Several USA players have said this weekend that Saturday’s game again Italy was the true beginning of the John Mitchell era.

The reasoning is fairly logical - this was the first game where Mitchell got to pick his own players, as he was hired too late to do that in the Americas Rugby Championship in February.

But, unlike the beginning of other coaches’ tenures, then, Mitchell got a soft opening, where he was able to see, in general, the types of players he has at his disposal, and what he needs to accomplish and fix with them.

So coming into this weekend, he knew the program needed work on things like scrums, and avoiding penalties, and fitness.

Penalties against the USA were costly. David Barpal photo.

Scully and Will Holder come to help. Colleen McCloskey photo.

Got to be at the breakdown. Todd Clever and Chris Baumann are there for Andrew Durutalo. David Barpal photo.

For wing Blaine Scully, certainly one of the leaders of the team, the game went as expected, and they ticked some boxes, but maybe not all.

“Any time you come up against Italians you expect physicality,” Scully told Goff Rugby Report. “You expect those driving lineouts and a tough scrum, and we got that. They were tough at the breakdown and we knew we had to get to the breakdown early to beat them to the punch and nullify their momentum. It was always going to be a tough battle.”

Well, did they get tot he breakdowns early? On defense, it seems they did. The Eagles tackled well, forced some turnovers, and made sure the ball wasn’t too quick for Italy.

But on offense, they let themselves down. They gave up way too many holding-on penalties - one of those killer penalties because it gives up possession and territory, and destroys momentum.

Holding-on penalties led to at least half of Italy’s points (we’re not sure about that, but it’s close, anyway). Scully agreed it was a problem.

“It just shows how important it is to get to the breakdown early and how important the breakdown is overall,” he said.

But even so the USA was in with a chance to win that game. A little more luck on Nate Augspurger’s charge-down and they could have scored the game-winner right there. What Scully said he was pleased with was that they didn’t let Italy get away from them, and kept battling as a unit.

“A test match is a constant arm wrestle,” said Scully. “As we become a more mature team, we are learning to stay in that army wrestle. When they scored [to go up 21-13] it was not a panic moment. We knew we were never going to give up. We wanted to show everyone what we’re capable of.”

In the end, it was a loss, but a close loss to a very good Italy team. Sure they were winless this year until now, but had been very competitive with France, Argentina, and Scotland. It’s a sign in part of how far there is to go, but if it’s really the start of the Mitchell era, maybe it’s not such a bad starting-off point.