The USA Men's 7s teams issues returned in the latter stages of the Dubai 7s, as the Eagles struggled to dominate defensively, and saw errors lead to losses to Australia and New Zealand.

The Eagles beat Ireland and Scotland, but gave up 40 points in doing so. That isn't really good enough, and Australia punished the Americans to the tune of 24-12, with only breakaways from Maka Unufe and Carlin Isles to salve the wounds.

That set up the quarterfinal matchup with New Zealand, and New Zealand galloped away 26-5.

With Dubai hosting the men and women in one stadium all weekend, there wasn't time to play all of the games. So quarterfinal losers were done for the weekend, with rankings 5th through 8th determined by points difference. The USA's overall PD of -18 was 38 points worse than the next-lowest, Argentina, and so the USA was ranked 8th.

Early in the quarterfinal against New Zealand, the Eagles secured a penalty and kicked to the corner. They won the lineout and spun it wide, where the ball was fumbled to the ground. From that resulting scrum, New Zealand worked their way downfield and scored. That was the opening try, and it kind of spelled trouble.

The USA played made their tackles, but far too often they were sending two players into that tackle. You can see the unfamiliarity between the players who don't know each other well, and the result is, even if a player doesn't make a double tackle, he's watching to make sure the tackle happens. That means he leaves a gap somewhere else.

With that erosion of trust, players tried little things to turn the tide—Danny Barrett kicking the ball away from the breakdown from an offside position was one example, and it landed him in the sin bin.

South Africa went on to win the tournament over New Zealand, and England was a surprising 3rd.

For the USA, there is a lot to work on, mostly with the young players earning the trust of the more experienced.