It’s reasonable to think that the USA Women’s 15s team had some positives out of their July 1 loss to France.

The French were more seasoned, and had won the Six Nations, and so maybe 19-13 wasn’t so bad after all. Head Coach Pete Steinberg, however, reacted a little differently.

“I was pretty gutted,” said Steinberg. “We can talk about growth and we can talk about that we played our first game for a year and we played the Six Nations Champion close, but we have to get beyond the idea of playing the best teams close. We have to get to - when we have the opportunity to beat the best teams we beat them.”

Steinberg said there were several opportunities to put the dagger in against the French, especially in the first 20-25 minutes, but they didn’t do it. 

“In the first half, we had seven trips into their 22, and we had one try,” said the coach. “You look at France. They played well for a about 15 minutes, ten of which we had a play in the [sin] bin. We played better for the other 65 minutes. And we had a chance at the end, but it was really the first half when we didn’t take those opportunities that hurt us.”

So how do you respond? Steinberg said there are emotional responses and technical responses.

“For us as a team we have to learn to win, and we have to learn to be ruthless,” he said. There’s also the concentration on little things. A lousy pass or a dropped ball or losing the ball in contact can tip the game in the other direction. It certainly did against France. 

The small things. We need to do the small things - a dropped ball or a line break where we lose the ball in contact - make the difference.

“I don’t want to be too negative about it,” Steinberg added, pointing out that French No. 8 Emilie Mathieu, who came on as a sub, is one of their best players and sparked Les Bleus. “She made a huge difference and they got some tries. And all of a sudden we were down 19-8. And we responded and we picked ourselves back up and went after them. That had a lot to do with our subs who pick due up. We have players on the bench who aren’t fill-ins. They came on and changed the game, and that’s something we haven’t had.

“I am excited about the potential of the team; I just want to get to a point where we can win the contest.”

Steinberg will be looking for another step forward against Canada, but he has a very young team on the field, with a big contingent of the players current college players. Jordan Gray was one that stood out, but there are others.

“You look at the Collegiate All Americans playing the Maple Leafs, and you look at who of our players could be on that team - Hope Rogers, Jordan Gray, Nate Serevi, Bitsy Cairns, Nicole Strasko, Kiki Morgan. When you see that you think, wow, almost half our starting lineup are current collegiate players. That’s new for us. Then you think they’ve probably got two, maybe three World Cup cycles in them if they stay healthy. That’s what the new unified pathway has done - it’s allowed us to pull these young, athletic players. Those players are just going to get better and better and better.”

Against the Canadians the Eagles will want to play with pace and width. They need to finish. They will need to counter the Canadians on the breakdown and make the ball available for fast ball, and if they can scrum better, then getting better happens with Canada.