There you go, Thretton Palamo. There’s a big, fast inside center who breaks tackles and forces more than one defender to stop him. He’s got the handling skills to set up supporting players. This was a really good game for him. Andrew Suniula was good, too; he hurt himself making a tackle and stuck it out and did enough to score a try moments later. What a hard-running center does for you, though, is make the defense think. So Palamo was all sorts of problems for Canada, and when he went off for Suniula, the Canadians seemed to think “oh good, he’s gone, we can worry more about someone else.” And what do you know? Suniula has a massive hole to cut through for a try.

Blaine Scully should have scored in the 11th minute when he linked with Palamo on exactly the kind of play we’d like to see both involved in. Just as Scully decided to pass, the Canadian player looking to tackle him fell over. Unselfishness has its place in rugby, but sometimes it’s time to go for the line. OK, so he got the yellow card for taking Taylor Paris out in the air - not smart - but what a weapon, and really the Eagles, and Scully, are just figuring out how useful he can be.

Item #4 - USA's 2nd Try