Coming out of their tour of South Africa the USA U20 women have made a statement.
If South Africa is one of the up-and-coming nations in women's rugby, and they are, then the USA U20s beating South Africa's U20s 47-12 and 60-17 shows that someone else is up-and-coming.
And this feeds into GRR's own assessments
https://goffrugbyreport.com/news/usa-u20-women-explosive-tour-win
The daily training environment in NIRA teams (plus one or two other collegiate programs) backed up by the strongest high school programs that produce players for those colleges, is producing a cadre of young players who are just stronger in rugby, athleticism, and an understanding of the effort level involved, than those who play club, college or senior.
Fueled by support from the entire National Team coaching effort, the U20s under Head Coach Katie Dowty want into the tour understanding that they were part of something bigger. This hasn't always been the case.
"[The Eagles coaches] understand the potential of this age group and are very invested in seeing they reach their full potential," Dowty told GRR.
The theme for this tour was Eagles 33, which is easy to interpret. This group of 19- and 20-year-olds will be 26 and 27 when the 2033 Rugby World Cup rolls around. They will be in their prime.
"These players are athletic, they have a multi-sport background, and they are the first generation of players when most of them have been playing rugby for five, eight, even 10 teams," said Dowty. "They have benefited from youth systems and they understand application of skill and high-performance. They aren't standout athletes who just discovered rugby, for the most part. They are standout athletes who fell into rugby early."
By embracing the Eagles 33 theme, these players were putting pressure on themselves.
"The concept is for them to really own the fact that they will make up the core of the World Cup squad in 2033 and we believe can be a real contender to win. That is their World Cup to own. It's playing the long game, and giving us seven years to close that gap."
So this tour was about winning rugby and playing well, but it was just as much about learning High Performance behaviors and learning that by becoming the starter on your college team, or making a USA U20 team you haven't arrived—you've just made another step.
"We told them, when you go home, don't go out and be the same player you were last week," said Dowty.
So beating South Africa 107-29 isn't enough.
So Who Were These Players?
The U20 Eagles were led by already capped Eagle Bella Vogel. Homeschooled as a youngster by devoted parents, starring in high school as a 13-year-old, and quickly becoming a starter at Life University as a freshman, Vogel has maintained a refreshing humility while being, in general, the best player wherever she plays.
Becoming the USA senior Eagles starting flyhalf while still qualifying for the U20s is pretty impressive, but perhaps a better story is the weekend when she earned her first cap. The USA played Canada on April 24. A day later she was in Indianapolis, where Life was playing in the CRAA 7s Championships. With injuries hitting Life, Vogel begged her coach, Ryszard Chadwick, to let her play.
Chadwick's answer was an emphatic "No!" so during Sunday's knockout games Vogel served as water-carrier as her Running Eagles won the title anyway.
"Having Bella with us provided so much leadership because she's just so comfortable in that situation," said Dowty. "It was an intentional decision to bring her just to keep accelerating her growth and getting her meaningful minutes. I thought she played brilliantly."
In a position to just play Vogel-ball and go for the glory, Vogel instead opened the door for everyone else. That attitude spread through the team.
"The whole team was very level-headed," said Dowty. "I was very impressed with how they handled pressure. It's really important to understand their point of difference and what will set America apart. We have this incredible level of athleticism. We've been recognized as physical, but we have unleashed out athleticism and our emphasis on this tour was how we could turn our strength into momentum."
This USA U20 team played fast-break rugby. At the center of that was Vogel and scrumhalf Annie Henrich, another player who has grown up in the sport and just thinks and makes decisions faster than most.
"They learned that every ruck is a moment of transition and if we can get quick ball and some go-forward, we can be hard to stop."
All of the players found success, but a few stood out. We already mentioned Vogel, and then Henrich was hugely influential as a scrumhalf who can play center and fullback.
"Annie's will to win if off the charts," said Dowty. She certainly works hard and she can kick goals.
