A torrid first half in which they dominated possession and field position stakes the USA Men’s 15s team to a big lead and set the Eagles up for a 31-17 victory over Romania on a very hot Saturday evening in Bucharest.
In this, the first game of a three-match tour of Europe, the USA saw nine players earn their first caps. The lineup was much changed from last year in part due to overseas professional clubs not having to release their players for international callus. Regardless, some of the debutants showed very well, and the USA set piece, especially in the first three quarters of the match, dominated.
Who Are These Guys? The Eagle Summer Tour
The USA kicked off and quickly showed a very aggressive attacking and defending mindset. It was that aggression that set up their first good scoring chance, with flyhalf Luke Carry kicking wide for Nate Augspurger. The Oaks defended but kind of fumbled the ball into touch, so the Eagles mauled from the ensuing lineout, crashed at the line with the forwards, and finally put (we think) debutant Paddy Ryan over for the opening score (although it might have been Sam Golla) Correction—after a frame-by-fram look at the replay we have determined that it was Cam Dolan who scored. Luke Carty’s conversion attempt was good and it was 7-0 before seven minutes were on the clock.
It took a few minutes but Romania finally did get some possession. They had found the USA defense quite strong and so looked to defeat that with quick picks off the rucks. Still the USA defense, and especially their scrum, were very good.
That pressure led to a lineout and drive (with inside center Tommaso Boni gleefully joining in on the maul) to set up an attack out wide. But the pass to Augspurger didn’t quite find him.
Following that, another attacking lineout resulted in a penalty against the USA for obstruction, and the score remained a somewhat frustrating 7-0.
Finally they did get over. Off another lineout the USA ran a snappy little play. New cap Ryan, who had been making plenty of tackles at flanker, got the chance to run with the ball. He peeled off the back the maul and then fed Augspurger on his inside. The wing drew his man and passed inside to new cap Nick McCarthy and the scrumhalf did the rest.
It was a very nicely-executed move and the USA led 12-0 at 25 minutes.
That seemed to energize the USA as they found the tryline one more time before halftime. The forwards, led by skipper Greg Peterson, made the hard yards before the backs went right—Boni linking up with Christian Dyer. The Eagles, looking fitter than they did in last year’s tests, were quick to the breakdown and ran a couple of phases nicely as Dyer raced from the right wing out to the left. McCarthy was quick to get the ball out and a quick catch-pass from hooker Dylan Fawsitt set up Mika Kruse to feed Dyer. The wing had some work to do but was over nicely. Carty converted and it was 19-0 USA after 40 minutes.
