The USA is bringing a young and experienced mix of players to the American Pacific Challenge in Uruguay. There are 27 players who will make the trak to South America. There will be 12 players already capped from the full national team, 10 have experience from the successful 2017 Pacific Americas challenge, and 3 your stars trying to crack the starting 15 that are 1st team All American.
The USA players play on many different teams and Major League Rugby will be well represented. Finally USA has a league to lean of to derive their players from.
This blog is for the USA Rugby their junior teams and Major League Rugby. It will also cover the Selects, B teams and the tournaments they play in.
Saturday, September 29, 2018
Sunday, September 16, 2018
Americas Pacific Challenge _Uruguay
American Pacific Challenge
Oct 6th -14th
The Americas Pacific Challenge is a great tournament to play potential prospect for their national teams. The USA's potential national team players are called the USA Selects. This year's tournament sees reigning champions Argentina XV compete alongside Canada A, Samoa A, Tonga A, Uruguay A and USA Selects. The is the 3rd tournament of these nations. I always want to know how the USA "stacks" up against other nations. The first year the USA placed 5th, last year they placed 2nd. This seems like great improvement but beware of this record....
This brief 3 game competition it is who you play as opposed to your record. Last year the USA Selects didn't have to play the powerful Argentina Side. They beat Canada and Uruguay. They came away with a 2-1 record however Samoa placed 4th and was clearly the better team. You see Samoa pounded the USA 48-26 last year.
This year USA Selects will play all the teams in Group A. Argentina XV just missed beating the full USA national team this year in the Americas Championship and the game was home for the USA team. Now your B team has to travel to South America and play this same team looking for payback. I am hoping the USA Selects can close the talent difference with Argentina.
If the USA Select can finally start beating the Pacific nations then the gap will be closing. This year the USA Selects get a crack at Tonga A them on Oct 6th. This game is where we see if the talent and technical gap has been closed. The next game is against Uruguay XV Oct 10. Uruguay are trying to close the gap on USA and this is the game for them to show improvement in front of their home fans. This has been the easiest game for the USA. The last game is Oct 14th against the top team in the tournament Argentina XV.
Group A
Argentina XV
Tonga A
Uruguay A
Group B
Somoa A
USA Selects
Canada A
I am looking forward to this tournament because the USA is on a huge upward movement in Rugby. Their USA U-20 team lost in the qualifiers to Canada and missed out on the World Rugby U-20 Trophy in Romania this year. This was hugely unfortunate for the development of USA Rugby. I love tournaments especially one where i can track my national team. The USA "potential" stars were not able to play or develop their young stars in the U-20 Trophy this year.
There are only 3 yearly tournaments to see the USA develop their nation Rugby team. The Americas Championship which the beginning of each year and runs 6 weeks, The U-20 Trophy and this The Americas Pacific Challenge.
2018 World Rugby Under 20 Trophy- Romanis
This years tournament was played in Romania. There are only 8 nations that participate. I wish Rugby would expand this tournament to 16 teams. Why...well The USA didnt qualify. They missed for 2 years running. The have to qualify against Canada every year. THE USA u-20 failed to qualify for the 2017 and 2018 tournament 2 years running.
Here I am thinking if the USA qualified they could have a change to win and get promoted. Well, if Canada, the team that beat the USA didnt win a game at all. would the USA.
That right, Canada lost every group game. They would up playing the host Romania for final seeding. They did beat Romania but remember Romania didnt have to qualify. This tournament was a gift to Romania.
Well, Even after the USA U-20 failed to qualify for the last 2 tournaments i have faith in USA Rugby. I think USA Rugby is getting more organized each year. This years all American team beat a professional MLR team Glendale Raptors. That right, this young team beat a pro team. Just so you know, the Raptors use this game as an exhibition and didnt use all of their top players. The good news is, once the All American were in camp and started to understnad each other their game started to florish. I wish the camp as befor the qualification with Canana.
Oh will. The next big game will be next June 2019 against our Arch Rival in Rugby (Canada). I do not understand how the USA lost so badly the first game 60-22 on home soil to Canada. I just have to believe the USA was just now ready to match Canada intensity and not prepared.
2018 World Rugby Under 20 World Championship
2018 World Rugby U-20 Championship:
This is the top tournament for the U-20 Nations. The top 12 nations participate. The USA has only participated in 1 Top U-20 World Championship. This years tournament was held in France and the home side took advantage of home soil and beat rivals England in the Final. There have been 11 finals and New Zealand has won 6 of them. England had been to the Final 9 times winning 3 of them. So it was good to see another nation France win their first Championship.
Japan was bounced from the top tournament ad will participate in the Trophy Tournamnet next year.
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