The USA faces Canada, Fiji, and Australia in pool play in the Vancouver 7s on Saturday and, yes, that’s a tough pool, but they are always tough.
USA captain Kristi Kirshe and Head Coach Emilie Bydwell say the team has been working on ways to mke it a fourth straight semifinal appearance and, hopefully, more.
It’s a Tough Pool
“I think it's exciting to play Canada first,” said Kirshe. “You know, every time we play Canada, it's just such an epic rivalry. You know, we get pitted against each other all the time. But I think it's exciting, and it's also it's a challenge that we get to rise to from like the start, and I think it's exciting that we kind of have to find our footing and be ready to go and shift into fifth gear from the first game.”
“It seems that every year that we're in Vancouver, we end up playing Canada at home,” added Bydwell. “And I think they've been some of the best games. The rivalry is really strong, and they're very good team; they've got some exciting players back in their lineup. And so it's really going to put us under pressure, to really be locked in for that game. And I think that's when we play our best.”
The Eagles have made the semis three straight times, only to lose in the semis and also lose the 3rd-4th match. That’s been on their minds.
“I think what's happening is it's just we aren't playing to our intentions and to our philosophy, and then when we're losing—we're calling it our commitment to our core behaviors—we’re losing the commitment to the core behaviors, like getting into position, early support, speed, line speed, things like that.”
The team slips into playing too individual to chase the game
“That's what I felt happened a bit in that France game in Perth, and we reflected on that as a team, and how we can identify when that starts to happen,” said Bydwell. “And we start to kind of get that tunnel vision and and how we can kind of turn towards each other and connect back to how we want to play, and try to do that in the moment.
“We’ve played in three bronze medal games in a row, and, yeah, they've been very close. They're not like these massive blowouts, but for us to make sure that we're really taking the learnings. We learned this in the Olympic qualification year right before the Olympic qualification year does take time to learn how to win a bronze medal, but we've had three opportunities to do that.”
You lose a semifinal match and have to bounce back immediately to win a game. You have to learn to do that.
“I think one of the special things about rugby is, I don't think there's any other sport where you have to kind of reel from the feelings of a loss, and turn around and have to play again two hours later,” said Kirshe. “I think it's like a unique part of our sport, specifically, and also something that does take time to learn how to do. I think we've learned a lot about it this year. I think now we're trying to teach a new generation of what it takes to win on the Series in general, and also what it takes to win in those third-place games and those really gritty matches. I think Em said this a few times: ‘we're looking for gritty, not gorgeous.’ And I think that's a really good put it. It's not always going to be pretty, but still finding a way to win…I think we're really trying to embrace that.”
Coming into Vancouver, the Eagles have been working on a new defensive approach to handle Australia, and once in town, they have scrimmaged with France in part because the French play a lot like the Canadians. They are targeting more than just holding onto third. They have to.
“It really is [about] how do we improve 5% from this weekend? And then the next weekend?” said Kirshe. “We’re not going to change our systems. We're not going to throw everything out. It's just about, how can we be a little bit better at the things that we're trying to do? What are the two or three things on attack and defense and set piece that we really need to focus in on? We have to go into these games knowing that these are going to be hard games. So there really are no easy games.”
