USA Men's National 15s Head Coach Scott Lawrence has chosen his squad for this summer's test matches against Belgium, Spain, and England.
This squad list has several changes in it compared to the same roster a year ago. Injuries, retirements, and the emergence of some young players have all prompted the changes. Fifteen players in the roster were not playing for the Eagles a year ago.
Lawrence has also made a small shift in the makeup of the roster. Often a team will have three hookers and five props in a squad of 32, but Lawrence has gone with Caleb Geiger, who can play both hooker and prop, essentially making it six props with adding an extra player. Lawrence has also expanded his roster of loose forwards, and seems to have chosen more specialist loosies (rather than flanker-lock hybrids).
There are also seven backs in the roster who didn't play in the Pacific Nations Cup last summer.
Some Things to Note
It's a fact of life in international rugby that overseas talent, whether trained overseas but born in the USA, or born overseas and moved to this country to establish residency, is still a major source of international players. Of this group of 32, only 10 played high school rugby in the USA, and only 12 played college rugby in the USA.
Four of those collegiates come from Saint Mary's and two each from Cal and Life University.
Several of the newer faces are in that prime age of 25-29. That includes Christian Poidevin, son of Australian legend Simon Poidevin, Tevita Nagalu, who is 6-6, 29, and played for a Fijian XV that beat the Barbarians, and 26-year-old prop Ezekia Lindenmuth to name just three.
Notable also is Rufus McLean. The former Scottish international has the right to switch countries because he was born in the USA, Boston to be exact. World Rugby's rule on that is you can switch countries if you are switching to the nation of your birth. McLean, 25, was capped three times for Scotland but not since 2022.
Not all of the players without a high school or college listed is from overseas. Some are just converts from other sports and may have been exposed to rugby in a less serious fashion.
Philosophy
Lawrence has long talked about his desire for a high level of physicality in his USA team and he has picked players accordingly. He has used the term explosive to describe Pono David and Tonga Kofe in the front row. He has picked football and wrestling converts.
Interestingly, while there has been for a while a trend toward loose forwards with significant height, Lawrence has not gone that direction. His newer additions to the back row, Poidevin and Makeen Alikhan are 6-1 or 6-2, in the low 200s in weight, and are chosen because they are high work rate hunter-seekers.
Lawrence also needs versatility, especially off the bench. Most teams run a bench of six forwards or sometimes five, and having a back that can play multiple positions, and Thomas Pitman, Nate Augspurger, and Erich Storti all fit that bill, is highly useful. The same story is in the forwards. With a player who can prop or hook, Geiger offers options with how the bench can be populated.
The USA plays Belgium in Charlotte on July 5, and Spain, also in Charlotte, on July 12. They wrap up their summer series with the double-header in DC when the women play Fiji and the men play England.
