This is an opinion column by GRR Editor Alex Goff - It was always going to be a disappointing Olympics finish for some men’s rugby 7s teams.

It’s fair to say that Australia and New Zealand had higher expectations than 8th and 5th, respectively. And certainly the USA team was looking for more than 9th; as USA Head Coach Mike Friday said on the RuggaMatrix America podcast, the goal begins with G. They wanted Gold.

They didn’t get Gold, or Silver, or Bronze. In fact they didn’t make the quarterfinals. And they got to watch another country from outside the traditional powers, Japan, shake things up instead.

I think very few begrudged Fiji their first-ever Olympic medal in any sport, but US fans wanted to see a little better from the Eagles.

So why didn’t we see better? Some thoughts:

 

Refereeing

I won’t dwell on this too much but there were some egregious calls against the USA during the tournament, including a try on a forward pass, a try where the opposition player dropped the ball, and a try where the opposition player was tackled, didn’t release the ball, got up, and kept running.

In addition, the game-winner for Fiji came from a ruck where the Fijians crawled over the ball to win possession. We know, as one astute reader said, the breakdown is a bit of a lottery, but Fiji got away with way too much, and the two games the USA lost came as a result of horrible referee calls.

 

Player Form

Madison Hughes is a brilliant young rugby player and leader. But early in the opening game against Argentina Hughes was steamrolled as the first try was scored.

I have been told by Mrs. Goff Rugby Report that I diagnose player injuries from afar way too much. OK, I won’t diagnose this, but I think Hughes was badly shaken up and wasn’t the same afterward. He didn’t challenge defenders, and made a couple of odd decisions (that kick ahead against Fiji one of them). No one can doubt his heart, but he wasn’t 100%.

Folau Niua took charge in a lot of offensive situations and made a pile of good plays, but his missed restart against Argentina and a missed tackle against Fiji were crucial misakes. You know Niua won’t have felt good any mistakes.

Danny Barrett was in very good form. Carlin Isles, once he got a chance, was sparkling - defensively a little iffy because of his size, but still much more of a plus than a minus.

 

The Approach

The USA team like to feature Perry Baker and Carlin Isles as main strike runners, with Hughes and Zack Test adding a little bit of pace and excitement. Baker was almost a non-factor, because no one got him the ball with space. Maybe the field was narrow - it seemed like there was less space than normal - but it was also because of the speed and accuracy of the passing.

With Baker bottled up the Eagles needed the prop loitering on the opposite wing to do some damage. But for reasons outlined in a minute, that didn’t happen so much.

In the final sequence of the game against Fiji, the Eagles won a lineout and went to ground to form a ruck - against a team that was out-rucking them, and with speed out wide, it seemed a dumb idea, and was proven to be - they lost the ball.

Fiji and Argentina won the battle at the breakdown, and the big, strong boys of the USA team didn’t do enough to fix it. I don’t know why.

 

Preparation

OK, so here’s the thing. If I am getting a team ready for a World Cup or an Olympics, I want there to be unity of purpose early. I don’t want to change too much, but if I change the lineup, I want the changes to be limited and everyone to be settled with how we are going to play.

Mike Friday and Chris Brown didn’t do that, making changes almost every World Series tournament.

Even then, those players in residency were together in terms of preparation. Then two long-injured players, and three outside pros were brought in. The injured players didn’t make it, and one almost re-aggravated his injury. The pros all made it, and while I am immensely impressed with what Chris Wyles, Andrew Durutalo, and Nate Ebner have done in their rugby and football careers, they were outsiders. Putting them into the current team risked disrupting the team’s Qi. 

 

Selections

Friday said in the RuggaMatrix podcast that he felt no pressure to pick Ebner or Wyles. But it was true there was some sort of outside pressure. Even if Friday ignored it, we know the pressure existed.

As it happened, Ebner made the team and the starting lineup, and for the most part, played pretty well. His passing was decent, his defense was decent, and he embraced the contact and worked hard.

Wyles was hardly used, although when he did play he did some useful things. Durutalo was hardly used, although he made at least one good play as well as maybe one error.

The problem, though, is this. If you’re not going to use Wyles and Durutalo, then why pick them? I would have much rather seen Martin Iosefo, Thretton Palamo, Will Holder (talk about PR - US Army lieutenant an Olympic rugby player) or Nate Augspurger.

The selections also changed the makeup of the team. Instead of being balanced between fast, playmaking, and power, the team listed toward power, and thus the type of game they needed to play changed … at the very last minute.

And you could see it on the field. With Garrett Bender, Danny Barrett, and Ben Pinkelman being the forwards, Ebner, also a big body, was at center. While Ebner played well, he isn’t as fast or as a smooth a passer as Maka Unufe or Iosefo, and thus perhaps it was harder to put Baker into space. So the ball went back the other way, where normally Danny Barrett or Zack Test would be, but more often than not, it was Bender. Now, I love Garrett Bender. He has improved greatly and has many things to recommend him, but he shouldn’t be on the wing very often, and his lack of footwork, speed, and ability to offload was exposed.

And with that lineup, Unufe was marginalized. One of the best 7s players on the team - a guy who can do almost everything you need form a player - got minimal time. It was sad, because Unufe creates tries, and alternating him with the stronger Iosefo would have been special.

Oh, and if you’re going to be sentimental, or if you’re going to pick someone as a reward for his success in rugby, then maybe you should think about Zack Test. Test was everything about the USA 7s team when it sucked. He carried that team as players and coaches came and went. He is the all-time-leading try-scorer by a country mile. And he hardly played. When the USA offense was faltering, and the Eagles needed an injection of pace among the forwards on the opposite wing, he wasn’t on the field. 

OK, so I’ve waded through all of this, and thought about it, and it’s not as if everything fell to pieces. Sevens is a fairly random game in any circumstance and it’s obvious in part that the ball didn’t bounce the USA’s way. The differences are all razor-thin - the USA lost 17-14 to Argentina, and 24-19 to Fiji, the eventual Gold Medalists. Take away a couple of little mistakes and a couple of crummy referee, and things might have been different.