USA Men's Head Coach Scott Lawrence has made five changes to the starting lineup set to face Spain this coming Saturday.

Of those changes, three are in the front row and are part of a rotation within that unit. The other two are Mark O'Keeffe on the wing for Connor Mooneyham, who he replaced in the first half of the USA vs Tonga match, and Erich Storti in at fullback for Mitch Wilson. Wilson received a red card against Tonga for a dangerous tackle, and after the resulting disciplinary meeting he is under a three-game suspension, which includes this coming weekend.

The USA is coming off an impressive showing against Tonga where the Eagles won 36-19, logging their first victory over the Sea Eagles since 1999. Two key aspects of that victory, said Lawrence, were physicality and discipline.

"It was a five-penalty performance," said Lawrence. "We knew we wanted to have a disciplined performance and we knew if we could deliver physicality in a legal way, that would open up opportunities. It's been something weve been working on for months."

 Captain Greg Peterson added to that, saying that it was a huge battle of a game, and "credit to the boys for getting the chop tackles. But I also think what stood out for me was the maturity of the squad. We gave up an easy score early and in the past we might have got down on ourselves but we didn't, and even when we were down to 14 men we won that period."

It was a short week of preparation with a travel from France back to Spain and it's been a long assembly, so the key this week has been managing bodies and at the same time installing a plan for Spain.

"They're expected to be a set piece team and they have a well-rounded kicking game and we have a plan to handle the kicking game," said Peterson. They'll want to try and win those kick transitions, win the ball back and play some lose and expansive footy, so we've implanted a couple plans to take those strengths away."

It is a different type of opponent compared to Tonga. Lawrence has a deep three of Nate Augspurger, Storti, and O'Keeffe, that should be strong under the ball and aggressive in counter-attack. 

"We are asking those players and our nine and 10 to work hard on that and that's one reason we have a 5-3 split on the bench. It's a different type of back three but Erick is a good, young athlete and we're excited to see what he can do."

Augspurger, meanwhile, was a massive defender against Tonga despite being the smallest player on the field. He fearlessly went in low to take down much larger players.

"Nate has played 7s and 15s for a long time and he has been doing that throughout his career," said Peterson. "He knows how to go low and chop guys down and he's had a commitment to it and he's made a living doing that for a long time."

Blindside flanker Ignacio Piñeiro captains the Lions of Spain, a team a third of which plays professionally in France. The rest play for clubs domestically in Spain. The Lions are coming into this game having played similar opponents to the USA. The Eagles lost 18-13 to Samoa and 21-3 to Fiji, as well as beating Tonga 36-19. Spain lost 34-30 to Samoa this year, and 33-19 to Fiji a week ago. They also played Tonga in July and lost 29-20. November 9, Spain beat Uruguay 33-24, which was an impressive result for the Spanish.