After a short turnaround the USA U18s and U20s both won well in the second round of the Corendon Summer Tour in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
The USA U23s did not have a game Wednesday and are in the middle of preparations to play Delta on Saturday. (Delta is a Dutch-based franchise playing in the Rugby Europe Super Cup, which starts its season in September.)
The U18s and U20s didn't have a lot of practice time after the first round of games, but they did have several film review sessions. After a day off on Sunday they trained Monday working on adjustments from the previous games, and then had a captains run Tuesday before playing on Wednesday in Round 2.
Wednesday was a good day. The U18s torched Canada's U18s 38-10 in an impressive display of using the width of the field to exploit their speed advantage.
All through the first half the USA team caused Canada problems out wide. Wings Jacob Bower and Corbin Smith had room to move, and Smith cruised around the outside from a good scrum platform for an early try. A kick wide from inside his own 22 from flyhalf Ollie Cline set up another try on the right side, and then Cline did it again, this time after concerted pressure in the Canadian end of the field.
The forwards worked well, scrumming effectively and handling the lineouts, and they worked hard to get there in support when the speedsters put on the jets. But perhaps their best moment was a goalline stand where Canada looked certain to score, but were instead forced into a penalty.
From there the USA team cruised 38-10. Smith scored three tries and added four conversions for 23 points.
