During one of their training sessions leading up to Saturday’s meeting with Canada, the USA U20 coaches proposed a little wager …

Late in the afternoon the coaches suggested Ben Cima line up a 50-meter penalty goal. If he missed it, the players would have to do an extra circuit of fitness work. If he made it, the coaches would have to do it.

The players accepted, and wouldn’t you know it, Cima missed the kick. But then the coaches proposed double or nothing, and, according to Head Coach JD Stephenson, there was no hesitation. They players took the bet, Cima hit the kick, and off the coaches went running.

When it’s all on the line, Cima know he could do it, and, it seems, did the players.

When Cima slid forward at the end of Saturday’s game with the score 18-16 in Canada’s favor, and the Canadian tackler didn’t release in the tackle, there was no hesitation. Even though the point of the penalty was about 54 meters from the posts, the instant the penalty was called, someone said “points.”

“That was probably Hanco,” Cima said, referring to USA U20 captain Hanco Germishuys. “The guys have full confidence in me, and that really helps. Hanco and I have played together for a long time. There’s a lot of mutual trust. I missed a kick earlier, but the team backed me.”

Cima said having a short memory is important for any rugby player, but perhaps doubly so for a goalkicker. Cima had missed a makable game-winner a few minutes before, and had to forget it.

“You have to put things out of your mind,” Cima told Goff Rugby Report. “Good things or bad, you have to forget about it because there’s something else to do. But the team backing me after a miss, and having confidence in me, meant a lot.”

So Cima teed up the ball, hesitated, teed it up again, backed up, re-aligned the ball once more, backed up, and the took only a second or two to compose himself before sending the ball sailing over the bar.

It was a brilliant kick, an end to a brilliant game, but just part of a whole team effort.

“We played a lot of defense, and you never really want to be playing defense all the time - you think you’re going to do everything well and put points on the board, but we played really good defense as a team, we brought our shoulders in, and that was big,” explained Cima. “We were outsized but we won the physicality battle, and the kicking is a tribute to the defense - it’s a testament to the work the guys did.”

By halftime, the USA players were frustrated. They had given up a try - some would call it a soft try - right before halftime, to put Canada up 15-9.

“We were frustrated,” said Cima. “We knew that we had to make an impact and that the players coming off the bench had to make a statement. I wouldn’t say it was a soft try, just the were capitalizing off our mistakes.”

But right after halftime, the USA produced a try of their own, and Cima was in the middle of it. The forwards worked it down close to the line - everyone getting involved - and the it went out to Cima.

“We were looking at getting it out wide,” said CIma. “But when I called for the ball they started drifting hard wide. So I made one step, knowing LT would be there.”

Two tacklers converged on Cima, one other defender knocked decoy runner Brian Hannon back, and LT, Lorenzo Thomas, was indeed there to get the offload.

And defensively the young Eagles held, allowing just one successful penalty kick.

“Brian and Lorezno were just tackling, and our forwards manned up,” said Cima. “They didn’t have any line breaks against us, and when we hit them we drove them back.”

That set up the dramatic finale and Cima’s game-winner.

“This is pretty huge for us and for age-grade rugby in the US,” said Cima. “It’s good for everyone. Personally, for me and the second- and third-year players who didn’t get the result we wanted last year, this was a bit of redemption. But it couldn’t have happened without a complete team effort.”