Rough Day One for USA Men in Dubai
Rough Day One for USA Men in Dubai
It's important to remember that the USA men's 7s team is not only on a rebuilding course, but is rebuilding off a group that was on a rebuilding course.
The current USA team showed off some offensive ability, but their defensive unity was not excellent. The players over-pursued, leaving gaps open—so it wasn't for lack of effort, but instead for lack of confidence, either in themselves or in their system.
The Eagles opened up their 2024-25 season with games against New Zealand and Fiji.
That's not a particularly easy way to kick off the season. Against New Zealand they did relatively well. They created some scoring chances, but the problem was that when they weren't absolutely perfect on ball presentation, New Zealand pounced. The Eagles did catch a break with the new TMO system, which identified a forward pass to call back a New Zealand try.
But a kickoff error at the beginning of the second half handed New Zealand a try-scoring chance and after that they led 21-0.
An excellent break by Pita Vi got the Eagles their first try. New Zealand answered by running a switch move that an over-pursuing defense was unable to stop.
But a good break from Lucas Lacamp and a wild offload got the USA close before Porter Goodrum scored on a quick tap.
So final score 28-12, which was pretty close. With a bit better execution on both sides of the ball it might have been 21-19.
The next game was against Fiji. This game was completely winnable for a more experienced and less frantic team. Some very good ball movement and recycling set up Lacamp for a nicely-taken try.
After that was a bizarre sequence. Fiji broke through but were just barely stopped. The Eagles got the turnover and went wide. Lacamp was off and running. He had David Still with him but opted to go himself. However, he was caught, and rather than going to ground and popped a pass to his support, he opted to stay on his feet. He did get the offload, but Fiji was now back, got the ball back, and ran fully the leangth of the field the other way to score. The entire sequence covered about 290 meters.
Fiji scored again but the USA answered off a restart error, sending Still thundering down the sideline.
All of that made it 21-10 for Fiji.
A well-taken try from Faitala Talapusi made it 21-15, but Fiji's magical sidestepping put in two tries to make it 42-15.
The Eagles finished the game off with Darius Law and Marcus Tupuola combining to get the Eagles out of trouble and Tupuola setting up Jack Wendling for a good team try.
Six tries for Fiji, four tries for the USA. Six conversions for Fiji, zero for the USA. At least two prime try-scoring chances for the USA not taken. It was a game with several positives, but also some lessons as the Fijian runners made some of the USA defenders look foolish—join the club; it's a big club.
Finally, the Eagles faced Spain and it was too much as an experienced Spanish side beat the Eagles 28-0.
This is a team that still needs to learn to play, and especially defense, as a team.
After a Day One where they went 0-3, the Eagles face Uruguay in the 9th place semifinal. This is an important game for them to play and they have to face up to Uruguay's physical play.
