The United States celebrates its 248th anniversary this week, and the men’s national rugby team will give the country a Christmas present with a strong performance on Friday night in Chicago.
A revitalised Eagles, who capped off the 2023 season with a trophy win in Spain, will begin their quest for qualification for the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia after two mid-season tests this month, with the first match being against 2023 Rugby World Cup contenders Romania on US soil.
With a new coach and a new schedule of events, the U.S. has the tools to return to being one of the top national teams in the Americas. The journey back to that point begins now.
Here’s a look at Friday’s match between the USA and Romania. The match will kick off at 7pm CST and will be streamed live on FloRugby.
We met again
Eagles coach Scott Lawrence, who officially became the men’s national team head coach and general manager in January after serving as interim coach until 2023, will face the team he beat for the first time as U.S. national team coach on Friday night.
Lawrence is the former head coach of Major League Rugby’s Rugby ATL (now Rugby FC Los Angeles) and led the team to a 31-17 victory over Romania in Bucharest last August. Stejary The match was a warm-up for the Rugby World Cup later this year, and the USA held Romania scoreless until the final 20 minutes, with four players scoring tries.
Eleven months later, Romania will face the Eagles in suburban Chicago over the holiday weekend, but Lawrence’s hopes for his first game as manager remain the same: to get the job done against Romania and build a strong system for the end-of-year test matches.
Although there is no Rugby World Cup to prepare for or compete in in 2023, having failed to qualify for the first time since 1995, the win over Romania provided the impetus for a strong finish to the calendar year. Last November, the Eagles toured Spain and won the La Vila International Rugby Cup, a tournament featuring four teams that did not qualify for the Rugby World Cup, with big wins over Brazil and the hosts.
The match against Romania will be an appetizer for the Eagles as they prepare for some exciting matches later in the year in 2024. Scotland visits Audi Field in Washington, D.C. next weekend before the U.S. prepares for the Pacific Nations Cup in Pool B, with a home match against Canada and an away match against Japan.
Homegrown talent
Unsurprisingly, taking on Romania will be an MLR-heavy squad that will include a number of familiar faces to Eagles fans.
Of the 23 players who will suit up for the U.S. in Chicago this weekend, 20 have played in the MLR, including South African-born scrum-half JP Smith, who has been with the Seattle Seawolves this season and will be one of two Eagles players set to make their debut against Romania.
Brive (France) lock Lengel van Eerten was born in the Netherlands but qualified for the U.S. Eagles thanks to his American mother. He too is in line to earn his first senior cap for the U.S. The 6-foot-8, 24-year-old lock currently plays in the second division of Rugby Pro D2 and was a frequent player for Brive, a team that made the promotion playoffs last season.
The expected debut for those two comes in part due to the fact that lock Cam Dolan and scrum-half Ruben de Haas, who have been mainstays for the Eagles over the past few years with a combined total of nearly 100 caps, have been called up to Lawrence University’s 30-man camp ahead of the Eagles’ mid-term tests but will not play against Romania due to injury.
But even with a young starting 15, veterans such as van Ielten’s lock partner Greg Peterson (42 caps), flyhalf and Bristol Bears star AJ McGinty (35) and former MLR best back Nate Augspurger (41) will be supportive and help the Eagles beat their first opponent in 2024.
Additionally, Anthem Rugby Carolinas prop Jake Turnbull is part of the development-focused MLR team, sponsored by World Rugby and USA Rugby, which focuses on player development for the U.S. national team, and is likely to become the first Anthem player to join the Eagles. The five-cap player will be part of a front three that also includes Chicago Hounds forward Dylan Forsitt and Utah Warriors forward Paul Mullen.
Summer Stretching
After a year recovering from the shock and disappointment of missing out on only the second time in Rugby World Cup history, 2024 will be the first step towards the Eagles getting back on solid footing and preparing for the next Rugby World Cup qualification cycle, especially with Lawrence stepping down as caretaker manager.
The next fortnight, particularly against Scotland, who the USA beat in 2018 to record their first tier-1 victory in the modern era, could say a lot about the direction Lawrence is heading and what will emerge on the pitch under his management. While the outcome of the test match between Romania and Scotland will not be significant in terms of immediately competing for a trophy or qualifying for a tournament, it will be a crucial match for Lawrence to reassess his approach and discard strategies and style ahead of the Pacific Nations Cup later this year.
The U.S. has never won the Pacific Nations Cup, having participated in it for the past four years and finishing second in 2014. The team will return to the PNC in 2024 with a new format (two pools of six teams each, with the top two from each pool advancing to a two-week final to decide the winner). A strong showing against powerhouses like Japan, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Canada in August and September could be a sign of quick progress for the Eagles under Lawrence.
It’s a big summer for the American Eagles and the point to prove begins this weekend in Chicago.
