Bucking Trends, USA Women in Sydney 7s
Bucking Trends, USA Women in Sydney 7s
The Eagle women are back in the semifinals after two intense and nailbiting clashes ith Great Britain.
Team GB had achieved their best finish in the World Series season last time out, taking 5th, but it had been a weird, up-and-down performance. Great Britain was much more consistent this time around and against the USA were tenacious on defense and opportunistic.
The Eagles dominated possession in the final pool game but a turnover turned it all around to gift GB a try and a 5-0 lead. The USA got the ball back and once again kept possession for a long period before finally freeing up Sam Sullivan, who broke around and through to score under the posts. Kayla Canett's conversion made it 7-5.
But despite playing almost all the rugby, the USA could not get through. They were a little slow in freeing up the ball to pass, and perhaps too willing to set a ruck rather than do a quick pickup and keep the attack going.
Some brilliance from Jasmine Joyce put GB ahead once again 10-7. The USA knocked on the door throughout the final final four minutes or so, and finally, with time up, Ilona Maher crashed through several defenders to score the game-winner (12-10), screaming to the sky in celebration.
That win put the USA at 2-1 in Pool Play, as was Team GB and also Fiji. They all ventured on to the quarterfinals. There the Eagles once again faced off with Great Britain, and the story was much the same—the USA played all the rugby, and GB looked for scraps and mistakes.
The Eagles remained patient, worked the ball side-to-side, and finally Naya Tapper made a move and burst down the sideline to score in the corner. That try was set up by a wild, sidestepping run from Cheta Emba, and the 5-0 lead held up until partway into the second half. That was when Canett and Kirshe put in a series of big plays—Kirshe's run set up the attack, Canett was involved several times, and then the Penn State grad picked up at the ruck and went weak, where she nicely fended off one tackler before offloading to Kirshe to finish it off.
That made it 10-0. Great Britain did score as Joyce stepped around Lauren Doyle to go in at the corner, but the Americans ran out the clock smartly to make the semis.
The quarterfinal match saw a slightly different lineup for the USA, with Sam Sullivan on the bench and many more minutes for Spiff Sedrick, who, like Sullivan, is hugely active on defense. Joanna Fa'avesi also got the start in this game.
Now into the semis where they face a France team that won an epic battle with Australia, the USA is in strong position once more.
However, there are concerns. Key among them is finishing. Possession is one thing; making it pay off is another. Despite being 3-1 so far in Sydney, the Eagles have scored exactly two tries in every game. That's generally not enough—a good rule of thumb is "thrice is nice." Three tries and you win, two tries and you're unlikely to. In Hamilton last week, teams that scored one try were 1-12; two tries 3-8-2; three tries 5-2. Four try-teams went 24-0.
In Cape Town it was the same story: four tries 19-1; three tries 10-1-2; two tries 3-14; one try 0-11.
So the fact that the USA has won 75% of their games in Sydney scoring only two tries exceeded the probability by 140%. Against the top teams they have to finish better.
And yet ... the Eagles can bypass Australia for 2nd in the World Series with a win in one of their next two games (although two wins would mean Gold and that's preferable). With the four semifinals being New Zealand (1st in the standings), USA (3rd), Ireland (4th), and France (5th), the Americans will be at least third when the tournament is done.