Work-Ons and Review on U20 Win Over Wales

07.05.2023HS Girls, National Teams

The USA U20 women held on to win on July 4 despite giving up more tries than they scored.

The performance was very good for about 50 minutes but whether the Americans wilted a little in the heat or they just kind of lost some of their togetherness, they did see a dogged Welsh team mount a comeback. And certainly while Alissa Eisenhart had marginally easier kicks to kick, she made them.

The first USA try came from a long period of pressure and was a simple pick-up and put-down by lock Nikki Lynch. The second try was a bit more involved. After missing out on a score through a maul (the USA had stepped into touch before the ball was taken over the line) and after pressuring Wales in their 22, the USA finally got it all together. Outside center Katelyn Walker was instrumental with her aggressive running, and lock Cundy Taulava make a key carry that had Wales backpedaling. From there they sent it out to Lynch, who fed flanker AJ Haughey. Quick ball and Salome Schmitt passed to flanker Lennox London, who expertly drew the last defender and offloaded to wing Seren Vualono.

It was a tough kick but Eisenhart made it for the 14-5 lead.

Right from the second-half kickoff the Americans went on the attack. A clearance kick was fielded nicely by fullback Ashley Cowdrey. She took the ball about three meters inside the Welsh half and took an angle that split a pair of Welsh defenders who seemed in two minds. Now she could accelerate, which she did, bypassing the next line of defenders and then weaving her way around fullback Bethan Adkins. Wales had no answer and Cowdrey was in untouched from 47 meters out.

Once again it was a tough but makeable kick for Eisenhart and the West Pointer had no trouble. That made it 21-5 and a three-score lead. And right from the restart the USA scored again. Vualono caught the kick, ignored a hand around her neck and offloaded to Lynch accelerating in support, and Lynch (a lock but a former back) drew the last defender and popped beautifully to Tiahna Padilla. The Harvard center had some work to do as she was right at halfway, but the Welsh players had been chasing the kickoff so Padilla had almost all of them wrong-footed.

It was brilliant open-field play.

Once again the kick was a fairly difficult one, but Eisenhart made no mistake.

But, at 28-5 did they feel they had it sewn up?

Did they let off?

See full game here:

For Head Coach Joel Bonnaud the desire to have the players read the game as they go ran up against the need to get organized first.

"We need more discipline to get into our shape first so we can have more freedom to play," Bonnaud told GRR. "We took too long to get into it and as a result we spent of lot of energy—especially under high heat and humidity—trying to generate go-forward."

With their three-player units not quite organized support wasn't there and that either led to turnover chances for Wales, or just slow ball. When they had quick ball they were dangerous.

Bonnaud also said he would ha e liked to have seen his players put the ball behind Wales more.

"We played too much in front of them," meaning they moved the ball around but were struggling to break through. That meant that, yes, they scored right at the end of the first half, but could have potentially scored before then.

"Better balance between go forward, through, and around is what we needed."

And Bonnaud also pointed to a need for the players to get their first defensive step to be aggressive—near the end of the game, as Wales was coming back, the USA wasn't applying the defensive pressure they needed to. Add in some "game and time management lessons to better control the end of the game," and there are things to work on before they play Canada.

But of course there were positives. They won the game and the forwards worked hard—the scrum especially was solid. Their kick return was very good and led to two tries, and in open field the backs ... really all of the players ... were dangerous and linked together well.

"We had a big fighting spirit in defense to protect the line and cover any break," added the coach. And that showed itself in those pesky conversions. Eisenhart's kicks weren't easy, but Wales, when they did score, were often forced out wide. That helped keep the USA in front.

Next up will be USA vs Canada at TD Place in Ottawa as a curtain-raiser for the USA-Australia senior women test match. There's not a lot of time to install some of those work-ons, but Thursday will probably be the day.

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