The USA men’s U20s have taken 7th in the World Rugby U20 Trophy, beating Hong Kong 47-22.

The USA started off strongly, getting the better of a kick exchange and facing a knock-on to get a scrum at midfield. A misdirection play and then quick hands to the right wing looked promising, but it was a sidestep and direct running from Rand Santos (playing inside center for the first time in the competition) that set up the opening try. 

Santos took a pass in a seemingly innocuous sequence and nicely beat his man and the next two before passing back inside to his Cal teammate Solomon Williams. The scrumhalf was following smartly and was clear in under the posts.

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Flyhalf Hugh O’Kennedy converted and it was 7-0 before six minutes were up on the clock. 

The Junior Eagles worked their way nicely into midfield after the restart, Prop Jayden Brooks garnered some attention and then the midfield of Santos and Aisake Tukuafu sent it nicely to wing Aaron Faison and he did the rest on an excellent team effort. O’Kennedy slotted the difficult conversion and it was 14-0.

Hong Kong Responds

Hong Kong had the run of play after that. A USA penalty led to a lineout-and-maul that the Americans stopped, but a poor scrum led to another penalty and this time Hong Kong faked the maul and ran a play to put hooker Dewi Simons over.

The torrid scoring pace slowed down somewhat as Hong Kong did well to regroup while penalties little mistakes started to creep into the USA game.

This has been a bit of the story of the tournament for the Junior Eagles, as they have failed to maintain the momentum of strong starts.

This time, however, they kept that lead. It wasn’t easy and a goaline stand at 20 minutes was perhaps crucial to their psyche. Still they held on, got the turnover to get out of trouble, and built on that with a stolen lineout and a smart kick followed late by a nice counter-attacking run from fullback Corbin Smith put the USA on the front foot.

Faison was set up nicely again for a run and Tukuafu got them near the line before the forwards came in. The USA ended up being held-up on that one, but Smith sliced through to reply to the goalie dropout and had flanker Hayden McKay on his outside. And Smith drew his man and passed to McKay to score it.

That try seemed to energize the USA team with the idea that they could put this game away and they took a 19-5 lead into halftime.

Closing It Out

Certainly the conversation in the sheds at the break had to be about closing out this game early—they had led Scotland just as halftime approached but were beaten badly in the second half; they had led Zimbabwe 30-19 with 15 minutes to go and lost.

The forwards got it going in the second period. Hooker Cade Crist made two key runs and some excellent work from Dylan Fortune and Will Sherman had the Americans knocking on the door. Hong Kong were penalized for not rolling away and it was a simple matter of winning a lineout and mauling it over. While Crist got the official credit the scorer actually appeared to be No. 8 Logan Ballinger who touched it down. 

Up 26-5 the USA did not let up.

Brought in to play center with Dom Besag unavailable, Ran Santos was outstanding. Photo Antony Munga for World Rugby.

The forwards worked very well to clear out and win rucks and quick ball allowed O’Kennedy to get the ball out (despite getting rocked as he passed) and it was Santos to Smith to Faison and the wing had no trouble outpacing everyone.

The conversion was good and maybe at 33-5 the USA could feel like they had it in the back. 

There was a lot of rugby to be played, however. Hong Kong regathered themselves and did a slightly better job in slowing down USA ball and asking a few questions of the USA defense.