Weekendus Horriblus or Reason for Hope?
Weekendus Horriblus or Reason for Hope?
Singapore was not great for the USA 7s teams.
Hoping to get on a roll as the LA Sevens Championships approach, the Eagles instead found themselves trying not to finish in last place in their respective tournaments.
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USA Women
For the USA women, the combination of power, explosiveness, fitness, and game understanding that Ilona Maher and Alev Kelter brought is tough to replace. You might get two or even three of those elements in one player, but all four?
You won’t get the same veteran experience. On such thin margins are fortunes made. Being slightly out of position for a pass, or for a tackle; being just a bit too nervous to make that catch or be timely on a read.
That led to a one-score loss to Great Britain and close losses to Canada and Spain.
With only two pool matches, that meant little time in which to effect fixes, and by Game Four, they were playing Brazil hoping not to finish 12th.
It didn’t start too well, as Brazil’s Yasmin Soares bust through the middle to score in the first minute. The USA’s response was a strong run from Nia Toliver, fending off tacklers repeatedly before finally scoring the try.
It was a 7-7 game until Sam Sullivan took an outside line, and Kristi Kirshe showed pass before keeping it and cutting through.
So it was 12-7 for the USA and when Ariana Ramsey slice around and through like she can, it was a fairly commanding 19-7 lead.
But Bianca Silva’s brilliant sidestep and run left Kirshe watching from the ground and Brazil was within a score again.
After a rough tournament did the USA have that killer instinct? The key here for Head Coach Emilie Bydwell would be to rely on her reserves, the least experienced players, to raise the level. Otherwise, why are they on the roster?
If you were watching at the time you might have been yelling at the screen. Alyssa Porter is there to break tackles and challenge defenders and she was being all unselfish and passing the ball. But finally, when brazil was penalized for hands in the ruck, Ramsey tapped and Porter was there calling for the ball … finally!
She took the pass and took off to seal the victory. Brazil would score one more, but it was too late.
This is not a perfect unified team. They need this month to connect the dots a little better, but, crucially, the newer players have to learn to trust themselves and their training to make decisions and take action quickly.
Right now this is a team not far off the pace, but off the pace they are.
USA Men
Off the pace was been the story of the USA men all season. But this time we can add injury and illness to the mix. Forced to make changes and even bring in, if needed, Perry Baker, the Eagle men also brought in Peter Sio, Jr. (Belmont Shore, CSULB), Porter Goodrum (Charlotte Tigers, Cardiff Met), and Ryan Santos (Harvard, Cambridge Blue. All good players, but this was a disjointed group.
You could see it all through the tournament—players too flat, passes to no one, and an annoying tendency to be off their feet in rucks.
Smoked by New Zealand and Fiji, they were a conversion away from tying South Africa. That still tracked them to the 11th-12th game against a good France team.
Connections remained an issue early in this game. Bad passes forced captain Lucas Lacamp to race back into his own in-goal to touch the ball down to avoid a try. It was a momentary reprieve as France scored right off the ensuing scrum.
But some good counterrucking from Ben Broselle and Santos produced a turnover and Santos was off. He has Broselle in support but Broselle was far too flat for Santos to be able to pass to him—it’s a manifestation of a lack of confidence in the team as a whole … players creep up rather than hang a meter or so back.
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Eventually, though, a tackle and poach from Aaron Cummings allowed the USA to get the ball to Santos again. Off he went again. Broselle was too flat again, so he never got the pass he should have received as the faster player. Oh well, Santos went the distance.
Broselle then did score on a superb cutback that was set up by a quick catch-pass from Ulu Niutpuivaha—on the team after a long apprenticeship, Niutpuivaha showed a ton of skill and work rate. He should be back in this lineup.
As the game progressed, neither team draped itself in glory. Missed passes, poor ruck support, all contributed to that. In the end defensive pressure from the USA was what put them in position to score Broselle’s try and it set them up for another, backing the French up to their tryline. Except, Liam Delamare found a hole, and ran 99 meters to score and tie the game 12-12. A little moment of being out of position cost the Eagles.
Lacamp put in a try-saving tackle to preserve the tie, but the USA was not working enough off the ball and not reading the situation enough—all signs of not being supremely confident.
Overtime … and the USA’s best sequence. France won the restart but lost the ball in contact. They send it down the line to Broselle, and then back the other way with Goodrum doing well to avoid a tackle and Jack Wendling challening the defense.
Marcus Tupuola picked up to go weak, wisely changed his mind, and found Jack Broselle, who fights his way forward. Niutupuivaha was bothered at the ruck but managed to get a pass out to Goodrum, who sent a a high pass to Santos. Knowing he would be hit and knowing catching that pass wasn’t going to help anyone, he flicked the ball on, blind.
This is what happens when you start to develop a chemistry. This is what happens when players communicate. The ball bounced to Ben Broselle, and he beat his man to score the game-winner.
Yeah, OK, 11th out of 12. Yeah, OK, the USA men are 12th out of 12 in the SVNS World Series by a decent margin. But there are flashes.
