Tag: rugby

Major League Rugby in color: Yellow & red cards

Now that I have paid my subscription to The Rugby Network, Major League Rugby has gone absent. What’s with that?

Now dialing in to youtube.com for the weekend’s highlights, which I have not completed.

However, in looking at the minimal information on Tribe Sports, the number of yellow and red cards handed out over the weekend has colored their game summaries. In five games, there were 14 yellow cards and three red cards. New Orleans and San Diego teams led with three yellow cards apiece. The Miami Sharks, Chicago Hounds and New England had red cards.

Is this because the refs are calling rules tighter or because we have hooligans in the gentlemen’s game?

Back to youtube.

Sharks had 2 yellows and 1 red

Anthem had 1 yellow

New Orleans, 3 yellow

Chicago had 2 yellow, 1 red

Houston, 1 yellow

LA, 1 yellow

New England, 1 yellow, 1 red

San Diego 3 yellow

In bye week, Seawolves have much work to do

The Seattle Seawolves rugby team has no game next weekend, which means they will have plenty of time to work on things. There are plenty of things to work on.

When they departed San Diego Sunday afternoon, they left behind a 40-26 defeat administered handily by the Legion. It could have been worse. The Seawolves, down 28-0 at halftime, did not get on the scoreboard until 57 minutes into the match. That was helped along by San Diego serving two yellow cards at once, leaving only 13 Legion players on the field.

Seven minutes into the game, San Diego had two tries and two conversions. Another converted try at 13 minutes and once more at 27 minutes as the Seawolves could not figure out how to stop the overlaps the San Diego backs were putting together.

Once Cameron Orr opened the scoring for the Seawolves, they rolled on for 21 more points in the second half with tries by Eddie Fouché and two by Jesse Mackail. Fouché kicked two conversions, and Rodney Iona had one.

It could have been 28-21, within seven of the winner and a bonus point in the standings. But that would mean the Seawolves needed to stop San Diego from scoring. They did not, as the Legion added 12 points for the 40-26 final. The Seawolves come away with one bonus point for scoring four tries.

Next Seawolves game is in Houston against the Sabercats, who lost Saturday to the Chicago Hounds, 25-22.

It wasn’t easy for the Seawolves Saturday

Mack Mason

After the Seawolves beat the Miami Sharks, 29-18, a Seattle fan passing in front of me on the way out of the Starfire Stadium, remarked, “That wasn’t as easy as I expected.”

True that.

If the Miami kickers had made all their kicks, the Sharks would have pulled within three points of Seattle. Think if Mack Mason were playing for them.

Fortunately, Mason plays for the Seawolves, who depended on him for 17 of Seattle’s 29 points.

Mason’s four penalty kicks and a dashing, under-the-posts try by Jade Stighling accounted for Seattle’s 19-3 halftime lead.

Miami had an unusual try two minutes into the second half. A cross kick by Miami’s Uruguayan fly half Felipe Etcheverry bounced in the try zone. The Argentine wing forward Benjamin Bonasso tipped the ball higher but then grabbed it and touched down for a try just inside the dead ball line. A missed conversion. Score is 19-8, still Seawolves.

A successful penalty kick by Miami. 19-11, still Seawolves.

Mason kicked another penalty with 60 minutes gone in the game.

It’s nice to have Olive Kilifi back home again,

Then it was time for the replacements to show their stuff. Daquan Perry, from Philadelphia, USA, threw the ball in for a Seattle lineout, raced around the back of the formation and drove toward the Miami goal. Then Olive Kilifi, Seattle’s own replacement prop, secured the ball in a ruck. One more ruck and the ball comes out to Mason for a skip pass to sub Sam Windsor, an Australian who has been in the MLR since the beginning, who dodges, gets his shirt tail caught from behind but not before a pass to Jeremiah Sio, a Rainier Beach grad, who touches down in the corner for a try.

The game ended on a bad note with a yellow card against Seattle and one more late try for Miami, ending the game 29-18.

Still no four-try games, which Seattle will need those bonus points to keep up with the Houston Sabercats. More tries, fewer penalties will make me and that passing fan happier.

The Seawolves are off to Utah next Saturday for a 6 p.m. game that will be shown on Fox 13 and The Rugby Network.

J.P. Smith admitted this wasn’t his best look. Will he ever play fullback again?

Other games:

Houston 27, Los Angeles 12. I thought this game would have been closer. The score was Houston 14, LA 12 at half. But then the Sabercats got control of the game in the last half. It would have been closer if two of LA’s tries had not been disallowed because the scorers started from an offside position. And is LA playing their games in a high school football field? Looks that way.

Update: Grant and Jordan pointed out that there were four disallowed tries in the Houston-LA game, two for each team. I knew about one of the whistled try for Houston but missed the other one. So in the end, that probably means Houston is 15 points better than LA.

And yes, I know that LA plays at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, CA., but the field still looks small to me. But Grant points out, “That field was recently re-built specifically for the LA Galaxy II USL team Some of the money from the rebuild came from WR so the goalpost sleeves could be built into the field for the USA to host WR XVs Series matches (an annual women’s test series). RFCLA benefits from a low cost, ~2,000 seat stadium that has lighting, access control, plenty of parking, and other typical, professionally managed stadium features.”

San Diego 30, Dallas 23. Dallas was ahead 13-11 at the half but 14 minutes later, San Diego was up 25-13. Then a San Diego Legion received a yellow card for a dangerous tackle. A chance for Dallas to come back. Could they? No. Dallas scored a try with 84 minutes gone  for get a bonus point for pulling within seven points of the winner, which was San Diego, 30-23.

Utah 29, Chicago 15. Chicago Hounds scored first with a try, added a penalty kick and one more try. But the Utah backsare a dangerous bunch, too hard for the Hounds to collar. Keep that in mind, Seawolves, next week.

New Orleans 34, Anthem 19. About what I expected, but best luck to former Seawolves Jake Turnbull and Shane Barry, who scored a try on Saturday, in making this team competitive.

Back to this blog’s beginnings: Rugby

This blog started because of rugby, and I think it is time for it to return to the great game. Maybe we can earn press credentials for the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia.

But for now, let’s stick with the Major League Rugby here in the USA.

Let’s start with a prediction: In the league finals in July, it will be the Seattle Seawolves against the New England Free Jacks, who won it all in 2023.

The Free Jacks might have some competition in the Eastern Conference from the New Orleans Gold, but other than that they’ll beat everybody east of the Mississippi: Chicago Hounds, Miami Sharks, who seem to think adding cheerleaders might make them winners, Old Glory DC and the Anthem Rugby Club, “a comprehensive partnership between the league, World Rugby and USA Rugby.” Not sure who thought that would turn into a competitive side.

Despite being dressed as little tin Revolutionary War soldiers, the Free Jacks play big, winning 46-13 against Anthem, not sure why anyone thought that would be a competitive side.

The Hounds win over the Sharks, 23-19, looked amateurish especially if we note the out-of-place cheerleaders.

NOLA Gold 18-6 victory over Old Glory DC showed some hope that the Gold could give the Free Jacks a tussle.

In the Western Conference, I’m all for the Seattle Seawolves. Sorry if you came to this blog for objective sports reporting. I’ve been a season ticket holder since the beginning. I wrote some stories on the Seawolves for The Seattle Times, but I have since retired (best career move ever, as Carberry, sitting across the Starfire aisle, says). There’s no cheering in the press box, but I’m not there anymore. So . . . Go, Seawolves!

About the 25-19 victory over the San Diego Legion on Saturday: Thank God for Mack Mason and Tavite Lopeti.

Mason, 28, comes to Seattle from the Austin Gilgronis, a team kicked out of the league for having a stupid name. He’s from Queensland, Australia, started playing professionally for Queensland Country in the National Rugby Championship, an Australian rugby union competition. He also played for teams in Sydney and New South Wales. If you look on the Seawolves roster you will learn that Mason plays fly half, is 5 foot 10 and weighs 185 pounds. Nothing said about his kicking. As there should be.

Saturday night he accounted for 20 of Seattle’s 25 points, kicking a conversion and six straight penalty kicks, collecting 18 points from the Bad Boy tactics of the Legion players, who also received a yellow card and a red card. Despite the Legion being down to 14 players after the yellow card, the Seawolves could not find their way to the try zone. That has to improve. Same with the red card.

I, along with many in the crowd, thought the ref could not count the Legion players, letting them play with 15 players after the red card. However, some research shows that “a red card will no longer mean a team is down to 14 players for the rest of the match. The new law will see a red-carded player reduce a team to 14 men for 20 minutes. After that time has passed, the team will be able to replace the player with someone from their bench. The red-carded player cannot return to the field and will face disciplinary action.”

So sorry, ref, for calling you a blind, mathematically deficient idiot.

But a good call on Lopeti’s try in the last two minutes of the game, which took the Seawolves from being down 19-18 to winning 25-19. The try resulted from what looked like a knock-on to me, but as Wallis (sitting next to me at Starfire) says, the ref is much closer and probably has a better view than someone sitting in the top row of the stadium. Go to The Rugby Network and view the highlights of the game (you can slow it down to 25% to see what really happened). You will see, as the ref saw, that the Legion second row knocks the ball out of the hands of a Seawolves’ back toward the SD side of the field. Lopeti charges forward, from an onside position, catching up with the ball and nothing but grass ahead of him to the goal line. Seawolves win.

Probably no pity for the San Diego Legion in the Starfire Stadium, but they are a hard luck team. Go back to the 2019 championship when they lost the shield to the Seawolves’ maul on the last play of the game. Or last year in the championship game when they lost by one point to the Free Jacks. And then a loss Saturday on Lopeti’s dash to the win. Let’s hope the Legion’s luck never changes.

Getting to the championship game in July will be tougher for the Seawolves than for the East Conference winners. The Dallas Jackals were not the joke I expected, using on a last-minute drop goal to win 32-29 over the RFC Los Angeles, who spent part of the second half with two yellow cards, reducing the on-field squad to 13 players. Is that a reflection of the way LA plays the game? Could be.

Houston SaberCats scored four tries and a win over Utah Warriors, 22-15, collecting five points in the standings to lead the Western Conference.

I don’t see any “easy” games for the Seawolves against the other five teams in the Western Conference, but coming up Saturday, March 9, at 7 p.m. look for the Miami Sharks to swim ashore. Cheerleaders, too?

And now for the Rugby World Cup disappointments

The U.S. against Samoa. Are the Eagles condemned forever to be the team of the future?
The U.S. against Samoa. Are the Eagles condemned forever to be the team of the future?

There’s a flip side to the best rugby matches in Rugby World Cup 2015, and that’s the games that disappointed. Not surprisingly, all of those are the matches that involved the United States team — four losses and no bonus points in the standings, which means they never came within seven points of an opponent and they never scored four tries in a game.

The quickest way to list the disappointments would probably be to look at the margin between winner and the United States, and that would bring the South Africa game right to the top: 64-0 with the Springboks scoring 50 of those in the second half.

Next would come the Scotland game, a loss by 23 points, then Japan (10 points) and Samoa (nine points).

But did anyone expect the U.S. team to beat South Africa, even after Japan knocked them off the opening weekend? I didn’t. Maybe not lose by 64 points, but a win against the Springboks ranged beyond even my open optimism.

Samoa and Japan seemed the games that the U.S. could win, but giving up 15 points on penalties against Samoa doomed that chance of victory. More penalties and poor defense sunk the chance of a win against Japan.

So given my expectations, here’s how I would list those games from the most disappointing to the least:

Samoa

Japan

Scotland

South Africa

Stuart Barnes, writing in The London Times, listed his first to worst teams and somehow the U.S. made it up from the bottom to No. 15, but I suspect his disappointment in England’s performance and a general dislike of things French put those two teams below the U.S. along with Canada, Tonga and Samoa.

What Barnes said about U.S. rang true: “They are always touted as the coming team but seem to be in no great hurry and rarely looked like a cohesive team in their sorry sequence of defeats.”

That statement reminds me of a story I did back in the 1960s while working for the Associated Press. The story was about transportation systems and what might be coming in the cities of Ohio, where I worked. I asked a Cincinnati transportation planner about the prospect of monorail as an answer to moving people efficiently. His answer: “Monorail is the transportation of the future and always will be.”

Right now that looks like the fate of U.S. rugby: The world’s forever future team.

Australia vs. Scotland the match of the RWC tournament

NZ with ball
Off they go again. The New Zealand All Blacks cut through the Australia defense in the Rugby World Cup Final. One thing that struck me as I edited my photos from this match: Richie McCaw, the New Zealand captain, is in almost all of them, always around the ball. He is reaching over an Aussie player in this picture, looking up at the ball carrier.

Before we left London, Kathy asked if going to the Rugby World Cup measured up to all my expectations — a question that surprised me since I thought the giddy smile on my face for eight weeks made my delight obvious.

Let me count the way, m’lady. Thirteen international rugby matches. Theater seats for London and Stratford-upon-Avon shows. Hiking the hills, punting the river, browsing through every sort of attraction covering history, art, religion, architecture and others realms of human achievement.

Yes, a definite success and then some.

Then we decided over a restaurant meal to break it down: list the top five favorite things we did while in England. We both ticked off five before the waiter got the first glass of water to the table. We were approaching more than 10 favorites apiece before our order was taken.

In keeping within the rules of naming only five, I tried to do categories, so that one of my five choices was “the rugby games,” another was “Oxford colleges,” another “plays.” Cheater, cheater, Kathy protested.

My answer to this was to offer to list five choices within each category, and of course I started with the rugby games I saw. My five favorites:

  1. Scotland vs. Australia in the quarter final: If you take the measure of excitement generated in a game by how many times the lead changes, this match goes right to the top of the list. Four lead changes. Australia took an early lead, but Scotland took over for most of the first half and was ahead by one point at the break, 16-15. The teams were never more than eight points apart and most of the time were within three points of each other. Australia got up early in the second half until Scotland climbed back up to a 34-32 lead with under seven minutes to go in the game. Then came the bad call from the ref, a three-point penalty kick by Australia with less than two minutes left and that was the end of the tournament for Scotland.
  2. New Zealand vs. Australia in the final: How can the culminating game of the tournament not be No. 1 on this list? It probably would be if the Scotland-Australia match hadn’t been one that had me jumping out of my seat and endangering my laptop on the media table in front of me. The final threatened to be a boring, let’s-play-it-safe, penalty- kicking affair through most of the first half. It wasn’t until the clock had ticked off more than 38 minutes that New Zealand put together a thriller try from the back of a loose ruck with Aaron Smith getting two touches and then skipping a pass to “he’s everywhere!” Richie McCaw, who made one more pass to put Nehe Milner-Skudder in for the score. The All Blacks got up 21-3 and it was starting to look like a rout until Australia put together two converted tries and pulled within four points. All Black Dan Carter stomped on the Aussie momentum with a drop goal at 69 minutes. Every winning team needs a player who can perform this score-from-anywhere-inside-the-50 tactic. Nothing is so soul-killing for a team to be scored against this way. And Carter wasn’t done. He added a penalty kick at 73 minutes and all that was left to complete the game was a mishandle by Australia, kicked ahead by Ben Smith and a bounce up into the hands of Beauden Barrett for one more New Zealand score and a conversion by Carter. 34-17 All Blacks.
  3. The other quarterfinal — South Africa vs. Wales: Another close one. Most of the scoring came on penalty kicks, but the tries turned the fortunes of the game for both Wales and the Republic of South Africa. It went like this: 3-0 RSA, 6-0 RSA, 6-3 RSA, 9-3 RSA, 10-9 Wales (nothing like seven points from a converted try to get you back in the game), 12-10 RSA, 13-12 Wales (drop goal by Dan Biggar gave the Welsh the halftime lead), 16-12 Wales, 16-15 Wales, 18-16 RSA, 19-18 Wales, 23-19 RSA (nothing like five points from a try to get you the win). RSA 23, Wales 19.
  4. Canada vs. Italy: Canada got up 10-0 to start the game, which included a try by DTH van der Merwe, who scored in all four of Canada’s losses. Owen Slot, chief rugby correspondent for The London Times, named him to his all-tournament team this week saying “his try-a-game tally showed consistency and the try he started and finished against Italy was outstanding.” Yeah-yeah, as the English say when in agreement. Too bad Canada couldn’t finish one more of some great movements. That would have given them at least a tie. But Italy won, 23-18.
  5. Canada vs. Romania: Canada again? Yep. For an exciting game, it’s hard to beat a 15-point comeback. Just too bad that it was Romania coming back for a 17-15 win. You can’t look away from the train wreck and you don’t want it to happen, but you have say afterwards that it was exciting.

    The All Blacks spread the field in defense, and Australia seldom got through it.
    The All Blacks spread the field in defense, and Australia seldom got through it. And once again, McCaw is right there, in front of the tackle being made by Brodie Retallick (No. 4)

Here’s what USA Coach Mike Tolkin said after the loss

Your faithful reporter missed the post-game media conferences after the U.S. loss to Japan. The game ended at 21:35 (as they say over here), and the last train to Oxford and the apartment left at 21:59. So there wasn’t really any choice about it unless Kathy and I wanted to sleep in the Gloucester streets overnight.

She didn’t.

We rushed to the train station.

So the quotes here of what was said at the media conference come from the Rugby World Cup media site.

You will see that USA Head Coach Mike Tolkin is optimistic to the end, which may not sit well with some readers. I have said in earlier posts that I was skeptical about such optimism and whether it was justified given that the Eagles did not win a game or earn a bonus point in the Rugby World Cup standings. U.S. rugby fans keep being told to look ahead four years to the next World Cup, and judging from Facebook comments on earlier posts quoting Tolkin, that is no longer satisfactory.

I report here the quotes from the Rugby World Cup. That doesn’t mean I agree with them, as seems to have been the impression of an earlier post.

On where the match was lost:

“It was pretty clear we made some simple errors,” Tolkin said, “and whenever we scored we allowed Japan straight back into the game. We had momentum and then let it slip at critical times which was disappointing today.”

On the development of tier-two nations:

“I think it’s certainly a big stepping stone; the margins of victory have been far lower than previous tournaments. There haven’t been the massive blowouts in certain games and every game has been tough, so I think it will be interesting to see what happens in 2019 with tier-two teams.”

On his team’s World Cup performance:

“I think it has been the best we’ve ever performed. We have been consistent in every game and showed moments of brilliance and periods of good play, unfortunately our game management and other areas let us down.”

I thought Chris Wyles, the team captain against Japan, had a more realistic and pragmatic outlook. Here are his quotes from the Rugby World Cup media site:

On the team’s performance against Japan and the tournament overall:

“It came down to consistency, which is the story of our World Cup. Playing some good rugby, but not for the full 80. Credit to Japan, it shows what you can do if you have four years to prepare.

“We were in it against Samoa, good first half against Scotland, and showed some glimpses tonight against Japan. Disclpline throughout has been an issue for us, pushing the boundaries when we need to stay composed.

“No excuses, but it’s difficult with some of our guys playing domestic rugby in the States, and we need to find a way to get everyone on to a level playing field.”

On the ability of USA to compete at a higher level in future:

“There is a lot of talk about our potential, and it is up to us to find the formula to make that happen. We haven’t come away with a win, and we had one win at the last World Cup. So we have to find that formula.”

On being involved in the first try against Japan, and scoring a try himself:

“Any time you play in a World Cup it’s an amazing experience – until you’ve played in one you won’t understand it. But you want to win, not just take to the pitch and lose games against the top teams. So we’ve got four years in front of us to prepare for the next one.”

So now it is on to the quarter finals with Australia and Wales from Pool A meeting South Africa and Scotland from Pool B; New Zealand and Argentina from Pool C meeting Ireland and France from Pool D. Should be some good games in there. We will be at six of them.

Japan did a lot right in winning 28-18; the U.S.? Not so much

Japan's forwards were able to push the U.S. pack around.
Japan’s forwards were able to push the U.S. pack around.

Before we start the roll call of all that the United States did wrong in losing to Japan, let’s acknowledge that Japan did many things right.

In beating the U.S. Eagles 28-18 Sunday night in the Rugby World Cup, the Brave Blossoms had the ball out quickly in all phases of the game. Their defense covered the field and mostly contained the U.S. backs. Their set play was superior to the Eagles’ and they took advantage when the U.S. did something wrong.

Version 2
Alan MacGinty’s kicks accounted for eight of the Eagles’ 18 points.

And the wrongs they did too often put a stop to something they were doing right. The U.S. played ferociously at times, kept possession for loose ruck after loose ruck only to turn it over because of knock-ons or penalties. There was hard tackling by the Eagles, but also some missed ones that set up tries for Japan.

Three minutes after the U.S. opened the scoring with a penalty kick by Alan MacGinty, the Japanese center, Craig Wing, ran through the U.S. defense. He kicked ahead and the Japanese had quick ball out of the resulting loose to overlap the U.S. backs and give Kotaro Matsushima a clear run in for the try. The conversion put the U.S. down 7-3 not seven minutes into the game.

The next 10 minutes saw Japan in possession of the ball steadily, but the Eagles had chances negated by mistakes:

At 18 minutes, the Eagles set up a rolling maul, had it out and a cross kick to the wing looked like it could succeed, but the play was called back to a penalty by the U.S.

At 19 minutes, the U.S. kicked to touch at the five-yard mark on a penalty but the lineout throw was not straight and Japan chose a scrum and kicked to get out of trouble.

At 24 minutes, the U.S. had another lineout and got it right this time, winning the ball and then keeping it through several loose phases until they were in front of the Japanese goal. The ball went out to the backs and a long skip pass put Takudzwa Ngwenya away for the try. U.S. leads 8-7

Any momentum there might have been from the try was quickly extinguished as the U.S. forwards couldn’t handle the return kick, a Japanese player kicked through and the Japanese set up a rolling maul that eventually puts Yoshikazu Fujita (a winger in a rolling maul!) in for another try. The conversion by Ayumu Goromaru was good, and the States team is down 14-8.

At 33 minutes, the Eagles are caught offsides and the penalty kick by Goromaru has the United States down 17-8.

At 37 minutes, the Eagles stole a loose ball from Japan and a high kick was well covered with Zach Test tackling a Japan back in goal. The U.S. won the scrum at the five, but the Eagles couldn’t get the ball out of a maul and the ref awarded a scrum to Japan. The U.S. forwards were called for illegal scrummaging and Japan kicked to touch to end the half, leading 17-8.

At 44 minutes, U.S. penalty gave Japan three more points. They lead 20-8.

Ten minutes later Japan was called for not releasing and MacGinty added another three. Japan leads 20-11.

At 61 minutes, U.S. prop Eric Fry was sent to the sin bin for 10 minutes for deliberately kicking the ball out of the loose. Japan kicked to touch, won the lineout and Amanaki Mafi dived over for the try. They lead 25-11.

The United States scored one more try on a long pass by MacGinty directly out to fullback Chris Wyles, who was alone on the wing and went in for the score. MacGinty converted and the U.S. were within seven points, 25-18, just a converted try away from a tie. And if nothing else, coming within seven points in a loss would have given the U.S. one point in the standings, erasing the awful zero that is there now.

But at 77 minutes, the Eagles commit one more mistake, not letting the ball out in the loose, and Japan scored three more on the penalty kick, winning 28-18, leaving the U.S. with no wins in the tournament and no points in the standings.

Japan had good coverage on defense for most of the night, but two lapses allowed the U.S. to score out wide, once by Takudzwa Ngwenya and another by Chris Wyles.
Japan had good coverage on defense for most of the night, but two lapses allowed the U.S. to score out wide, once by Takudzwa Ngwenya and another by Chris Wyles.

Fulfilling promise of U.S. rugby could start today with win over Japan

Today would be a good day to start on fulfilling the promise of U.S. rugby.

With the last game the Eagles will play in the Rugby World Cup 2015 only a few hours away, it’s worth taking a further look at what the Eagles coaching staff has said about the future of the game in the United States.

Mike Tolkin
Mike Tolkin (USA Rugby photo)

After the 64-0 loss to South Africa on Wednesday, head coach Mike Tolkin said, “At this World Cup you don’t get any 80, 90, or 100-point scores. They (players) played against a full Springboks side. In four years’ time it will be really interesting to see what happens. It would have been interesting to see what a full (USA) side would have done against the Springboks.”

No one at the post-game media conference followed up on what Tolkin meant by a “full” side. The players he rested for today’s game against Japan? The players that Tolkin sees in the future?

And he does see better U.S. sides in the future, as does the rest of his coaching staff.

Before the game against the Springboks, Chris O’Brien was quoted on the Rugby World Cup media site saying the USA would become more powerful in future World Cups. The kicking and special teams coach said, “I think we’ve competed already at a higher level than we have at previous World Cups. The wins and losses don’t show it but we’ve become a better rugby nation, that’s shown through the first half against Scotland and Samoa.

Chris O'Brien (USA Rugby photo)
Chris O’Brien
(USA Rugby photo)

“Absolutely the game is growing. It’s the fastest growing sport in the country right now and you’re seeing that. When we travel we see kids playing. They start at five or six years old. You’ll see in the next two World Cups where that’s really going to show.”

O’Brien went on to talk about something that could provide a big boost to the game in America: Sevens in next summer’s Olympics. Assuming it gets prime time television coverage, it could spur more interest in the game, especially when the rest of America finds out their country has been the defending rugby Olympic champions for 90 years.

O’Brien led up to the sevens game in his answer to whether professional rugby will develop in the U.S.:

“I honestly can’t answer that. I’ve heard about it for the last 15, 20 years but it hasn’t happened; there’s always talk. In the States all of our big sports pay so much money. In one sense I can get an NFL player to come and play rugby, but it’s so hard to teach the sport and they want something. They’re used to being in a different environment so it’s pretty tough. That’s why it’s building the foundations from youth all the way up and getting these guys through.

“The dream of an American is to play in the NFL, the NBA, major league baseball. Now you also want to be an Olympian. You can teach someone sevens (rugby) quicker than 15s.”

Probably all this talk about how good it will be in future World Cups won’t satisfy those who have been hearing it for so long. And a reduction in runaway scores from 100 points down to 64 seems like being on a nearly never-ending diet before reaching the goal of a win or two.

But a win today in Gloucester would help make believable something Lou Stanfill, a Seattle Saracen player who has more than 50 caps for the U.S., said earlier this week:

“The direction things are going, future World Cups hold huge amounts of promise for us and America intends to fulfill that promise.”

Today would be a good time to start.

United States has one last chance to show improvement and win a game

The United State rugby team gets its last chance to win a game in the 2015 Rugby World Cup when they take on Japan at Kingsholm Stadium in Gloucester on Sunday.

For Japan, a win would make their third place finish in Pool B look a bit healthier, but even with a five-point bonus win they would fall a point short of taking the runner-up spot from Scotland.

It could have been much more meaningful if on Saturday Samoa had defeated Scotland. Then a win by Japan over the United States would have put Japan through to the quarter finals. Or, the U.S. Eagles could have played spoiler to Japan and helped the Scots through. But Samoa couldn’t quite get it done, losing 36-33.

In the quarter finals, Scotland will play Australia, the winner of Pool A after defeating Wales Saturday 15-9. South Africa gets Wales in the quarter finals.

New Zealand and Argentina advance from Pool C, but won’t know their quarter final opponents until after the Franc-Ireland game on Sunday.

A win by the Eagles on Sunday would do a lot to restore some belief in the outlook by U.S. Coach Mike Tolkin that things are headed in the right direction for U.S. rugby. After the 64-0 drubbing by South Africa, fans could rightfully be skeptical of Tolkin’s optimism.

As he says in the video above, the U.S. did pretty well in the first half (as they did against Samoa and Scotland), holding a full Springbok team to 14 points from two tries that came only after they had to “work their way down the field.” Then, as he says, South Africa got going in the second half, scoring 50 points.

Tolkin sees the problem correctly — many young players in the lineup with little experience at the international or World Cup level. He saw good performance by individuals but not as a team.

For the game on Sunday, Tolkin is starting 13 players who were not in the South Africa starting 15. Only Samu Manoa at No. 8 and Zack Test, a winger, remain from the game played on Wednesday.

Tolkin said he was also frustrated with the four-day turnaround between the two matches and said he “was not alone in that.”

“I’m sure the Rugby World Cup will look at that.”

As for U.S. rugby, he says things will get better.

“Four years down the road, it will be interesting to see what happens in the game,” Tolkin said in calling for international rugby to continue investing in “tier two” nations.

As he said after the Scotland game, the U.S. side would improve with more professional experience.

“Half my guys will have to go to work on Monday,” Tolkin said, and that will not mean going back to play on professional teams in top tier nations. It will mean resuming jobs as plumbers, fitness trainers, etc.

But Tolkin says he thinks that is about to change and predicted professional rugby union competition in the Untied States “soon.”

I like the idea, but I remain skeptical.

Bryan Habana delivers a pass in the game against the United States. He scored three tries in the game to tie Jonah Lomu's record of most tries scored in the World Cup (15).
Bryan Habana delivers a pass in the game against the United States. He scored three tries in the game to tie Jonah Lomu’s record of most tries scored in the World Cup (15).