valuable."
The camaraderie of the sport certainly made an impact.
"Our guys saw how unique our sport is," said Duffy.
The CRAA team stayed at the venue, which has a training/hotel combination facility. The Mexico team stayed there, too, and the two teams mixed and learned a lot about each other. When Mexico was playing against Jamaica, the American players watched from the balconies and cheered for the Mexico.
The CRAA players had bought a bunch of Lucha Libre wrestling masks. They asked the Mexico team if it was OK to wear them, and the coaches and players said "yes, please, wear the masks."
So the Americans wore the masks and yelled for the Mexicans.
"World Rugby saw this and they saw why this is good," said Duffy. "It's pretty special when it comes down to this group. I will remember this tour for a while. Winning ws great, but really what was special was how close this team got."
But it was more than that. The coaches embraced chasing a standard, not just winning, or even worrying about winning. Yes they ended up outscoring the opposition 238-10 over four shortened games and one full-length effort. But they were chasing something more.
Peter Malcolm, the coach in charge of the scrums, asked Duffy how he should coach it. This was U19 rugby and so the drive limit is a meter and a half.
Coach full scrums, said Duffy. This tournament will be the last time the players worry about short-drive scrums, as they are in college or are going to be in college this fall. So get them ready for that.
