The USA women lost 12-7 in the opening game of the Rio Olympics Women’s Rugby 7s event.

It was an exciting and historic day for the sport as rugby returned to the Olympic playing fields, but the USA team didn’t execute the way they wanted to, or can.

The game started with a perfect kickoff from Alev Kelter, with Kathryn Johnson going up for the ball to knock it back.

The Eagles had the ball then, but Bui Baravilala bounced around too much with the ball and her loopy pass wide for Vix Folayan wasn’t on point and Folayan couldn’t handle it.

From that knock-on, Fiji attacked impressive and only a series of desperate tackles - Baravilala and Kelly Griffin made the two most impressive stops - by the USA team prevented a try. Kelter came in to poach the ball right on the goal line, and after some worrying moments, the Americans got away from their line. But again Baravilala delayed her pass too long for Johnson on the wing, and Johnson came up too hard, and thus the freeing pass to make something happened was forward.

From that scrum, Fiji attacked and Luisa Tisolo just breezed through a gap for a 7-0 Fiji lead.

The Eagles couldn’t get anything going in the first half. They ran a penalty but Baravilala allowed her to be pushed to the touchline (she offloaded before going into touch but there was nothing her support could do to prevent the lineout). Fiji almost broke through but were called back from a forward pass, but later when the Eagles had the ball, it was Johnson who allowed herself to be taken to touch. 

So it was 7-0 at halftime, and a chance for the USA to re-set, and get their players into the game. Griffin, Folayan, Lauren Doyle, and especially Jill Potter had not had much of a hand in the attack side of things, and it showed.

In the second half the Americans received the kickoff and started going forward. But Johnson was caught in contact and the ball was ripped out of her hands by Timaima Ravisa, who took off for the tryline, and just like that, no re-set, no rebound, and a 12-0 Fiji lead.

The USA was somewhat better after that, but still had trouble corralling the sideways running and slick ball movement of Fiji. The USA players went into a ton of contact - in part because Fiji was so aggressive in coming up on defense - but also they looked hesitant, unsure of what their teammates would do, and their passing was suspect.

Penalties helped set up Baravilala to offload to Kelter, who raced in under the posts to make it 12-7. But there was no more scoring. The Eagles had possession chances, but goofed them up. A terrific try-saving tackle from Johnson set up a lineout, but a too-low pass from Kelter forced Richelle Stephens to battle to save it - scrum Fiji. USA stole the scrum, but lost the ball forward after two bad passes. 

Then the Eagles got a penalty to get out of their 22, but lost the ball in the ruck - the Fijians were very quick on poaching the ball - and that was it.

We hardly saw Potter. We hardly saw Lauren Doyle. The USA execution was very poor, and they were far too slow to the breakdown. As a result, they are 0-1 in pool play, and need to raise their game.