The USA Women's 15s team lost 32-11 to Canada in the Women's Rugby World Cup quarterfinals and end their tournament tied for 5th with a 1-3 record.
Once again points were hard to come by. The Eagles recycled well and worked hard, but their offensive plan did not create line breaks the way other teams, including Canada, were able to do.
The USA dominated field position early in the game but took a long time, eight minutes, to finally see Jo Jo Kitlinski get on the board and stake her team to a 5-0 lead.
Canada weathered the storm and scored two tries in relatively quick succession to take the lead back 12-5. After that, it was a case of Canada's defense being patient.
The Eagles made some boneheaded mistakes—coming in offside on a lineout when the backs had been specifically told the lineout wasn't over (and the USA hd the maul under control) turned a positive into a try scoring opportunity for the Canadians, which they converted on.
The Eagles also got some bad luck. Their second try from Hope Rogers was called back for a knock-on that referee Joy Neville thought wasn't a knock-on even after looking at the video, but was somehow bullied by the TMO to change her call. It was a gray area, but hugely unlucky for the Eagles. They never really recovered.
USA 11
Tries: Kitlinski
Pens: Kelter
Canada 32
Tries: Hunt, Paquin, Farries, Tessier
Convs: De Goede 3
Pens: De Goede 2
From Kate Zackary:
“Just that I’m really proud of them. It’s a really emotional time, it’s been a really hard tournament for a lot of the girls but we talked last night about win or lose, we were going to walk off this pitch proud.
“I really couldn’t be prouder, not just of the 32 players that are here right now, but the 36 that were selected for this, [including] traveling reserves, our entire pool back at home who have been training hard the last four years for this moment, they’ve given everything to make sure the team today was most prepared.
“So, thank you to everyone back at home, thank you to everyone in the pool but a special thanks to all the fans and just letting your players come hang out with us for the last month.”
