Job #1 is done but there are two more big jobs to do for the USA Men’s 15s team.

And even within that first victory over Kenya—yes they won, yes they won by 44, yes they got the bonus point for four tries—there are key work-ons.

Conditioning

USA Head Coach Gary Gold had his work-ons for the team already, and fitness was certainly one of them. Overall the team did fairly well on that score despite being in hot, humid conditions (conditions where you might expect the Kenyans to be more comfortable). But if you want to be pessimistic, giving up that late try was a bit of a letdown.

Still, "I think there's been a little bit more intensity of training which is exactly what we wanted as a coaching group,” said Gold. “We want the intensity higher with our daily duty to replicate training sessions to game intensity if possibly not higher.”

Discipline

Gold also wanted his team to be more disciplined. Penalties will happen, but penalties that kill momentum and penalties that are the result of lack of effort or a burst of emotion can’t happen.

So it was a bit of a wakeup call for scrumhalf Ryan Rees, an outstanding talent who played well overall but received two penalties for what is basically unsportsmanlike conduct—he held onto the ball when Kenya had a penalty and wouldn’t give it up, resulting in another 10 meters being marched off, and his complaining about a scrum being awarded to Kenya turned that scrum into a full-arm penalty for the Lions.

That was an obvious example, but the team also made some other key discipline errors—Jamason Fa’anana-Schultz almost scoring and then nudging the ball to the line as if no one would notice (we noticed) was one example.   Discipline will certainly be talked about as the series progresses. 

Basic Skills

“We've also had a real focus on going back to a lot of our basics because of the ability to have the time together with the boys,” said Gold. “We thought that basic skills was an area that we really wanted to put a lot of focus on, so we have spent time doing that as well."

But there were skill breakdowns, and it was mostly in those maddening first 20 minutes. A handful of mauls that didn’t quite get the job done, and a couple of odd-man rushes that needed the final pass to work. But it seemed clear as time went on that offensively the Eagles relaxed and when they relaxed with ball in hand they scored tries.

Defensively, the USA will have to front up against the Hong Kong forward pack, which is where their strength is. And they will have to be more precise in their tackles and in winning rucks.