USA Women Struggle to 1-1 on Day One in Sydney
USA Women Struggle to 1-1 on Day One in Sydney
It was tough going for the USA in Day One of the Sydney 7s.
The Eagle women finished 1-1 with a thin win over Canada and a thin loss to Fiji—a dangerous team we've been warning you about.
Against Canada the USA was burned early as they fell off, or were bumped off, tackles.
Once they did, their attack seemed to stall thanks to some really loose passing that looked as if the USA players were rolling the ball along the ground intentionally. Strangely enough, sometimes such poor ball movement can put the defense in two minds (chase or contain?) and Kristi Kirshe picked the ball up off the deck and cut through a hole to score.
The USA retained possession after that and worked their way slowly down the field, with a few Canadian penalties helping.
But the approach was fairly vanilla, giving the Canadians plenty of time to cover and key on the likes of Ilona Maher and Sam Sullivan, who got little space with which to work. Finally, after all the side-to-side, Cheta Emba went straight ahead. The tackles were too upright and she just bulled her way under the posts for a 14-5 lead.
Canada scored late but the Eagles did a really solid job of running out the clock, staying with their support and staying away from the touchline to win 14-12.
It wasn't pretty—as co-captain Naya Tapper said, it was the result they wanted but not the process— but they got the job done.
Against Fiji, some USA issues bubbled to the surface. Their restarts are poor. Having seen their best restart kicker and their best restart chase retire, the USA still needs work on getting that right. Certainly Alena Olsen needs more hang time on her kicks, but she also needs someone getting up in the air for them. Receiving they are not much better.
For the opening kickoff of this game the USA split their chasers left and right, and then Olsen went down the middle. The kick was nowhere near high enough for Emba to get under it and Fiji put Ana Maria Naimasi through almost untouched. On the ensuing restart the Fiji kick landed before the 10-meter, but bounced past it where Kayla Canett fielded the ball. She couldn't really do much else but then ideally someone would have been there for an offload or to help her mange being tackled. Naya Tapper kind of stood next to her and watched it happen.
Lineout Fiji. They win the lineout, ship it wide, and the USA started defending. They defended well, tackled aggressively, with Canett making several, and worked hard to get the ball back. Fiji's offloading and ball movement was good and all it ended up doing was tire the American defenders to the extent that when the gap showed itself, Adi Vani Buleki was through fairly comfortably.
That was the game right there. Three minutes gone and the USA had touched the ball once, by one player, who was pushed into touch. They didn't have enough ability to score quickly or get possession back easily to come back.
Kirshe put on a move and went through from long range. However the second half ended with Olsen having Maher available and space and instead opting to run her wing out of any option but to cut back into two players. Ultimately Sullivan got close but was penalized for a double movement when she tried to score. Penalty, and end of the half.
In the second half, Fiji absorbed some USA attack, got the ball back, and then kicked deep to chase down. Somehow the Eagles rescued it and took a ruck at their tryline, but off that Maher though she was getting a short ball to burst onto; Lauren Doyle was sending what appeared to be a wide pass. The result was a high ball off Maher's shoulder and Bulaki picked it up to score.
It was a bad mistake at a bad time and seemed to seal the game. Slowly the Eagles worked their way through and finally a few offloads back and forth put Nicole Heavirland through for a try and that made it 17-14. Amazingly, they got two more chances; a scrum with two minutes left and a lineout with one second left. Each time a silly mistake—bad passes in one example and a ruck penalty when they had the ball—gave up possession.
But it was a good win for Fiji, who will target Canada on Day Two to get to 2-1.
Meanwhile, Great Britain beat Canada to go 2-0. GB plays a fairly simple game as well, and they did benefit from two verrry iffy calls (a non-call on holding-on and a penalty on Canada when GB had dived onto the ball) that directly led to tries.
Certainly the USA is capable of beating Great Britain (and the way the pools are sitting they probably don't even need to), but passing back and forth to the edge and hoping someone falls off Sullivan or Maher isn't a strategy.
