The USA Men's 7s team is back in the SVNS World Series core group after the Eagles beat Samoa Sunday in Madrid.
The format of the qualifier tournament was a little odd—teams played pool play over two days just to seed themselves for a one-off Sunday match. There were four of those one-offs and the winners made the SVNS series. The losers have to try to requalify next year. USA Head Coach Mike Friday made plain his disdain for that format when interviewed on the live broadcast.
"Sadly winning rugby games doesn't matter," Friday said on Saturday. "We've got the roulette game tomorrow. Don't get me started on this format."
Friday said this during the game with Canada, which the Eagles didn't need to win in order to win their pool. He ran out a different lineup for that game and the USA still won, but not especially easily.
What all of that did was rest up the starting seven for Sunday in the hopes that they would take control against Samoa. This they did. Orrin Bizer was immense in this match, making several huge players and scoring two tries. Bizer's work rate added to his powerful presence in contact, and in fact in the final play of the game, a meaningless long-range try by Samoa, it was Bizer who chased Vaa Apelu Maliko all the way back.
Lucas Lacamp sped out of a tackle and was over at two minutes, and while Samoa responded, some quick hands got the ball to Perry Baker for a breakaway try. The Eagles ended the half with a perfect grubber from Naima Fuala'au that Baker chased down and grabbed one-handed to take over.
